Blogs.4Bauer

Note the narrator has changed from the teaser leaked on the Internet a while back, definitely for the better.

What do you think? Crapapalooza II or could be good? No matter what, you have to admit it’ll be cool to see Jack, tied up to a bamboo cage and being burned on the face with a hot machete, killing the bad guy with his legs. That’ll learn tribal rebels not to tie Jack’s legs up, too.

Scotsman Robert Carlyle has been tapped to co-star in the two-hour 24 film set to air in November, so sez British paper, The Sunday Mail.

Carlyle will play Benton, Jack Bauer’s friend and mentor (a better one than Robocop, it would appear) and a former agent who “quit and became a charity worker in Africa,” a story in The Mail said:

An insider said: “Benton is not expected to appear in the seventh season but nothing is set in stone.”
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A friend of Carlyle said: “Robert has done this kind of role before, so he will be fantastic as Benton. American audiences love Robert’s gritty approach to that sort of character, as do producers.

“It would be great if 24 could find a continuing place for Benton in the seventh series.”

You might know Carlyle from his roles in Trainspotting, The Full Monty or 28 Weeks Later.

P.S.: In Digital Spy, Kiefer promises the best season yet of 24.

After so many postponements, I can assure you that none of us at 24 took for granted the significance of this upcoming season. But the time allowed us to do something that has never been done before – create a map of the entire season before we started shooting. So I can tell you without hesitation, I know for a fact, that Season 7 is going to be the best season yet.

Thank god. I mean, the Season 6 crapapalooza seemed as if no one ever knew what the plot was supposed to be and just kept tossing crap in there.

I mean, who, really, was Josh’s father? What did happen in Denver? (Not that The Jack Sack was any more helpful in answering that, ahem.) The entire season felt as if the writers weren’t sure where to go next and at the last second said, “Whoa! It’d be cool if Morris could get some booze at a liquor store just a few miles from the nuclear blast zone so he could have conflict with Chloe, no?”

If they have a chance to map the whole thing and and bring us a season with continuity and believable situations (relatively speaking, that is) hoo-frakkin’-ray.

Seems like the idea of sending Jack to Africa ain’t totally dead yet.

Michael Ausiello over at TVGuide.com today reported that “producers are currently scouting locations in Africa to film scenes for this fall’s two-hour prequel movie.”

The earlier rumors were that Jack would be working on some sort of Habitat for Humanity-type project in Africa as a sort of way for him to forgive himself for all he’d done in his country’s service. Fox had ruled the storyline too expensive, and it might have also forced the show to break its trademark “real-time” format. I mean, as Jack was coming back to the U.S., how many times could you pan to him yelling “Dammit!” on an airplane?

Then the writer’s strike shut down production after eight episodes of the new and improved Season 7, the premiere got pushed back a year, blah, blah, blah. You know all that.

Then we got word of a two-hour movie for the fall that would bridge the two seasons and give fans a dose of Jack Bauer to tide them over.

And now, it appears, 24 will go to Africa after all.

Good? Bad? Somewhere in between? Just happy we’re getting two more hours of 24?

A two-hour “prequel” telemovie for 24 has been set for fall, The Hollywood Reporter has reported.

Woo-hoo! We don’t have to wait ’til fall.

It’s supposed to “bridge the gap” between the Season 6 crapapalooza and the potentially awesome Season 7 with Tony Almeida’s triumphant return (OK, maybe not so triumphant, given that he’s a bad, bad man, it seems).

The Reporter said that yesterday, the show’s producers “began securing the show’s core cast members for the film.”

More to ponder later. Have ideas for the movie? Leave ‘em in the comments.