This is NOT going to replace the Jack Bauer Kill Counter like the kill counter 1.0 we had in season 5 which tracked all deaths on 24 or the ridiculously complicated and hard to keep track of mess we had last season.   We’ll have another kill counting exercise like the one we did for Redemption, the details of the Jack Bauer Kill Counter 3.0 will be posted tomorrow.

Now, not everyone was thrilled with Season 6. (Does the word Crapapalooza mean anything to you?) We filled the time with the Blogs.4Bauer Writers Strike Substitute episodes. We wrote about thrilling cast additions like Janeane Garofalo and Cherry Jones.

Still, Jack’s fans are a surprisingly optimistic bunch. To various degrees we are looking forward to the new season, and to Sunday night’s airing of Redemption. Or some are. What are your thoughts? Discuss it in the comments, vote in the poll.

While it is good news for those 24 fans who also are fans of Michelle, it is bad news for 24 fans who had hoped that maybe, just maybe, Michelle hadn’t been blown up after all and might show up at Tony’s side this season.

Here’s the description of her character:

Rumor has it that she’ll play an outdoorsy, professional thirtysomething—who’s a possible love interest for one of our main castaways.

Sorry, boys, but at least you’ll be able to see her on the small screen, still.

Anyhow, as I reported earlier on Remote Access, EW.com has reported that once Episode 18 finishes filming Sept. 15, production will shut down until Oct. 9 “while the writers reshape the upcoming season’s creative direction—specifically the transition leading to the end game.”

Now, that’s not necessarily all bad.

Perhaps Season 6 was a crap-fest because they didn’t take a break for a while and try to figure out exactly where things were going. Season 6 lurched from mini-plot to mini-plot with little thought to the overarching thread that generally ties the season together.

Plus, we had all the truly stupid stuff that, unlike the Kim Bauer storyline in Season 2, threatened to erase from our collective consciousness anything halfway decent that happened ( whole red herring of Josh Bauer and who was his father (Jack? Phillip? The mailman?), whatever happened in Denver between the Rickster and Milo, the fact that all of the Los Angeles basin more or less ignored the fact that a nuke had just gone off.

There were some absolutely stellar moments (a nuke going off in hour FOUR?), killing Curtis and Chloe dropping a d-bomb. Plus Milo getting killed off and Kim becoming a babbling idiot for real, not just in some people’s opinions.

But pretty much most fans agree that the end left us sitting there and pretty much saying, “WTF? NO, SERIOUSLY, WTF????”

Howard Gordon told this to EW.com:

We had a couple of scripts that we weren’t happy with. We just couldn’t get this direction to work, and we found another one that we liked better, so we wound up retooling it.

Fortunately, Gordon said production was ahead of schedule so far, so this won’t affect the January 2009 start date.

Just when you think 24 could not possible sink further into the depths of redunkulousness, Entertainment Weekly is reporting that Kim Bauer will return, joining Zombie Tony and Jack “Into Africa” Bauer.

“Sources confirm to me exclusively that Cuthbert has inked a deal to reprise her role as Jack’s lightning rod of an offspring for a season-ending arc that will no doubt trigger a new round of wholly outdated and painfully unfunny cougar jokes,” said EW’s Michael Ausiello in his Ask Auseillo column.

It also goes on to say that she will be appearing without her old boyfriend, originally played by C. Thomas Howell, but with a child of her own.

Do the writer’s of 24 really think that Jack would let Kim Bauer have children?  Does he not put up with enough crap in his day job?

Kim Bauer’s Kid Jokes

How do you get Kim Bauer’s kid out of a tree?
-Wave at him/her

Jack Bauer went over to visit his grandchild and saw it staring at the carton of orange juice. So he asks why they are staring at the carton of OJ. “Because it says ‘concentrate’ on it” says Little Bauer.

How do you know Kim’s child is related to Jack Bauer?
-It burned down the school to get out of 3rd grade.

How did Jack Bauer know that Kim’s kid was at his desk?
-There was whiteout on the computer screen.

Kim Bauer and her child were in Orlando and saw a sign that said “Disney Left”.  So they went home.

When Kim’s baby was born, she looked down at the umbilical cord and said, “Wow, it comes with cable too!”

Did you hear about the time that Kim bought little Bauer a package of M&M’s?
-She returned them because they were all W’s

Why don’t Kim and her child don’t watch 60 Minutes?
-Because they don’t have 2 hours to spare.

The trailer doesn’t have the cool 24 voice over, however it does have a female president being sworn in (sorry Hillary).  It does have Caged Weasel and VP Jim Jones.  It does have Jack Bauer aiming a gun at a little African boy.  What the hell?

It is hard to describe how stupid this “trailer” really is. If this thing is legit, it makes me wonder why to continue watching this garbage come January.  I thought the whole “Jack in Africa” thing was really a joke.

Do they even have full-time writers anymore and are they basing most of this season on a series of dares?

Sit back and enjoy watching the car wreck.  Let me know in the comments what you think.  Maybe I’m just drunk or clinging on to hopes Jack Bauer will return to his old self.  You know…slamming beers, farting lighting and torturing anyone who has a funny last name.