New "24" DVD Seeks Redemption For Series

"24 : Redemption"

20th Century Fox

No. of Disks : 2

There's some irony in the name of this latest chapter in the life of Agent Jack Bauer. The last season of the TV series was torture not only for its main character, but for its audience. After all, how much pain, mutilation and just plain torture can a viewer take?

A more cynical person might think 24's producers were looking for a little "redemption" themselves... especially after a two-year hiatus due to the writer's strike. The good news is Bauer is back. For those who couldn't gut their way through 24's last season, it ended with the no-nonsense, super-patriotic, counter-terrorist going ex-pat. If he returns to the U.S. he faces many dangerous folk out to bury him, literally and figuratively.

Bauer (Keifer Sutherland) is now in a fictional African nation named "Sanagala." He's seeing one of his few friends left, Carl Benton (Robert Carlyle), who runs a school for orphaned boys. What neither Bauer nor Benton know is a rebel group, led General Benjamin Juma (Tony Todd), is about to invade. Their plans include a coup d'estat of Sangala. They also have eyes on the school for raw recruits.

Bauer and Benton spend the rest of this special getting the children to safety in spite of land mines, vicious mercenaries and, most dangerous of all, American politics. Of course, it wouldn't be 24 if there isn't a serious body count. It also wouldn't be 24 if there isn't a high level political manipulation behind the scene, particularly as all this occurs the two hours before a Presidential inauguration. It also wouldn't be 24 if it didn't take place in "real time;" i.e. two hours of the characters' lives equals two hours of the show.

This works to Redemption's benefit. Unlike the full seasons, the overall plot is fairly straightforward, with quickly and clearly defined characters. The extreme violence of past seasons is also tightly restrained.

Are there plot holes and a few unanswered questions? You bet. At the same time,one gets the impression a lot of those points will be covered over the show's next season. A 15-minute preview of the upcoming season on this disk implies they should be.

In all, fans of 24 should feel relieved. If this disk is any indication, the two-year hiatus gave Jack Bauer, and the people who created him, time to recover. This Redemption is truly earned.

SPECIAL FEATURES: Features: - Exclusive First Look at 24 Season 7 - First 17 minutes of the premiere episode - Broadcast Version and Extended Version featuring over ten minutes of never-before-seen footage (not shown in the television broadcast version) - The Making of 24: Redemption Featurette - "Blood Never Dry": Child Soldiers in Africa Featurette - Commentary by Executive Producer/Director Jon Cassar and Executive Producers Howard Gordon and Kiefer Sutherland - 24 Season 6 in Four Minutes Featurette Video: Widescreen 1.78:1 Color Audio: ENGLISH: Dolby Digital 5.1 [CC] Subtitles: English, Spanish, French