NEW Season 6-premiere (DVD)

For a suspense-driven TV show that attracts fans as polarizing as Dick Cheney and Barbra Streisand, "24" has sustained an impressive amount of momentum for the past five seasons based on its timely, post-9/11 premise of covering 24 hours in the derring-do life of federal agent Jack Bauer in his constant attempt to avert terrorist attacks in Los Angeles. The just-aired sixth-season premiere carries the same propulsive creative energy forward, and 20th Century Fox smartly seized a marketing opportunity to release the first four hours on DVD this week.

The action picks up twenty months after the end of season five when Jack was kidnapped and tortured by the Chinese for his role in killing the consulate dramatized in the prior season. A bedraggled Jack, looking like a palsied, late-period Howard Hughes, emerges from a plane looking and acting most fragile. An interesting plot development that has been dismissed for now, this vulnerability lasts roughly ten minutes as the old Jack comes back to form when it becomes clear that the country is being bombarded by small-scale terrorist attacks. As the key negotiating pawn, Jack has been freed to be the sacrificial lamb to terrorist Abu Fayed in return for mastermind al-Assad. After the departure of dastardly Charles Logan last season, the new U.S. President is David Palmer's callow young brother Wayne, who has haltingly brokered the deal. Meanwhile, complications occur when Jack finds out that al-Assad has decided to forsake terrorism for a pivotal role in his country's new government.

The first two hours are better than the next two, primarily because the set-up is so intriguingly far-fetched that the execution can't help but get somewhat perfunctory. The most egregious storyline involves a suburban family who get caught up in the day's activity through their connection with their seemingly innocent Islamic-American neighbor. Part of the problem is casting actor Kal Penn, star of "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle", as the poker-faced neighbor. The White House meetings also have a bit of a by-the-numbers feel to them, though a new character, White House Chief-of-Staff Thomas Lennox, livens the proceedings with his aggressive moves toward racial profiling, a most timely and controversial topic for the show to cover.

Familiar characters return - Bill Buchanan now officially heads up the CTU and is married to National Security Adviser Karen Hayes; and CTU analyst Chloe O'Brian, glammed up a bit more, is surrounded by a new supervisor and a co-worker who happens to be his ex-husband. New characters look promising, such as Lennox (an ideal part for Peter MacNichol's weasel-like persona) and Palmer's self-righteous sister Sandra, a civil rights attorney partnered with the head of the legal counselor for the Islamic-American Alliance. There is also a new CTU second-in-command, Nadia Yassir, who is helpfully fluent in Arabic. None of the actors particularly stand out, but Kiefer Sutherland's otherwise stoic turn is leavened by peeks into a more complex ambiguity this season. The rest of season looks promising especially with the sudden detonation at the climax. The DVD's sole extra is an extended preview of the fifth episode.

Well, you get the first four episodes of 24 Season 6, and the first 12 minutes of the 5th episode. You also get a coupon for $10 off any of the 24 DVD sets including season 6 when it becomes available. The coupon does not expire until Feb. of 2008. So if you do not already own all of the DVD sets you can score yourself $10 off any of them. Great deal.

I love 24, and have the box sets to Seasons 1-5. Obviously I'm going to get Season 6 when it comes out, but now Fox has thrown this 'Premiere Set' of the first 4 Episodes of Season 6 into the mix. Now, I would normally blow this off and wait for the complete box set, but at a local retailer I saw that if you bought this 'Premiere Set' for $9.99, you get a $10.00 coupon off any season of 24, including the Season 6 box set when it comes out (the coupon doesn't expire until the end of February, 2008). Well, seeing how I am gonna buy the Season 6 box set anyways, and between the 'Premiere Set' and the coupon you break even, it's a pretty sweet deal! If you're a die hard J.B. fan like my wife and I, I say go for it......

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 41 reviews  4.4 out of 5 stars