Counting down to '24'; It's been trumped by reality, but the counterterrorism thriller may be the TV hit of the season

WOODLAND HILLS, Calif. - On Tuesday night the Fox network will briefly call a halt to its relentless promotion of the premiere episode of "24" to bring us the premiere episode of "24." And then we will know for sure if America is ready to watch Kiefer Sutherland try to locate a shadowy terrorist cabal before they commit the unthinkable. As Fox's promos remind us seemingly every 15 minutes, TV Guide called "24" the "best new show of the season." So did nearly every TV critic in America, because "24" has all the things critics love: brilliant concept, dazzling visuals, star power and taut, suspenseful writing. This summer it was all anyone in the industry could talk about. But that was before Sept. 11. Before the unthinkable became thinkable. Before planes blowing up in the sky became the world's most shocking video. Before the unimaginable broke loose from imagination's grip and took over CNN. After Sept. 11, Fox publicity hastily pulled the promos for "24" off the air. It took out the scene with the exploding airplane. Then the promos resumed nonstop. On the set of "24," people were taking the news hard. Sutherland, the star of the show, was immobilized by depression. The two veteran producers who created "24" said they were in shock. For two or three weeks not much happened. A year ago in a different world, Joel Surnow called up an old writing partner, Robert Cochran, to say he had an idea for a TV show. A thriller in which events occurred in real time. The first episode would take place between midnight and 1 a.m., the second episode from 1 to 2 a.m. and so on until the bad guy was caught, 24 hours later. "I told him, 'That's really clever and ingenious and brilliant, but I don't see how you can do it,' " Cochran recalled. "Then he called me the next day and said, 'We can make this work.' " They made it work. The show begins at midnight on the day of the California presidential primary. A black senator named Palmer is expected to win, but a government spy agency ("We never use the letters C-I-A," said Cochran) discovers there might be a plot to kill Palmer that day. Enter Jack Bauer - Sutherland's character - a soft-spoken, no-nonsense counterterrorist, an unambiguous hero. He is assigned to figure out who is trying to knock off Palmer (Dennis Haysbert), then stop them. Jack's superior tells him to trust no one, and indeed, no one in the first episode seems entirely deserving of his trust, not even his wife or teen-age daughter. The network's high-octane promos make "24" seem like an action film. In fact, it's more like a fast-moving documentary. It's as talky a show as any on television, including "The West Wing," the industry leader in words per minute. What makes "24" so nail-biting good is its use of layered storytelling, plot twists and visual trickery to create the illusion of action. The premiere starts slowly, then picks up steam as it darts deftly in and out of six different stories. Throughout, there are reminders on screen that time is ticking away. The genius of "24" is that it makes each minute feel more precious than the last. For Sutherland, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to take on his first regular TV role. The set of "24" is situated on a quiet studio lot on the edge of the San Fernando Valley. It's big and expensive-looking, with high-tech toys and special effects that any filmmaker would envy. That appealed to Sutherland; that and the pedigree of Stephen Hopkins, a film director ("Blown Away"), who was enticed to television to create "24's" active look. "Doing this requires a leap of faith," Sutherland said in an interview on the lot. "Basically you're committing to seven years of work based on one hour." That's assuming the show lasts even one season. Fox is airing "24" at 8 p.m. Tuesdays, opposite "Frasier," "NYPD Blue" and the new CBS hit "The Guardian." Anyone would be nervous scheduling a program against that competition. But "24" also is burdened with high expectations. The network expects it to be a big hit, and the two men who created "24" modestly hope that it becomes the first No. 1 show in Fox's 15-year history. And now, like no other show on television, it is burdened by the events of Sept. 11. When it was decided to blow up a plane in the premiere of "24," no one imagined it would fail to qualify even among the top three acts of domestic terrorism. Surnow and Cochran had collaborated for five seasons of the cable show "La Femme Nikita," so making acts of evil into entertainment was old hat to them. Now they had a dilemma. After Sept. 11, CBS pulled episodes of its new spy show, "The Agency," that dealt with Osama bin Laden and anthrax. Tidying up "24" would not be so easy. Like every other scene in the premiere, the ones on the airplane were woven so tightly into the fabric of the episode that taking them out might have caused the whole show to unravel. In the end Surnow and Cochran decided to make only one change: Instead of a full frontal shot of the exploding plane, viewers would see a cutaway of the terrorist skydiving away from the explosion, with hot cinders of airplane parts flying past. There also has been a perceptible shift since Sept. 11 in how "24" is promoted in the press. The cast and creators no longer refer to their show as an "action thriller," words that appeared in nearly every story written about the show over the summer. Now they talk of the "working families" on "24," the Bauers and the Palmers, and of the two male leads who must continually weigh the demands of their careers against the needs of their loved ones. These are clearly themes meant to resonate with stressed-out viewers cocooning at home. Anything that might conjure up exploding planes is avoided. "It has the pace of an action show even though it's not an action show," Cochran said, adding for good measure, "By the way, the villains were never going to be from the Middle East." Acknowledging the power of Fox's promos, Surnow added, "What you're buying when you come into our show is big stunts, big action. For the most part, though, what you see is two people in rooms talking." Ironically, those promos may have indirectly helped Sutherland deal with his own post-Sept. 11 crisis. For three weeks after the attacks, he was in what he called "this real fog, I'd say depression." He found it "real hard to concentrate on anything. I kept seeing the faces of people, desperate, looking for their husband or wife. Outside of that, what could possibly be important?" One night Sutherland was approached on the street by an anonymous fan. "He said, 'Oh man, I can't wait to see your show,' and I was taken aback," Sutherland says. "I almost went, 'How can you talk about that at a time like this?' "But I thought about it - about why entertainment has always been so successful, in World War II or the Great Depression or other tragic times. We need to step out of reality. Because reality can be really, really tough." But "World War II" is an abstraction. Exploding planes are horribly real, even if the camera is turned away from the carnage. Nobody knows if Americans are ready to watch that, no matter how stylish the presentation. That's the reality, and come Wednesday morning, when "24" gets its first Nielsen ratings, Fox and everyone else will know just how tough that reality is. You can reach Aaron Barnhart through the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com. @ART CAPTION:Kiefer Sutherland plays agent Jack Bauer Dennis Haysbert is U.S. Sen David Palmer Elisha Cuthbert plays Kimberly Bauer @ART:Photos (3, color) @ART CREDIT:Fox