"24" still winging it

PASADENA, Calif. - You would think, after four seasons, that the producers of "24" would learn to plan ahead. (Says the TV critic who files 15 minutes after deadline, on a good day.)

But no. We're already four hours deep into Jack Bauer's latest rise-from-the-dead-and-save-the-world escapade, and the folks writing it claim they have no idea how it will end.

"We're lucky, at the beginning of the year, if we know where it starts," says one of the show's producers, Howard Gordon.

The writers on "24" are usually "about two episodes ahead" of the ones that are being filmed and edited, said another producer, Evan Katz. "The reason the audience doesn't see the twists coming is because we don't either." Gordon thinks "that's part of what gives the show its energy, is we paint ourselves into corners and blast our way out of those corners."

For instance - and at this point anyone who foolishly started reading this story thinking I would avoid talking about what happened this week on the show should stop - the producers had no clue when they started planning Season 5 that President Palmer would take one for the team.

"We had been circulating a story for the first two or three weeks we got together, and it didn't really excite us," Gordon said. "Then somebody said, 'What if the president is shot?' And I mean, it really was one of those epiphanies that suddenly crystallized."

It couldn't have helped Palmer's cause that Dennis Haysbert, who played him, is starring in "The Unit," a new CBS show from "Shield" creator Shawn Ryan and playwright David Mamet that begins in March.

Is this crazy-making for star Kiefer Sutherland? At first it was, he admitted. But, "after five years, I think we've got some faith in the way we're figuring this out." Having to get all of Jack Bauer's business done in a day, he added, is harder on the writers than the actors.

"The first eight episodes of any specific season have taught us how to do the next eight and then again the next eight," he said. "As soon as we kind of all trusted that and accepted that, our lives got a lot easier and the shows got better."

***

Paula Abdul may have been doing journalists a favor when she skipped out on Fox's "American Idol" session. She was a late scratch with a suspicious "eye infection."

Had Abdul been there to dodge questions over why former "Idol" contestant Corey Clark could describe the floor plan of her house, including the guest bedroom, it's unlikely that producer Nigel Lythgoe and judges Randy Jackson and Simon Cowell would have had time to entertain questions about how "Idol" gets made.

Regarding auditions, one asked, "How is it that, if 100,000 people show up in Seattle and we only see 50 on a Seattle premiere episode, 25 of those people just absolutely suck?"

Lythgoe replied, "Because that makes entertaining television. Because that is the circus of 'American Idol.' We go for the very, very best and the very, very worst. It's the boring people we don't want to see on television."

Someone asked about reports that former "Idol" winner Kelly Clarkson was refusing to allow her songs to be sung on "American Idol."

That drew a spirited response from Cowell, whom I spotted later at the Fox party blocking an exit door, smoking a cigarette as people tried to get by him, caring not a whit who was offended.

"No matter how talented Kelly Clarkson is, she would not be in the position she's in now without winning this show," Cowell said. "And forget the way she feels about us or the producers or anybody else, or the terrible songwriters she alleges she was with which sold her millions of records.

"It's the public who bothered to pick up the phone to vote for her. If she refuses to give songs to be used on the show, it's like saying to every person who voted for you, 'You know what? Thank you. I'm not interested in you anymore.'"

And what exactly does the show's new "enhanced non-fraternization policy," brought on by Abdul's alleged high jinks, mean for the two other judges? "I can't touch Simon anymore," Jackson said to laughter

***

On Day 8 of TV critics' tour, someone finally resorted to the old fire-alarm trick.

It was during a press conference to promote "The Loop," a rather sorry-looking new show soon to air on the Fox network. It's about a 20-something dude who gets a real job while all his slacker friends stay home and harass him by cell phone.

If this sounds like an actual TV commercial you've seen for a cell-phone provider, you're right; if you're assuming there's more to "The Loop" than that, don't; if you're wondering how Mimi Rogers and Philip Baker Hall got roped into this mess (which has already been extensively reshot since critics saw it last summer), so am I.

Anyway, the press conference was limping along when a shrill, piercing noise filled the ballroom inside the Ritz-Carlton. At first I thought it might be Mario Cantone or Rosie O'Donnell. But no, someone had pulled the fire alarm. I'm guessing, someone who had checked his watch and noticed the session for "The Loop" still had 10 minutes to go.

Soon after, a Fox spokesman ended the press conference. "Just as a precaution," he said.

But before that, one of the producers of "The Loop," Pam Brady, reacted to the deafening noise in the room by looking up and saying, "If there's an omen that we shouldn't be on the air, just give it to us now. Any omen."