This is one of those shows that was very cool to like for a while ('04-07 or so), then abruptly became uncool once TV as a whole became more pretentious. But whatever, I was never cool anyway - I still just love this show. It is SO great at twisty, hilarious, violent, action-packed lunacy. This show did major character deaths a good decade before Game of Thrones. Is there a better TV action hero than Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer? Nope. Seasons from best to worst: 5, 1, 3, 2, 7, 4, 8, 6.

Ah yes, the Jack Bauer Power Hour. It delivers ludicrous stories, sadistic violence, and crazy plot twists with such a straight face that you almost buy it. "Dammit!"

i'm a sucker for this gimmick. the percussive sound that accompanies the emergence of each split screen, the nagging beeping of the clock, the CTU ringtone... the tension is in the little things. this is a series which knows what it wants to be and achieves its goals with aplomb; genre thrills abound, but leave your analytical mind at the door. it does get a little more complex thematically toward the end; seasons 7 and 8 were a return to form IMO and work fine as standalones.

Really entertaining, and Kiefer Sutherland is the bomb as Jack Bauer, surely one of the enduring characters of our television era. The split-screens works better than the conceit of real-time. Season 5 (in which Gregory Itzin plays a scumbag president) is the strongest.

a statue of jack bauer should replace the washington monument.

As ridiculous as it is, the seasons I've seen (the fist 4-5 I think) works as pulpy escapism, even though it (hopefully unwillingly) played into a fairly tasteless and paranoid zeitgeist of doing whatever it takes to get the job done, no matter how many innocent dark skinned people have to get tortured in the process, because: 'Murica!

If you can get past the sheer lunacy of the story (where people are kidnapped sometimes 3 times a day) there is some real entertainment value here. Not going to win any logic awards but you could do worse for binge watching.

I didn't watch every season but those I did were well-paced, full of plot twists, and a surprising amount of varied action for a network TV show. As a dumber, TV version of the Mission Impossible films, you could do much worse.

24 brings unmitigated high-production-value sheer action-packed intensity on a level that has never been done before or since. The quality of the stunts, and huge action set pieces is higher than big-budget hollywood movies, and better than any show since then including Game of Thrones. The casting is always perfect in this series, major character deaths are shocking, and the villains are fantastic. Awesome concept, flawless execution. I liked all the seasons, each one crazier than the last.

Admittedly, a breakthrough show for network television. Unfortunately, an endorsement of Bush administration neocon fascism.

This was the show that first got me addicted to a tv format. S1 & 2 are fantastic and hold nostalgic value for me, everything afterwards (especially S4) is atrocious and I gave up after S5. It becomes too repetitive & ridiculous, and the knowledge that senior US officials (as high as Cheney) saw the series as a guideline in the War on Terror soured the whole thing. Really though if you view S1 & S2 as a self contained show, and believe that the president (spoiler) dies at the end, it's amazing.

24 was my biggest guilty pleasure. Still is. Can't help it, I'm a fan. 24 was an undeniably huge achievement season after season. (OK, let us all forget about season 6 now, which started with an impressive four episodes run, but failed miserably afterwards...) Anyone who call themselves a solid television viewer must at least see season 5.

PSA 82?! C'mon, now. Super inconsistent series that's really bad and dumb as a baseline but manages to produce pageturn-y material about one third of the time. S5 surprisingly good. S6 really bad so far, with Curtis the dumbest man alive and the Chloeverse as eyerolly as it's ever been.

I'm positive this would be a great show if I would watch it in 2001. It's thriller in the end, every episode. But I still got bored after dozen episodes. Characters are not flashed out enough. Bauer keeps saying "just trust me bro". Show is stretched out and instead of explaining to viewers what the heck is going on, it's filled with uninteresting family side stories, like president's family.

Embrace the fact it frequently goes bananas and you'll have a blast. Or Sutherland will growl-whisper you into submission.

Mindblowingly silly and it stretches credibility out to a 35.000km long line going all around the world but addictive nonetheless. It's been 20 years since i last saw it and i'll leave it at that so my love of Jack Bauer will not be tarnished

The first season was so amazingly good. The later seasons progressively less so.

S1:85 S2:80 S3:60.. no chance to other seasons

I mean... it's frickin Jack Bauer, what else is there to say?

This is a very good show as it has story line continuity in them. Saving the president to traitors on your team. Very exciting and a lot of action in this show.

This series had its ups & downs and ended with a whimper but at the end of the day I still enjoyed the ride.

90 to 75 on second viewings.

Another of my 10 favorite all-time shows.

Even when Jack Bauer is wrong, he's still right. Didn't bother with the last few seasons, the concept exhausts itself after the first two or three. I was surprised when Bauer didn't gun down and/or torture completely innocent people who happened to be slowing him down a bit- it would all be for the greater good right?

very good series

I can only say the format itself seems to be oddly addictive. Watched up until season 6 where it seemed to me this really started to go south (1 and 5 were the highlights). Yeah, check your logic at the door.

Doesn't hold up many years later. (1 season)

The first season, despite the awful amnesia twist, holds up in a lot of places. But the show more or less falls apart until the total nosedive in quality in Season 6. They could never figure out how to keep the plot going for 24 episodes and you could tell when they'd written themselves into corners. Ultimately trigger happiness killed off the cast that made the show strong to begin with.

Season one was groundbreaking tv, and it was simply one of the few network dramas that was ever good, let alone great. Artistically, it should have stayed a 24-episode mini-series that it was originally supposed to be. Cheesy as it was, I still loved it for the next couple seasons. While it was admittedly ridiculous from the beginning, it reached a breaking point for me at some point around Season 6 or so and I never finished it.

The best seasons are 3, 5, and 7.

The series goes downhill after Jack's brother, father are added to the plot. Till then it's really good.

First season was entertaining and novel. I can take and leave the rest which is somewhat rinse and repeat.

Suffers from it's own success like so many others before and after it. The first 5 seasons are amazing and then it takes a dramatic nosedive into being unwatchable. The silent clocks and Jack Bauer will always be etched in my memory

Even though this show contributed to the belief torture works it is not something I can hold it accountable for to a similar extent as Zero Dark Thirtry, as the malignancy of intent did not seem present in this series.