24 is back with a surprisingly subtle kick off; no hydrogen bombs being detonated in Los Angeles, no Jack Bauer living off the grid or no presidential assassinations. And that’s a good thing. Kiefer Sutherland is back from a 2-year hiatus as Jack Bauer and is atoning for his sins. Jack is in the process of being extradited for his extreme interrogation tactics as a former CTU agent. This is good. After each season growing bigger and better than the last it’s nice to feel grounded in reality. This is the start of something that doesn’t seem like a red giant on it’s way to black hole. Or maybe it is. The two day, four hour season premier doesn’t fall short of those 24 cliché’s that we’ve all come to grow and love; good guys gone bad that might be still good, presidential spouses with crazy people issues and Jack Bauer being needed by a government that kicks him around. However, it’s on a much lighter scale, we don’t have middle-eastern extremists with doomsday devices or a heroin addicted Jack resurfacing from the underground when shit goes down. This time it’s domestic terrorists aiding a foreign dictator in strong-arming the US with a device that can shut down the FAA operating systems and crash commercial airliners. Wait, did I say this was subtle? Where’s John McClane when this shit is going down? Okay, I admit, it’s a stolen plot device from Die Hard 2 but we’re only four hours in. Let’s give it two more hours to see how it pans out. And if those suck, maybe one more… Oh, fuck it, admit it, you’ll watch the whole season, because Heroes kinda sucks this season.

This isn’t the strongest start to a season, but it’s certainly not the weakest.