Day 4: 7:00 a.m.-8:00 a.m. (9 Jan. 2005)

A train collides with a truck filled with explosives. A man is shot. Over the phone, Jack Bauer hears the screams of his kidnapped sweetheart.

Director:

Jon Cassar

Writers:

Joel Surnow (creator), Robert Cochran (creator),

Stars:

Kiefer Sutherland, Kim Raver, Alberta Watson

Cast

Episode cast overview, first billed only:
Kiefer Sutherland	...	Jack Bauer
Kim Raver	...	Audrey Raines
Alberta Watson	...	Erin Driscoll
William Devane	...	James Heller
Jonathan Ahdout	...	Behrooz Araz
Roger R. Cross	...	Curtis Manning (as Roger Cross)
Shawn Doyle	...	Ronnie Lobell
Lukas Haas	...	Andrew Paige
Louis Lombardi	...	Edgar Stiles
Logan Marshall-Green	...	Richard Heller
Lana Parrilla	...	Sarah Gavin
Geoff Pierson	...	President John Keeler
Mary Lynn Rajskub	...	Chloe O'Brian
Nestor Serrano	...	Navi Araz
Faran Tahir	...	Tomas Sherek

Storyline

18 months after being fired Jack Bauer returns to CTU as an Assistant to Secretary of Defense James Heller. CTU nabs a suspect who bombed a train but is unaware that the bombing is part of a larger plot. A computer programmer named Andrew Paige discovers a strange code in Turkish on the Internet and believes it's part of a terrorist plot.

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Plot Keywords:

punctuation in title | title ends with period | digit in title | period in title | number in title

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Genres:

Action | Drama | Mystery | Thriller

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

9 January 2005 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

20th Century Fox Television

Technical Specs

Runtime:

42 min 60 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

This is the first season opener since the series premiere to be aired with commercial interruptions.

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Goofs

Jack somehow gets from the hotel to CTU for his visit in two minutes of on-screen time, during 7 a.m. L.A. morning traffic.

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Quotes

James Heller: Oh, spare me your sixth grade Michael Moore logic.

User Reviews

Bad Day Number Four

After three seasons of what is close to perfection, 24 shows the first signs of weakness in the opening episode of Day 4. It's not bad or anything, just not as strong as people have come to expect when Fox's real-time thriller is mentioned.

Sticking with the show's traditions, several months have passed since the end of Season 3 - 18, to be precise. During those eighteen months, a lot has changed: CTU is now run by Erin Driscoll (Alberta Watson), and the only familiar face left is Chloe O' Brian (Mary Lynn Rajskub). Predictably, a few minutes after the introduction, these people learn of a new crisis: a train has been attacked, and it all might be connected to a well known Middle Eastern terrorist who happens to be in Los Angeles. At the request of President John Keeler (Geoff Pierson), the Secretary of Defense, James Heller (William Devane), sends one of his aides to cooperate with the CTU. That employee, who also happens to be dating Heller's daughter Audrey Raines (Kim Raver), is none other than Jack Bauer, who got a new job after Driscoll fired him for being a drug addict (as part of his cover during a field operation, worth specifying). Meanwhile, the Araz family is preparing something that will change America forever.

From the get-go, Day 4 gives the impression of being something of a copy of Day 2, at least in the villains department, which inadvertently panders to stereotyping, although Shohreh Agdashloo's performance as the presumed terrorist's wife is convincing enough to forgive such a misstep. Less easy to condone, however, is the absence of most of the show's established cast: Dennis Haysbert, Carlos Bernard, Reiko Aylesworth, Elisha Cuthbert - they're all missing, with only Sutherland and Rajskub providing a link with previous seasons. Granted, Sutherland is as much a guarantee of quality as he's ever been, but Watson and Raver struggle to be totally worthy replacements of his usual co-stars (Devane has no such problem, thankfully), the former in particular being saddled with an annoying character no one is likely to care for. Still, the familiar never-ending suspense and soon-to-come succession of clever twists are the second good reason (Sutherland being the first) to give the fourth season a fair chance. This opening hour may not reach the heights of its predecessors, but that omnipresent ticking clock has lost none of its seat-nailing power.