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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Jack Bauer running out of time

By: Staff Writer

Posted: 01/27/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

Shocker of shocks, Jack Bauer is running out of time! This time, however, the question isn't if he'll be able to extract vital information from a terrorist -- it's whether or not 24 will continue past next season, when Kiefer Sutherland's contract expires. By then, counter-terrorist specialist Bauer will have experienced eight full days of unimaginable horror, loss and bordering-on-unnecessary torture, and, as Sutherland told Entertainment Weekly, he's been thinking about sending his bad-ass spy character into retirement.

"I don't think about (the end of 24) a lot, but I did this year for the first time," said the 42-year-old Emmy winner. "Whether Season 8 is the end or not, I don't know. I love making the show, so I'm leaving my options open. And in all fairness, I think the audience will dictate that more than anybody."

Executive producers Evan Katz and Jon Cassar also admitted that they've been trying to figure out how 24 will end, since they want to be faithful to the Fox drama's dark tone while still considering Bauer's popularity among fans.

"There are two obvious choices: Jack dies, or Jack finally has a happy ending," said Katz. "If we give him a happy ending, part of the audience would be mad at us for doing what is easy. And if we kill him, they would be mad at us for a different reason altogether."

The plan had always been to kill off Bauer at the end of the series, but as the show grew in popularity and the possibility of a 24 feature film became more likely, everyone had to reconsider the main character's fate.

"Kiefer and I have always said, 'Jack Bauer's got to die,'" Cassar said. "But then the idea of a 24 movie came up and we went, 'Oh, OK, maybe not.' "

-- Canwest News Service

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 27, 2009 D2

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