And you think you're having a lousy day?

PASADENA -- Jack Bauer is smiling.

Laughing, even.

He seems happy.

Life seems good.

Oh, dear. This is going to go very, very badly, don't you think?

"It's a guarantee that he's going to have a bad day," series star/executive producer Kiefer Sutherland says with a laugh when asked about his character's uncharacteristic grin in the opening moments of 24's two-part, four-hour eighth-season premiere (which airs Sunday at 8 p.m. and Monday at 7 p.m. on Fox and Global).

As the new, Big-Apple-based season begins, Jack is relaxing with his granddaughter, waiting for daughter Kim (Elisha Cuthbert) and her husband to come home so the whole family can head to the airport and jet off to begin a new, happy, lovely, extended-family life in Los Angeles.

Beep... beep... beep... beep... beebeebeebeebeebeebeep...

Of course, these idyllic scenes last only a few minutes before Jack finds himself in the middle of a plot to assassinate the head of a Middle Eastern country at the United Nations before an historic nuclear-disarmament pact can be signed with U.S. President Allison Taylor (Cherry Jones).

As sure as 24's signature onscreen digital clock will beep its way through the almost-real-time hour, Jack is headed for disaster. Or, at least, into a casualty-scattering, desperate race to prevent one.

For his part, Sutherland says he has a great appreciation for the way 24's writers catapulted Jack into this latest in a series of really crappy days.

"What Howard (Gordon) and the other writers did, which was such a fantastic thing for me as an actor, was to put Jack in such a positive place at the beginning of this (season) that it gave him something to fight for. I think, just inherently, we have taken the character in some very dark places -- the loss of his wife, the estrangement from his daughter, the death of Kim Raver's character (Jack's conflicted Season 5/6 love interest, Audrey Raines).

"So to be able to start Season 8 with some kind of hope, and give him something to really live for and fight for, was a really different and kind of very exciting place to be as a character. And that really resonates -- as much as you kind of acknowledge it in the very beginning, it really has some resonance in the later episodes."

Still, Sutherland says playing Jack as a happy, grinning guy was an odd experience; in fact, he said he could only remember one other sort-of-smile in the series' previous seven seasons.

"It felt weird to do it," he says of the season-opening happy-Jack sequence. "The only other time Jack Bauer smiled -- and again, just because it happened so rarely, we noted it -- was in Season 3, when he had finally captured Nina and was flying back with her in a cargo plane and he had her in handcuffs, and he looked at her and smiled. And that was about four episodes before he got to shoot her.

"So this was a different kind of smile, yeah. And I must say, when we first shot it, it felt awkward for me and, I think, everyone else involved."

In the new season, Mykelti Williamson joins the cast as Brian Hastings, head of the newly recommissioned CTU office in New York. Freddie Prinze Jr. co-stars as CTU field agent Cole Ortiz, who doesn't really know anything about the great Jack Bauer but soon learns what he's dealing with.

Williamson, who's been friends with 24's star since the two worked together on the 1997 indie feature Truth or Consequences, N.M., says sharing the screen with Sutherland presents a unique kind of acting challenge.

"Kiefer is the kind of actor you have to keep your eye on, because you never know what he's going to give you," says Williamson. "So my reaction to him every day at work is something I don't even expect.

"My character's a little bit territorial when Jack shows up, because he knows of Mr. Bauer. And my character is also one of those people who's not certain he should be in the position he's in -- he's always protecting himself from having someone look at him and realize he's got chinks in his armour, so he puts up this front all the time. And Bauer sees through everything, so that made it very interesting."

Prinze, who's best known for romantic comedies and Scooby Doo capers, says he was just excited to get the 24 call.

"I don't get offered this kind of job, period," Prinze says with a laugh. "You know, for most of my career, if I'm in it, I'm struggling to fall in love for 96 minutes, and I always get the girl. To get a chance to do something like this is something, as an actor, that I've been readying myself for since I was 21 years old.

"So, yeah, I was very, very excited... 'Kind of pleased' doesn't really describe it."

OK, so now everybody's having a good day. Thankfully, it's 24 we're talking about here; the giggles and grins won't last long.

For more TV-press-tour fun, visit my blog, CouchBoy Chronicles, at www.winnipegfreepress.com

brad.oswald@freepress.mb.ca

24 timeline

SEASON 1: Premiered Nov. 6, 2001

President: David Palmer (Dennis Haysbert)

Immediate threat: A plot to assassinate the president

Worst part of a bad day: Jack's wife, Teri, is murdered

SEASON 2: Premiered Oct. 29, 2002; set 18 months after Season 1

President: David Palmer

Immediate threat: Nuclear bomb attack on Los Angeles

Worst part of a bad day: CTU is blown up; Kim almost gets eaten by a cougar

SEASON 3: Premiered Oct. 28, 2003; set three years after Season 2

President: David Palmer

Immediate threat: Bio-terrorist attack on Los Angeles

Worst part of a bad day: Sherry Palmer

SEASON 4: Premiered Jan. 9, 2005; set 18 months after Season 3

President: John Keeler (Geoff Pierson)

Immediate threat: meltdown of nuclear plants across the U.S.

Worst part of a bad day: Terrorists shoot down Air Force One, thrusting vice-president Charles Logan (Gregory Itzin) into power

SEASON 5: Premiered Jan. 15, 2006; set 18 months after Season 4

President: Charles Logan

Immediate threat: Nerve-gas attacks on U.S. soil

Worst part of a bad day: David Palmer is assassinated; CTU suffers a nerve-gas attack; Jack is captured by the Chinese

SEASON 6: Premiered Jan. 14, 2007; set 20 months after Season 5

President: Wayne Palmer (DB Woodside)

Immediate threat: Suicide-bomber attacks on U.S. cities

Worst part of a bad day: Nuke detonates in Valencia, Calif.; Jack's father, Philip (James Cromwell) and brother, Graem (Paul McCrane) are really bad guys

SEASON 7: Premiered Jan. 11, 2009 (delayed a full year by Hollywood writers' strike); set approximately four years after Season 6

President: Allison Taylor (Cherry Jones)

Immediate threat: Terrorists invade the U.S.'s computer infrastructure

Worst part of a bad day: Terrorists attack the White House; Jack is exposed to a deadly biotoxin

TVPreview

24

"ö Starring Kiefer Sutherland, Annie Wersching, Mykelti Williamson, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Katee Sackhoff and Freddie Prinze Jr.

"ö Sunday at 8 p.m./Monday at 7 p.m.

"ö Fox and Global

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 16, 2010 C1