24 the TV Movie: later this year

The Writers’ Strike, that has led to the delayed production of umpteen different television programmes, perhaps had the most profound effect on 24, as the entirety of season seven was bumped a year as a result. The producers, wisely, didn’t want to run the show in bits, arguing that its weekly frequency was key to building up momentum.

Also, as anyone who sat through the shambles that the last series became can testify, a good year off might be just the tonic that the show needed.

However, it’s not that simple. With the writers now scribbling away and eight episodes of the next season already in the can, an opportunity has arisen to squeeze in a two hour special 24 film. And that’s just what they’re going to do.

The project will be we suspect a special, made for TV film, and what appears to be the case is that the movie will be shown before the end of the year, and that it will sit between the sixth and seventh series of the show.

We still have concerns over season seven, though, not least because location filming was scrapped close to production of the show, which meant lots of last minute rewriting. For the next series, a coherent, properly plotted narrative with just one villain or two would be the kind of improvement we’re looking for.

If we get a movie in the midst of it all, though, we ain’t going to complain. At least it allows to do the terrible gag that they should call it '2'.