As Jack Bauer himself may say, "Dammit".

Just as I was considering giving 24 a rest next season, with casting announcements such as Freddie Prinze Jr's not helping, the producers go and pull out the magic card that gets me firmly back to the table.

With season eight now in production, the final piece of major casting has slotted into place, and it's none other than Battlestar Galactica's Katee Sackhoff that's been announced. Starbuck herself will be playing Dana Walsh, who is a data analyst expert at CTU. According to the Hollywood Reporter, she'll also have some past with and feelings for Mr Prinze Jr's character.

Consider my interest in the show thoroughly reignited, and I thus feel obliged to point out that it's due back on our screens, for what could be its final season, next January.

As an aside, we wonder where this leaves the rumour that Sackhoff was linked with the role of Typhoid Mary in the a proposed Daredevil reboot? Given that 24 shoots for nine months, that might just depend on the timescales that Marvel has in mind...

The Hollywood Reporter