24 – Season Seven (Fox Blu-ray)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: B     Extras: C     Episodes: A

 

 

It is hard to believe that for almost 10 years now, we have been watching Jack Bauer fight terrorism and government conspiracies.  24 remains one of televisions biggest hits, and definitely Fox's longest running drama since The X-Files.  Kiefer Sutherland completely embodies his role and each season gives a phenomenal performance.  While the show would have been a hit without him, due to excellent writing and an original, unique setup, it is because of Kiefer Sutherland the show has been on for as long as it has and reached mega-hit.  He has given one of televisions greatest performances ever, and he has never been better then here in Season 7.

 

This time, we find Jack in front of a committee reviewing his past actions and deciding whether or not to charge him with breaking the law in his investigations.  Then the FBI steps in and wants Jack's help bring in this seasons "bad guy" Tony Almeida.  Back from the dead, Carlos Bernard also gives his best performance to date.  After a series of events the real bad guys are discovered to be a group wanting American forces to pull out of their country so it can go back to being a dictator state.  There is always an underlying chain of events ready to take off, that the team must uncover.  Hijacked airplanes, an assault on the White House, to a biological weapon being used.

 

We see a few familiar faces to help along the way with the return of Mary Lynn Rajskub as Chloe O'Brien, Glenn Morshower as Aaron Pierce, James Morrison as Bill Buchanan, Carlo Rota as Morris O'Brien, and Elisha Cuthbert as Jack's daughter Kim.  24 has always been cast well and this season brings in some very good new faces. Annie Wersching is excellent as Jacks FBI "partner" Renee.  Jeffrey Nordling plays the FBI agent in charge Larry Moss with incredible believability.  Then there is the one mistake of this season Janeane Garofalo, who is terrible in every scene, and is easily 24's worst casting choice to date.  That minor mishap does not take away from all the other amazing scenes this season has to offer.

The 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition Blu-ray picture here is not quite as bad as it could have been, but no where near where it should be.  24 often has a grainy picture, and these scenes really stand out and look very poor.  Dark images are very spotted even when that is not intentional.  The brighter side of things looks very good, which makes it disappointing that they could not have worked on some of the other picture issues.  The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) lossless 5.1 sound is very clear here across all of the episodes.  There is no lack of fidelity in the dialogue or action scenes.

Extras include certain episode commentary, a making of featurette, deleted scenes, a music featurette, and Hour 19 the Ambush featurette.  It is very disappointing that 24 – Redemption was not included as an extra on this set.

 

 

-   Nate Rutkus