It's hard to imagine 24 without hearing the phrase "Dammit, Chloe!" every episode, so many fans of the classic FOX action series are probably wondering: Will Jack Bauer be in 24: Legacy? The show has been through many iterations, surviving the potentially fatal 2007-'08 Hollywood writers strike to return with a two-hour TV movie, culminating in two additional seasons that moved the action away from the show's iconic Los Angeles location. That was then followed by talk of a potential movie once the show ended after Season 8, only for it to return as a 12-episode limited series, 24: Live Another Day, instead. But now 24 may be entering its scariest iteration yet: a Jack Bauer-less one.
For the most part, Legacy will follow a brand new set of characters, including Eric Carter, an Army Ranger who finds himself embroiled in a terrorist plot (played by Straight Outta Compton breakout actor Corey Hawkins) and Rebecca Ingram, the outgoing head of CTU (played by Miranda Otto, most recently of Homeland Season 5). In addition to these fresh faces, we'll also be seeing the highly-anticipated return of one beloved character from the original series: Carlos Bernard's Tony Almeida, who will hopefully find redemption after his villainous arc in Season 7.
The character, who made his last appearance in 24: Solitary, a featurette on the Live Another Day Blu-Ray that saw the former CTU agent plotting his escape from prison, will be revealed to have some sort of previous relationship with Otto's Agent Ingram. "Tony’s dark past comes back to haunt Rebecca in some way," creator Manny Coto told Entertainment Weekly. "He seemed to be a character we hadn’t seen in a while and we thought at a certain point in the season — after the season had gotten its own legs and was off running — that it would be fun to bring in someone from the old seasons."
But what about a certain other someones from the old seasons? Just because Tony will be making a return, don't expect appearances from other mainstays like Chloe and Jack. "Once we decided to bring Tony back, with only 12 episodes, to bring other [veteran] characters back as well throws the balance off," Coto's co-creator Evan Katz told TVLine about their decision not to include Agent O'Brian. "We want viewers to build relationships with these [new] people and not think about the past."
Sadly, what applies to Chloe also applies to Jack. Asked about the possibility of a cameo, former 24 star Kiefer Sutherland told Deadline at the Television Critics Association press tour last fall in no uncertain terms that, "There are absolutely no plans for that." But fans will be pleased to hear that Legacy executive producer Howard Gordon later amended Sutherland's statement, seemingly leaving the door open for a return in future seasons. "There's no plans at the moment; I think it's just sort of a possibility downstream reflecting just my own personal fantasy," Gordon told Deadline. "We haven't said you're definitely coming back; it's just something that I was just musing about and that I think isn't impossible but there are no plans about it."
Part of the hold-up in getting Sutherland back to the franchise that made him famous undoubtedly has something to do with his current commitment to Designated Survivor. But it sounds like the team behind Legacy is interested in getting Jack back at some point, even if it's not in the spinoff's inaugural season. And for the record, Katz was similarly optimistic about the chances of also seeing Chloe again somewhere down the road, telling TVLine that she "could come back in a future season. We love the character."
So although 24: Legacy Season 1, debuting this Sunday after the Super Bowl, will be a Jack Bauer-less affair, fans can hold out hope that we haven't seen the last of our favorite CTU agent.
