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24/Trivia

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  • Actor Allusion: A fake passport for Nina Myers in Season 3 is under the name "Sarah Berkeley"- Sarah Clarke's married name (she married fellow cast member Xander Berkeley, who played George Mason).
  • Author Appeal: Creator Joel Surnow is a major contributor to conservative causes and political candidates, and the show definitely represents a conservative, ends-justify-the-means worldview. Having said that, it depicts liberals, from President David Palmer (the only character explicitly identified as a Democrat) to Senator Blaine Mayer, as reasonable and sympathetic characters who (usually) don't stray into Strawman Political or Author Tract territory.
    • Oil barons are trying to orchestrate a war in the Middle East in season 2. Now I can't put my finger on it, but regardless of your views you might see a resemblance to Iraq here...
    • Season 5 could basically be named "Jack Bauer vs. Richard Nixon."
    • The political spectrum on the show isn't really that conservative, especially recently. It shows Islamic characters as very sympathetic at times, often showing them going to lengths to kill the terrorist bastards. Plus, Berman and Braga work on this show, and they're VERY liberal.
    • The tactics are conservative leaning (Jack's Ends Justifies the Means attitude) while the plots tend to be straight out of left-wing conspiracy theories.
    • Also the other creator, Robert Cochran, is a registered Democrat.
    • What's more, Keifer Sutherland (who's also an executive producer) is the grandson of Tommy Douglas, former head of Canada's New Democratic Party and the man who crafted Canada's single-payer Universal Healthcare system, and is an NDP advocate within Canada.
    • Also, the number of former Star Trek (particularly Enterprise) actors who appeared on the show dramatically increased since Brannon Braga and Manny Coto joined on as executive producers. Peter Weller in particular has appeared in three Coto-produced shows (Odyssey 5, Enterprise, and now 24).
    • There are some conservatives who consider the character of Jack Bauer to be a farce, rather than a tribute. He's precisely what they don't want to be perceived as.
    • Yet in Season 4, torture was depicted as an effective way to demonstrate a suspect's culpability or innocence. And the way they handled the issue of Heller's son being gay.
    • There's also the issue of how the show deals with women and sex in general. Women who are physically capable tend to be evil, the only bisexual character on the show is an evil woman, "good" women generally end up killed off to provide motivation for male characters' revenge and sex is a precursor to death. Of course there are exceptions, and all of the above may well be unintentional, but the implications are still somewhat unsettling.
      • You seem to be forgetting the bisexual women kills a bisexual man (her partner in crime) in order to escape capture in Day 4. he gets down and dirty with her as well as Secretary of Defence's gay son.
    • More benignly (except maybe to some sports fans), Tony Almeida is frequently seen drinking out of a Chicago Cubs mug because the actor, Carlos Bernard, is a huge fan of the team.
  • Development Gag: The wedding side story in season 2 was a nod to the original concept that 24 be a comedy about preparing for a wedding.
  • Development Hell: A feature film adaptation of the series has been in the works for years.
  • Hey, It's That Guy! (Quite a few):
  • Hey, It's That Voice! The Japanese dub uses LOTS of voice actors from Naruto for some odd reason:
  • Real Life Relative: The actors who played George Mason and Nina Myers married between the first and second season, making the interrogation between them in the latter rather interesting to watch.
    • Rumor has it that they toyed with the idea of Donald Sutherland as Jack's father.
  • Shout-Out: As mentioned before, we've got Star Trek alumni on the production staff now. In season 7, two suggestions to replace departing members of Taylor's administration were Rick Berman and Bob Justman, who were also longtime Trek staff.
    • In an episode of Season 1, Milo gives his computer password as "foothill94022", a reference to a community college where Michael Loceff, the episode's writer, teaches online classes.
    • Season 8 has an assassin named Davros. Of course, he's not nearly as effective as his namesake- but then, he fucked with Jack Bauer.
    • Jack breaking out a pair of pliers and a blowtorch to use on Pavel seemed to be a reference to Pulp Fiction.
    • In a reverse shout-out, the Department of Homeland Security launched a surveillance technology development program aimed at protecting airliners from terrorist missiles. It's called "Project CHLOE", because the then-Director of DHS is a fan of 24.
  • What Could Have Been: you know who was cast as season 6's Darren McCarthy for a short time, before withdrawing for scheduling reasons? Eddie Izzard. Eddie Izzard.
    • The series was originally conceived as a comedy about preparing for a wedding.
    • The actor who played Kevin Carroll (the false Alan York in the first season), Richard Burgi, was originally cast in the role of Jack Bauer. He would have had that role if they hadn't been able to get Kiefer. Once Sutherland was brought on board, Burgi accepted the role of Carroll.
    • The producers toyed with the idea of casting Donald Sutherland as Jack Bauer's father, Phillip.
    • At one point, Joel Surnow wanted to acquire the rights to The Da Vinci Code in hopes of working it into a plotline for the show's third season, but Dan Brown rejected him. How he would have worked Jack Bauer into a story about Leonardo da Vinci, Pagan cults and Jesus' family is anyone's guess.
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