100 Great 24 Moments

Hey everybody, this is Jon. Two years ago, B and I put together a list of the 24 greatest 24 moments of all time. With the sixth season well underway, we've decided to update the list to 100 entries, complete with short clips uploaded to YouTube. Now, get this straight: this list is no substitution for actually watching the seasons yourself. There are several moments that we wanted to include but couldn't because they were essentially big hourlong moments. This list gives you about 2% of the fun a normal episode would. I know that watching 100+ hours of television is a lot to ask, but believe me, by the end you'll be wishing there were more. So go buy the DVDs, rent them from Netflix, whatever. And if you can't do that, start watching Season 6, already in progress, on at 9 PM on Mondays.

In case you'd like to buy said DVDs with minimal effort:

I'll start you off with the entry B wrote for the last list because it sums things up perfectly.

When I was a child, television was a gateway for me. It expanded my imagination and taught me that by following my dreams I could accomplish anything, be it practical medicine or being a green puppet who lived in a trashcan. Or Spider-Man, and I could help people learn to read. Without television I wouldn't be who I am today, and I wouldn't be able to express excitement, sadness, heartfelt thanks, or regret. Hi, my name is Harry Knowles and welcome to my website.

Television is bad now. Really bad. It has been for a long time. If you like watching a group of wealthy people have sex with each other and then talk profusely about this sex, television is great. If you like watching a group of policemen, lawyers, or doctors stand in a room and discuss something for an hour, television is great. If you like finding out what your next door neighbor (who is also a sexy stripper) will and will not eat for money, television is great. But for those of us who want something more, television is empty. It's the same stuff over and over. Car chase. Gunshots. Man down, call for backup. Tom Selleck races to the scene. Don Johnson has a nice car. Jack is gay. Boring, bland, and an exercise in futility.

"24" changed all that for me. It's the best hour on television for people who want to simultaneously feel anxiety, joy, and release. It's not a "guilty pleasure" because it's nothing to feel guilty about. The writing is great. The acting is great. The situations are COMPLETELY UNREALISTIC AND INSANE, but they know this, and they continue to turn up the volume to make things even MORE unrealistic and even MORE insane. It's twist and turns that actually matter, and even when they don't make sense or are poorly resolved the damn tension you feel from it is unreal. It makes you want to break the time space continuum to travel forward and watch the next episode immediately. BUT YOU CAN'T WATCH THE NEXT EPISODE PREVIEW OR YOU'LL BE SPOILED.

It's all hyperbole because the show works in hyperbole. It LIVES in hyperbole. It's what life would be like if we were always on the brink of death.

We've hoped here to list 24 [editor's note: now 100] of our favorite moments from the show. Be forewarned. This list is made clearly for people who have already seen and watch the show. There are incredible spoilers throughout. I mean it. On 24 something happens every two seconds, so if you say "Jack eats a taco" you've spoiled something. Almost every number here is a spoiler. So if you are interested in watching the show and do not mind finding out what happens during it, proceed. If you love the show and want to share your thoughts, proceed. Maybe you want to catch up before the season four premiere this Sunday on Fox. But if you don't, IF YOU HAVE AN INTEREST IN WATCHING UNSPOILED 24 WITHOUT HAVING SPOILERS SPOIL YOU, please refrain from continuing. We want you to read our article, but hey, we already got your hit. So beat it.

- B

JACK PICKS LOCK WITH SWITCHBLADE

SEASON 3

If there isn't already a false religion built around the situations Jack Bauer finds himself in and the certainty that his actions will be successful, it's surely coming. Here we see him picking a lock to a mainframe in a high-security British MI6 government facility using an out-the-front switchblade. It takes him less than five seconds. Now, you might conclude that Jack is extremely proficient at lock-picking, which I'm sure he is. You might say that Q designed the least effective lock known to man because MI6 asked him to make it also turn into a bowtie that James Bond can wear that is also an explosive device that he can detonate at will if in any event he happens to be played by Pierce Brosnan.

But I have a different explanation. All the world's a stage, and Jack Bauer's merely a player. He's watched and performed in this play plenty of times before. At this point, he's kind of half-assing. Come on, Jack. Go find a coat hanger and impress us, you tortured McGyver, you. No? All right, well then just jimmy it a little. You're not trying to defeat the lock. Just piss it off a little until it gives in to you.

- Jon

CRAPPY SEASON 1 CTU DECOR

SEASON 1

Along with the show's other cosmetic changes, CTU seems to get a more high tech facelift every season. I don't understand how an agency so inept at even keeping terrorists outside of its own building, let alone the rest of the country, manages to recieve enough funding to look like the bastard spawn of an Ikea catalogue and a Brookstone, but they've managed to find a way. In season one, CTU looks like a stereotypical cluttered office with messy desks and immitation wood cubicle walls. Apparently the only way to counter intelligence leaks, shootings, bombings and gassings is an even MORE post-modern furniture decor.

- Justin

DENNIS HOPPER'S RIDICULOUS ACCENT

SEASON 1

24 came along at a time when acting on network television consisted mainly of attractive white kids desperately trying to seem “street” on NYPD Blue or Law and Order. But just as the show set off the glut of serial dramas that now dominates the primetime network landscape, so did it set off a trend of hiring genuinely good actors to make that glut of dramas at least seem worth watching.

Season one builds to the unveiling of Victor Drazen, who we’ve come to understand is an evil son of a bitch, and then finally the big moment comes, and it’s Dennis Hopper talking like he’s got a wet sock in his mouth. Yet the glee with which Hopper approaches playing a truly bad man out for revenge comes through, and the absurd accent somehow works. The accent lends itself to telegraphing the sort of deranged menace that Hopper has become so adept at in over four decades of acting.

Plus it’s just funny to hear him say “Jack Bauer” like “Zhaak Bhhhaaaahhhrrrrr.”

- Kyle

DRISCOLL'S KID DIES

SEASON 4

Teen suicide is a very sensitive subject. There's no pain greater in the world than that felt by a mother after losing her daughter. It is a tragedy the likes of which I would never wish upon my worst of enemies. This is 24 however, and Aaron Driscoll WAS a stonewalling bitch. If her kid dying via self-inflicted wounds meant her being off of my screen and ending yet another nonsensical plotline, I was all for it. Driscoll's wail was supposed to be heartwrenching and evocative of sympathy, but I can't think of any reason for anyone to have cared for her or her plight. The only reason I picked this moment for the list is because it marked a turning point wherein the season got exponentially better from here on out.

- Justin

MARTHA LOGAN'S MUSIC CUE

SEASON 5

Paranoid hysteria can be difficult to convey cinematically. In season five of 24, they do so with the riff from the beginning of Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer.” Never has “boooooooonn-diddle-deet!” sounded so foreboding. And it happens every time she starts to get upset or seem the least bit unstable. I love it.

- Kyle

REZA DRIVES KATE TO SHOW HER THE HOUSE

SEASON 2

This moment is great because it’s such a cheat. Reza’s coyness about where he’s taking Kate, in the face of her growing rage and with him already clearly aware that she doesn’t like or trust him, makes no sense. But it exemplifies something about the show: how it’s able to derive suspense from what can be, in retrospect, completely innocuous moments.

I do think, however, the tension could’ve been ratcheted up considerably had they not played the scene for comedy by covering Reza’s front teeth with Chiclets. But I guess hindsight is 20/20.

- Kyle

PILOT-EPISODE TONY ALMEIDA'S RIDICULOUS ACCENT

SEASON 1

It has to be so intimidating to write a pilot episode. You don't know whether you're laying the foundation for another three episodes of work, or another ten years. On that same point, it has to be exhausting, because every single detail has to be scrutinized. I think this is the only episode in which Tony has a Hispanic accent, which is really only ridiculous because he pretty much dropped it entirely one show-hour later.

It was also extremely strange to see David Palmer played by Reginald VelJohnson.

- Jon

THIS PRESIDENTIAL FUNERAL IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY SPRINT

SEASON 5

*yawn* Jesus, get this guy in the ground already. Hmm. Maybe if I hold my phone kinda low I can check Fox for the scores from last nightAW WHAT IS THIS SHIT

The product placement that began so innocently with a few Ford trucks ramped up in season five, with numerous close-up shots of Cisco Systems screens at CTU and cell phones with their logos prominently displayed while being used for all sorts of handy features. I don't mind this too much when it fits in with the story -- taking a picture with a camera phone can be useful in the field, and if you want to say it happens to be a Sprint phone, fine. But Palmer's funeral was meant to be a somber, sorrowful affair, and cutting to an ad in the middle of it (especially one as nonsensical as having Mike check the news to watch the event he's attending) is just crass. And unintentionally funny, which gets it on the list. But mostly crass.

- Bill

MIKE NOVICK'S TRADEMARK PEER

SEASON 4

You just saw him peer down at his phone, and now you see the side-to-side action. I'd probably put Mike Novick at the very top of the list of my favorite non-Jack characters, up there with David Palmer, Charles Logan, and the jumpy Barney Fife-esque hardhat at the natural gas plant that Vladimir Bierko holds up. Even though Mike's one of the decreasingly few living characters on the show who you are certain has a good conscience, he has a talent for looking extremely shady whenever he does anything. He could be knitting a scarf and would still look and act as though he were knitting a nuclear weapon shaped like a penis.

- Jon

CHLOE LOVES JACK

SEASON 4

I’ve read that Mary-Lynn Rajskub plays Chloe with the subtext that she is hopelessly, unrequitedly in love with Jack. In light of that, this moment is just slightly heartbreaking, but the bewilderment and terror on Jack’s face when Chloe tells him, “Jack, I just want you to know that if you ever need someone to talk to as a friend, I'm here for you…not now. Later, when things die down,” is beyond amusing. Chloe has become a fan favorite for her bluntness, but in this moment, it becomes clear her flippancy is something of an act. That this is one of very few things that Chloe has been completely unguarded about and that this is one of very few things that Jack just doesn’t know how to react to is simultaneously touching and hilarious.

- Kyle

NEXT 10