Yes, I admit it, I love 24! The Day 6 debacle aside (man, that was a terrible season), I have enjoyed every season, regardless of the plausibility issues and repetitive trappings and all of it… and this review of the first two episode arc of Day 7 on AV Club gets to some of why I love it:
“And then there’s Jack himself. As part of the promotional material Fox sent us for Day Seven, I got a McFarlane Toys “action figure” of Bauer in his most familiar pose: two-hand gun draw, satchel slung over one shoulder, getting ready to ruin some bad guy’s day. Looking at the toy now—it’s sitting on top of my cable box—it occurs to me that the main reason I dig 24 is that at heart it’s a super-hero show. Sure, it obeys semi-realistic conventions, and Jack has no readily acknowledged powers, but c’mon; he’s got a regular outfit (jeans, dark shirt, bullet proof vest), he can do things nobody else can, and in the end, he always wins, even while his personal life turns into utter shit. As played by Keifer Sutherland, Jack is the ultimate proof of the Hitchcock maxim: you love a guy who’s good at his job. Only Bauer goes beyond good to be damn near unstoppable—and instead of making the series fall over its own ridiculousness, each new evidence of Jack’s constancy makes you root for him all the more.”