Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #342 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-10-14
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 6
• Formats: Box set, Letterboxed, PAL, Widescreen, Colour
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 6
• Running time: 1106 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Such a simple idea--yet so fiendishly complex in the execution. 24, as surely everyone knows by now, is a thriller that takes place over 24 hours, midnight to midnight, in 24 one-hour episodes (well, 45-minute episodes if you extract the ad breaks). Everything to take place in real time--on-screen and off-screen time the same--which means no flash-backs, no flash-forwards, no nice handy time-dissolves. Every strand of the plot has to be dovetailed and interlocked to make sure that things happen just when they should, in the right amount of time. Not that easy.

Creator Robert Cochran and his team of writers and directors have done a pretty impressive job in putting the jigsaw together and keeping the tension ratcheted up high, as Federal Agent Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) hares around LA trying to stall an assassination attempt on a black Presidential candidate and rescue his wife and daughter from the clutches of the Balkan baddies. Twists, turns, revelations and cliffhangers are tossed at us with satisfying regularity. It’s not perfect: we get some hokey plot devices (instant amnesia, anybody?) and the final twist, once you start thinking back, makes no sense whatsoever. There are altogether too many huggy family moments ("I love you, Dad." "I love you, son"); and as for überbaddie Dennis Hopper’s "Serbian" accent…

Even so, this is undeniably mould-breaking TV. Sutherland, rescuing his career from the doldrums in one heroic leap, fully deserves his Golden Globe. Sets and locations are artfully deployed--we gain a real sense of LA’s splayed-out geography--and Sean Callery’s score is a powerful, brooding presence. Like Murder One and The Sopranos, 24 is one of those series future TV thrillers will have to measure themselves against.

On the DVDs: 24 is released in a six-disc box set. On discs 1- 5 there are no extras, but disc 6 includes the "alternative" ending and a preview of Series 2, presented by an urbane Kiefer Sutherland, that tells us precisely nothing. The transfer, in 16x9 widescreen and 2.0 Dolby Digital sound, does the high production values of the original every justice.--Philip Kemp

DVD Description
DVD Special Features:

Alternate Ending
Season 2 Preview
Subtitles: English for the hearing impaired
Original aspect ratio: 16x9 widescreen
Sound Quality: Dolby Digital 2.0

Synopsis
Follow 24 hours in the life of federal agent Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) in this innovative television series. Consisting of 24 hour-long episodes, the show uses split screens and a 'real-time' clock to tell a tense interweaving story that involves Bauer, his wife (Leslie Hope) and daughter (Elisha Cuthbert), a presidential candidate (Dennis Haysbert) targeted for assassination, and many others. This set includes every episode of the thrilling first season.

Customer Reviews

Utterly, irresistably addictive
A short while ago, I was sat watching 24 on DVD. It was about twelve midnight and I was on disc four of the set. I went to sleep at 9am the next morning, having fed all the discs into my player one after the other. That's the power of this brilliant drama series.

24 begins straightforward enough: someone is plotting to assassinate an African - American senator who's on the doorstep to becoming President of the U.S. By the time the series ends, this is long forgotten...

The acting of the main players is flawless without exception, with Kiefer Sutherland being particularly brilliant in this series which was notoriously difficult to shoot. The 24 of the title refers to the fact that every event of the series occurs inside a day. I was constantly trying to grasp this concept while watching, but it is merely a device used to accelerate the action to warp speed; there is literally no dead space on the screen since every act, no matter how innocuous it may seem, is drenched in tension.

The plot rapidly becomes simply serpentine, with traitors being exposed and then replaced by other traitors, villains die and are replaced by even more insane and clever villains, bluff follows bluff, counter bluff follows counter bluff, and the series is capped by a shocking and yet somehow sickeningly "on the cards" ending.

Being on DVD has the sole advantage of making use of the 16:9 aspect ratio for those with widescreen TVs. There are no real "extras" to speak of, except for a lovely little spot with Sutherland explaining how the show was conceived and produced, and an alternate ending (although it's a good job they didn't use it). Be Warned: inside the DVD cover you'll find a small booklet. FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE, DON'T READ IT UNTIL YOU'VE WATCHED THE SERIES, AS IT CONTAINS EACH HOUR'S EVENTS.

You will not be disappointed.

Outstanding
Jack Bauer (Keifer Sutherland) is an agent with the Counter Terrorist Unit. His brief is to prevent the assassination of presidential candidate David Palmer. Intelligence has warned them of this threat but not who is behind it or when, in this 24 hour period, the assassins will strike. Jack and his team become embroiled in a race against time to discover where the threat is coming from.
Shown in real time, this is an exciting and tension filled production. It uses split screen in order for the viewer to see what various characters are doing at any one time, an innovation in T.V. viewing. The plot twists and turns and is never predictable or boring. The only problem with 24 is that it becomes such compulsive viewing that you're in danger of sitting glued to the screen for all 24 episodes! Fantastic value for money and highly recommended.

It took me 5 years to find it, but I am glad I did
I never understood the hype around 24. I never got to see the first episode on TV of any series, and couldn't dedicate the time to it, so never gave it a chance.

Someone recently said it was like the Bourne Identity, which I loved and the box set was very reasonably priced on amazon at the time, so I thought I would give it a go.

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!! By the second episode I was hooked. The pace keeps on going through each episode, with more twists and turns than a roller coaster. OK so some of them are a little contrived, but you forgive the show, cos it is so clever. It sucks you in, to thinking you have worked out what is going on, then it twists the other way and you have to rethink everything.

Be warned though. It will take over your life, and you will not be able to turn it off