TCA: ‘24: Live Another Day’: You can’t keep a good Jack down

Jack is back.

“24”, the hit series starring Kiefer Sutherland as embattled super spy Jack Bauer, is being resurrected as “24: Live Another Day” a 12-episode series that will debut May 5 on Fox. The original show ended in May 2010 after eight seasons.

“I’m as anxious and as frightened as I have been in a long time,” Sutherland said during a morning session at the Television Critics Assn. press tour promoting the project. He said “24” set a high standard that he hoped the new series could reach.

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“I’m very proud of the show, and to think about reaching that level again is pretty frightening,” Sutherland said.

Also starring in the new series is Mary Lynn Rajskub, who will reprise her role as Chloe O’Brian, the often irritated tech whiz who assisted Jack through his many missions. Others from the former series include Kim Raver and William Devane.

The new show picks up a few years after the original show ended, with Bauer a fugitive. He is being hunted by a CIA agent played by Yvonne Strahovski (“Dexter”). He re-enters the show on his own terms. But this time around, he is pitted against former ally Chloe, whose life as a government agent has taken an emotional toll. She has joined the free information movement as a moral radical.

“She is not the same person,” Executive Producer Howard Gordon said.

The news of Chloe’s return should ease the fears of fans who had expressed concern through Twitter that the character would not be included in a “24” revival.

The story will take place largely in London. Sutherland apologized in advance to London residents who might be inconvenienced by the ambitious productions, which will like produce traffic jams due to action sequences and explosions.

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“It will be cool to see the Tower of London in the background,” he said.

Like the original series, “24: Live Another Day” will take place over the course of a 24-hour day, which each episode taking place in real time. Because of the shortened episode order, some episodes may jump forward a couple of hours.

Sutherland said the story is not the same as the long-discussed feature film version of “24,” which has been a possibility since the original series ended.

While there are ongoing talks about the film, “this was the one that came up first,” Sutherland said. “If this ends up re-booting the series or getting the movie made, so be it.”

But he stressed that even if “24” comes back as a regular series, he won’t necessarily be a part of it.

“The star of the show has always been the concept,” he said.

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