TV Review: Fox’s '24: Live Another Day'

Fox premieres 24: Live Another Day—returning Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer—on Monday May 5, 8 p.m. ET. The series will move to its regular 9 p.m. time slot on May 12. The following are reviews from TV critics around the web, compiled by B&C.

“Jack Bauer is back, and enthusiasm regarding 24: Live Another Day (or really, at 12 episodes, another half-day) will likely be split, depending on whether news of the project evoked, ‘Wow! Can’t wait!’ or, ‘Seriously? Again? Just how desperate is Fox?’ As a member of the latter camp — why not let the man find a nice beach somewhere instead of dragging this out into Expendables territory? — it’s safe to note that the two-hour premiere is ably executed and effectively paced, which is to say, like sundry past seasons. For Fox, along with comfort-and-catharsis-seeking viewers, that’s probably enough.”
—Brian Lowry, Variety

“It’s that rigid adherence to what the original 24 was that ultimately hurts 24: Live Another Day the most. The more the story sprawls away from Jack and Chloe, the more it becomes easy to let the mind wander. 24 was always a show with a finger dangling in the world of politics, but Live Another Day plunges the whole hand in in ways that aren’t always convincing.”
—Todd VanDerWerff, A.V. Club

“So will his return to the new landscape make him seem as old and out of date as ‘portable’ phones with antennas? Not at all. Black hoodie aside, Jack, and Sutherland looks great. And so does Chloe, now a punked-out underground hacker for justice a la Edward Snowden and the new CTU team, including Yvonne Strahovski, whose agent Kate Morgan looks suspiciously like spin-off material.”
—Mary McNamara, Los Angeles Times

“Pop Culture Revivals are never exactly what you want them to be. Even the best ones—Arrested Development, the Veronica Mars movie—are tainted with zombie musk. 24: Live Another Day—a reanimation of Kiefer Sutherland's thriller, which clocked out four years ago—shambles back sadder than most. Despite the high-grade action, the premiere is more a showcase for everything that was bad about 24 than a reminder of everything that was good.”
—Jeff Jensen, Entertainment Weekly

“As it returns, four years after it left, 24: Live Another Day can and should only be judged on one metric: Is it entertaining? And that, happily, is a real no-brainer: Of course it's entertaining. Anyone who fist-pumped to ‘Jack Is Back’ knows that the allure of the series is in our hero (OK, sure, antihero), beating all odds to escape some incredibly complex jams and save the world from complete doom. It's why we watch. Or it should be why.”
—Tim Goodman, The Hollywood Reporter