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I read somewhere that what Kiefer actually said was something along the lines of "I love you Sarah. Why did you marry Xander?" At which you have to give her an oscar just for not cracking up laughing.

If you mean what *Jack* actually said, that of course, is up to our imaginations. In my imagination, Jack uses a few more colourful words than he normally allows himself, along with "rest of your life" and "hunt you down".

Brilliant poll, only you forgot one:

All of the above

OK, well I will start us off with some more thoughts on torture!

There is a big time gap between seasons 2 and 3, and also a big gap in terms of where the characters are. Because torture was such a hot topic with the recent season, then when we went back to season 1, tih almost no torture, I've been asking myself where and how it all kicks off. And in what I've seen so far in season 3 (first 4 eps) there are two references that really strike me, although they're not in themselves all that dramatic. The first is Jack's remark that Salazar (I keep wanting to call him Slytherin) does not respond to physical interrogation. And we just know that Jack knows this because he's already tried it. Thoroughly. The second is when Jack and Chase catch the junkie and try to get info out of him - Jack gives Chase the nod and Chase stands on his bullet wound. OK, we get the picture that these two work well together and each anticipates the other's move, but what it reveals is that systematically hurting people has become, for them, routine. And that's a big step up from seasons 1 and 2.

BTW, I picked up in the library a book called The Interrogator's War: Inside the secret war against Al Qaeda by Chris Mackey. Its the memoirs of a US army interrogator in Afghanistan and is very interesting - at times sidesplittingly funny, and at times really, not. It is, I suppose, the reality view on all of this, and not surprisingly, the reality is very very different from fiction. Good background reading for fanfic writers!

The other thing I noticed was absent from season 1 is Jack's choke hold which he uses when he wants to take a friendly out of action temporarily (e.g. Curtis, FBI, etc). He doesn't use it at all in seasons 1 and 2. Here, we see him use it on Chase for the first time. Maybe he just learned it at a study day. (Incidentally, does anybody know if such a thing really works? It reminds me so much of that thing Spock does on the shoulder in Star Trek).

Nice to have you on board. I'm generally up for discussion on any aspect of 24, and have just started watching season 3.

OK, posting more now, and back to Jack. And the complete b*lls-up he makes of handling Hewitt. I mean, he already knew the guy had a psychiatric history, and in later seasons he deals with fragile people much better, but this time he completely mucks up, so that's interesting. The scene on the roof when he wants the helicopter to land is just pure 24. It sums the whole things up, doesn't it?

There was, in the 90's, an English cartoon called Stressed Eric. There are clips on Youtube if anyone's interested. Little stories about this poor man for whom everything goes wrong. He's a single dad, can't afford a pony for his daughter so she has to go to the gymkana on a donkey, that sort of thing. He has this vein on his temple that pulsates, the more stressed he gets, and if you watch an episode, you get stressed too. When Jack is on that roof, he reminds me so much of stressed Eric. Running about like crazy as if by shouting and waving his arms about he can really make that helicpoter land. He suddenly looks so small and powerless. Poor Jack.

The other scene I very much enjoy is when he tells Kim to shoot Gary. You can see it's ripping his heart out, because shooting people in the chest (twice) is what Jack does, not what he wants Kim to do. They both act it very convincingly and it almost makes up for the more tiresome plots that Kim has to go through to get here.

What they manage to do is to keep the tension and the action going to the very end. Of course they have the big fight scene in the last episode. But they also manage to keep the momentum in the penultimate episode, even when Jack just stays in the same building waiting for a helicpoter for an hour. What a great end to a great season.

Was watching Bourne Supremacy on the telly last night, realised that Jason Bourne shares the initials JB with James Bond and Jack Bauer!

Believe me, JA, what I wrote was not in criticism. On the contrary, given the task, I think they mostly do very well. It's an observation. When you think of some of the crazy stuff they do, and you can just imagine someone in a committee saying 'they'll never buy that', and then - guess what - we do! But it must be like flying blind - scary.

Hmmm. Like you, I'm not convinced. They could make someone *a bit* younger, but I accept they can't make Kiefer into a pre-season 1 Jack, because he has just changed too much. They could (like in the books) bring in new characters and then we wouldn't know if they get killed or transferred to Seattle.

I've been thinking some more about the fix they're in now, and I think I've realised something from some of the comments they sometimes make. That is, that they genuinely don't know whether something is going to work or not. They don't know if a theme comes across as convincing, plausible or just plain absurd. They don't know before they do it, and sometimes they don't even know after they've done it. I know it's a cliche, but they just can't see the wood for the trees.

Fingers crossed, I hope it pans out OK, and I really don't care if I have to wait a few extra weeks before the start of the season (remind me that next year). Traditionally they have really winged it a lot, and I think the series is now mature enough they just can't get away with that any more, or they start repeating themselves. The movie won't be bound by quite the same real-time constraints, so (theoretically) they should be able to be more innovative.  Could they set a movie after season 3 (Jack escapes rehab to save the world) and involve Tony? Michelle? But I'm sure even if the film was all new characters, if they introduce them right, it would work. Either way, if they need time to come up with new ideas, that's just fine.

Ah. Just goes to show how the eyes see what they're familiar with.

You have a point, pointing a gun at someone wouldn't normally be called torture. Now, a couple of questions. When Jack threatens to take Cofell's stomach lining out (and thereby kill him) was that torture? I think most people would understand Cofell to be Jack's first torture. So what's the difference if it's death by a bullet in the head. Now, if someone put a gun to year head and told you to do something that you didn't want to do (say, chant "I hate 24") - would that cause you severe emotional distress? I think the immediate threat of being killed has to cause severe emotional distress, which is covered in the definition of torture (in Wikipedia).

I'm sure Jack wouldn't consider this torture. I don't remember him ever using the word. He would think about pressure, interrogation, intimidation, gaining co-operation. I suppose I'm trying to work out how 24 got from season 1 (with sparing use of torture) to seasons 4 and 5, where it really gets too much. And what I'm finding is that it's really quite hard to draw the line.

OK, enough serious stuff. The scenes in the plane are wonderful - I do love to see Jack and Tony facing off. Great line I had never noticed before: (Jack about Yusuf Auda)

He's got some trust issues.

Jack's talking about trust issues! LOL.