New season of "24" as powerful as ever

How could they do it again? In the first season, Jack Bauer saved a presidential candidate's life, Bauer's daughter was kidnapped several times and his wife was raped and murdered. In the second season, Bauer prevented a nuclear attack, single-handedly averted a war that would have engulfed the Middle East, was tortured essentially to death and later brought back to life. In the third season, Jack's lover (the wife of a drug lord) was killed and Jack, though addicted to heroin, managed to save the country from a biological attack that would have wiped out 90 percent of the population.

What could possibly happen next? In true "24" fashion, after four hours, we still don't know season four's looming disaster. Sure, a train has already been bombed, and Bauer has already shot three people, held up a convenience store and had a fistfight with another Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU) agent. In addition, Bauer's girlfriend and her father, the Secretary of Defense (Bauer's new boss), have already been kidnapped, and Islamist extremists are broadcasting the Secretary's war crimes trial and execution over the Internet. Even so, we know the terrorists are up to something bigger.

Not only is season four the series' fastest starting (in terms of gunshots, explosions and torture); it is also the most ridden with conflict. Erin Discoll, the new director of CTU, is a terrible hard-line administrator resented by every one of her employees, including the ditsy brown-noser, the computer nerd with limited competence, the well-meaning agent being blackmailed by an ex-girlfriend and, of course, poor socially challenged Chloe O'Brian. Though Discoll previously fired Bauer for being a former heroin addict, he can't seem to keep his hands off an international incident.

Along with the new batch of crime fighters (only Bauer and O'Brian remain from previous seasons), we have a brand-new group of terrorists. The villains are an innocent-looking, middle-class, Arab-American family with, of course, innumerable henchmen. Conflict immediately arises between the overbearing parents and their teenage son Behrooz when he refuses to shoot his girlfriend, who happened to see Behrooz's father's warehouse. His mother poisons the girl and tells her son, "I'm so disappointed in you."

The best thing yet about this season of "24" is that it's another season of "24." The split screens, the real time, the great acting and the amazing screenplays may not seem as groundbreaking as they did three years ago, but this season is just as intense as the others. Oh, and FOX finally got rid of Kim, which makes the show even more watchable.

"24" will air every Monday from 9 to 10 p.m. on FOX.