sentences:  The New York Times said that, ""24" has stayed the course, for good and bad.The show that was once so innovative — in particular its real-time 24-hour countdown — has become creakily formulaic.The same elements — terrorists, counterterrorists (and, almost inevitably, a mole working for a high-level conspiracy), innocent bystanders and the president — are tumbled and reconfigured each season around the indispensable Bauer."