When I first sat down and watched Season 1 of "24" 5 or so years ago, I didn't know quite what I was getting into. I knew the basic outline of the show - 24 contiguous hours in the life of a person involved in counter-terrorism. I also knew that Keifer Sutherland was going to be the star. What I found was a pretty good thriller/action show with some drama (and no small amount of melodrama) tossed in for good measure.

As the seasons progressed, terrorists began coming up with more and varied ways of spreading panic, terror, etc. In response, CTU (the show's "Counter Terrorism Unit") and Sutherland's character Jack Bauer come up with more ways of fighting them and of prolonging the plots, subplots, sub-subplots, and underlying subplots below the sub-subplots. This is, of course, to be expected considering it's quite literally a day in the life and if they showed Jack Bauer using the facilities, eating, sleeping, showering, and the rest of the mundane events which constitute most normal people's days, it would be far less interesting.