Blu-ray Review: 24 Season 7

Recently clocking in on Blu-ray was the 7th season of Fox’s 24. It’s no secret that the show’s 6th season was a failure of epic proportions. No one seemed to buy the boring soap opera and over the top events the writers were selling in Day 6. So Season 7 really was facing a uphill battle: coming off of the worst season critically and facing an abnormal broadcast hiatus; the Writer’s Guild Strike prevented the show from airing in January of 2008.

But those problems were no match for Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland). Day 7 was a fresh reboot for the series and was ushered in by the much-loved TV movie, 24 Redemption, last fall. This time around things were much different, the backdrop was Washington, D. C. and Jack’s old buddy Tony Almeida was discovered to not only be alive, but to seemingly be working for the bad guys.

Speaking of the bad guys, their plot this time around was nothing short of outrageous, but that’s an acceptable fault at this point in the show’s history. Expect more big time attacks and ridiculous idealism from Jack’s enemies.

This season also marked some excellent cast additions. Quickly joining the ranks of the 24 beloved is Annie Wersching, who plays FBI agent Renee Walker. Jon Voight also turns a top notch performance as Jonas Hodges, the uber foe that can deliver destructive commands and hilarious one-liners all in one breath. Cherry Jones was also solid as President Olivia Taylor, a welcome change from the annoying and indecisive Wayne Palmer.

This being the first Blu-ray release of the show, I was happy to be able to rewatch in high-definition, like the show was meant to be watched. Picture quality is superb and you’ll find yourself quickly loading the next episode as you encounter a cliffhanger.

There aren’t a ton of special features, but the ones that are included are really awesome.

The behind the scenes feature is very insightful and details a lot about the writing challenges that the show faced in the last 2 years and how they crafted the story of the pit stop in Africa and the move to the nation’s capital.

Another awesome feature is the a behind-the-camera feature of an explosive scene that occurs later on in the season. I won’t say too much as to avoid spoilers, but a large building is blown up. Of course, the show depicts this story The real time format and the necessity to catch every scene from multiple angles simultaneously made this explosion-fill sequence quite the challenge.

24 defied the odds and made an awesome comeback in its last season and this Blu-ray is a must own for any fan of the series. Newcomers, as always, should start this awesome saga with Season 1 episode 1 and work your way up to the last season.