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I confess, I only got part of the way through the four-hour season premiere of FOX's 24. It would have been hard to believe when this show premiered in 2001 that it would have the legs to begin a seventh season, but then again, 2001 was an appropriate year to premiere a series about counterterrorism [life imitates art, again?].

I started watching it because of the real-time structure, and the producers have had the good sense to keep that, even when it has created credibility issues. Before 24, it was difficult to explain the concept of "real time" to students, now it's relatively easy. That's something.

What is hardest to take is Jack Bauer's constant sense of urgency, Kiefer Sutherland's earnest-o.d. is exhausting to watch, to the point of self-parody. Sure enough, season 7 begins with a congressional hearing at which Bauer admits to using torture against terrorist suspects, but has to be excused on national security grounds because there are more bad guys to catch and torture. It's as though Bauer is one part James Bond and one part Dick Cheney.

On the other hand, 24 gave us an African-American president before our current president-elect was on the national scene, and any show that gets Janeane Garofalo on weekly network tv can't be all bad.