Tick, Tick, Snooze

Two years ago, I was so keyed up for the four-hour season premiere of "24" that I couldn't wait until the big night. Instead, I badgered a co-worker until he gave me his advance copy and I stayed up all night watching it. This year I got my own early copy of the "24" season premiere, its seventh—and this time I thought about badgering a co-worker to take it off my hands and watch it for me. For two weeks, it sat on my desk, a dreaded chore, not a savored treat.

The problem isn't that "24" has changed too quickly. It's that everything is exactly the same. Before I watched a moment of the new season, I could guess way too much about it: there would be a huge terrorist threat, a shadowy conspiracy inside the president's inner circle and a couple of characters who get blown away just before they say something really important. Where's the innovation, "24"?

This was supposed to be the season when the writers shook things up, and they have, at least cosmetically. The action has been shifted from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C. And this time, windup badass Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) is recruited by the FBI instead of the fictional Counter-Terrorism Unit, an agency with such frequent and unconscionable security breaches that I'd become convinced there was a magical wardrobe leading into the server room. But the show is still loaded with the same clichés—they've just been moved 3,000 miles east. This was all exciting and relevant back in the Bush era, when people paid attention to threat-level updates. Now it feels dated. The show's trademark clock keeps on ticking, but it's time to give Jack a gold watch.