Some TV shows are making their way quickly to post-strike prime time. Some are taking awhile and some are in limbo. There are even websites where you can go and weigh in on your opinion.
But one show that is not being talked about much is “24,” and I’m not sure why. Fox made the decision to hold off on the popular Kiefer Sutherland series until January of 2009. 2009!

This means that it will be 19 months between episodes—that’s more than a year and a half! I can’t remember the last time a series went that long off the air and retained its audience. Perhaps Fox believes that people will just buy DVD collections to get their Jack Bauer fix, or maybe they believe absence makes the heart grow fonder even among a fickle TV-watching public. Perhaps they just don’t think anything that good will come along to replace it. But to wait that long is, I believe, ridiculous.
Fox’s reasoning is that, due to the strike, they wouldn’t be able to air 24 consecutive episodes of the series. At least that’s their announced reasoning. However, they had so many options. They could have showed two shows a night for 12 weeks, which would have been so well-received. They could have done back-to-back doubleheader nights to kick it off and then the same at the end. For that matter, they could have even allowed some original TV to stretch into the summer.
I believe that once the Super Bowl is past, Fox has lost their big marketing audience. If so, what a shame that marketing dictated whether or not the show would run or not.
I find “24” one of the more inspiring shows on TV and I’m sorry it’s not on this year. I enjoy watching it with my kids and the discussions that accompany it. Worse, though, I still haven’t heard a good reason yet. 19 months “off” is too dang long.