Television - Arab government backs band of terrorists. Relax, it's just drama

One of my favourite insights into American television was provided by the critic Charles Williams, who claimed that all popular narratives elaborated one plot: the family is threatened; the family is reunited. I haven't exactly tested this theory to destruction, but it certainly holds up for 24. The celebrated American thriller in which 24 hours in a security agent's life were told in real time or, to put it another way, slowed down to cover a 24-week season, last year held a gun to three families.

The first was the federal agent's. In a back-story, Jack Bauer's marriage had previously been threatened by his affair with his deputy, Nina. The family was only just healing when the "longest 24 hours" in Bauer's life began with the kidnap of his daughter Kim. Meanwhile, in a far from unrelated part of the plot, the presidential front-runner, David Palmer, also had domestic problems. His wife was so unscrupulously ambitious on his behalf that she was willing to procure a mistress for him, to calm his nerves. His son was under a shrink for his part in killing his sister's rapist.

As if their families' internal fissures were not enough, Bauer and Palmer's lives were directly threatened by the most dysfunctional clan of all, that of the imprisoned Balkan terrorist Victor Drazen (Dennis Hopper at his OTT best), whose boys were firmly embedded in the family business of assassinating westerners. Targets one and two: Palmer and Bauer.

By the end of the season, each family had been blown apart. Bauer's pregnant wife, in the second most shocking plot twist of the series, had been killed by the treacherous Nina (her treachery being the most shocking). Palmer had fired his wife. And the Drazens, even the back-from-the-dead dad, were no more. Thus while 24's originality was much praised for its time-scheme and split screens, Williams might argue that the real daring was to defy the format of family reunion. Whether Williams's claim is right or not, having your hero's wife abducted, beaten, raped, lose her memory and then killed off any way, was a huge offence against the still higher law of happy endings.

24's second season, which began on Sunday (BBC2, 10pm), had President Palmer, as he now is, trying to put in some quality time with his son on a fishing expedi- tion, only to be interrupted by an aide with news: "There's a situation, Mr President." Bauer's daughter is, on the other hand, not even returning her dad's phone calls because "every time I see you, I think of Mom".

Bauer's other family, the Counter Terrorist Unit in Los Angeles, is getting on ploddingly without him. The nervy pen-pusher, George Mason, is in charge and less than thrilled by the presidential diktat to get the "inactive" Bauer back in. But times are hard. A "triple-sourced" tip-off has terrorists in town, planning to nuke LA in - you're ahead of me - 24 hours. But even Bauer's surviving staff don't seem exactly tickled to see him.

Mind you, Jack, played with winning grimness by Kiefer Sutherland, does not seem to be quite the same man. The beard and lumberjack shirt place him only a couple of steps up from a down and out, and he has adopted the ethics of the meanest streets. When an informant is called in and he refuses to talk, Bauer shoots him on the spot. "That's the trouble with people like you, George," he tells Mason. "You want results, but you don't want to roll up your sleeves." What the widower Bauer needs is a little TLC in his life, and we'll be keeping half an eye on who might provide it before the long day is out.

She may be thrown up by one of the two new families we have to worry over. Kim is working as the nanny to one, and it is not a happy ship since the pater is a wife- and child-beater. The other is a plush LA family preparing for the wedding of its younger daughter to, oh dear, oh dear, a Middle Eastern-looking bloke with terrorist connections. The bride's suspicious elder sister is an attractive blonde (Sarah Wynter) who seems a little young to snare Bauer in just 24 hours, but you never know.

The most interesting new character so far, however, works for President Palmer: his aide, Eric (Timothy Carhart). Eric has a wonderful habit of making insubordination look like obsequiousness. "I don't want my own people working against me," says the president, played with just a dash of Oval Office pomposity by Dennis Haysbert. Eric replies: "Sir, I would never work against you" - which means we're going to spend spring trying to separate bluff from double-bluff.

The present world situation does not exactly help us escape into 24 as fantasy viewing, particularly since the terrorists this time are being backed by an unnamed Arab government, but still . . .

The scriptwriters plan only six episodes ahead at any one time. It will be such fun watching them dig holes for themselves, knowing that they have no idea how to get out of them. It may not have been the most thrilling pay-off to an episode ever, but I confess, when on Sunday Bauer shaved off his beard just before the credits rolled, I felt a little thrill.

Andrew Billen is a staff writer on the Times

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