Cherry's ripe for '24'

The next Maggie Thatcher...or Mrs. Bill Clinton?

'24' was undeniably a letdown last season. The story was uninvolving, the format tired and the casting unmemorable. And as nice as it was to have evil VP Powers Boothe on board, junior G-man Ricky Schroeder made it a net loss. Even Chloe was zero fun this time around.

Then there was the undercurrent of liberalism that reversed several seasons of the Red State mindset that had made the show so popular.

All this coming off what many consider the show's best season since the first. I did, and for once not because of Jack. It was the ultimate dysfunctional first family -- the Logans, played with understated energy and wild abandon by Gregory Itzin and Jean Smart respectively -- that had me tuning in to the last tick of the clock.

It would have been tough to top that killer tag team, but the show didn't even try -- instead putting Wayne "Weenie" Palmer in the Oval Office and not even having the common decency to keep him dead after an assassination attempt.

One casting confirmation for next season came out earlier this week, suggesting we might have something worth watching again.

Cherry Jones has signed to play the first female President in U.S. (and Jack Bauer's) history. It's a clear nod to the possibility of Hillary as... as... I can't even bring myself to say it.

Not sure which direction the show will take her politically, but it's an intriguing development. I've only seen Jones in M. Night Shyamalan's films, but she was memorable in both.

She could make either a fine, competent and convincing Lady Commander-in-Chief or a believable facsimile of what Hillary would be. And either one could be fun.

The article also addresses the murky politics of the creators.

"In a February article in The New Yorker magazine, [executive producer Joel] Surnow described himself as a rare conservative in Hollywood. But show producers say they hold a variety of political viewpoints and deny '24' takes a solely conservative approach, the magazine reported."


It's confusing in Wayne's World sometimes