24 set to return, but without Jack Bauer

Long-running TV series 24 will return for another series entitled 24: Legacy, Fox Television have confirmed, despite the absence of lead character Jack Bauer.

Kiefer Sutherland has played Jack Bauer in the previous seasons of the popular action show, which is based around a counter-terrorism unit and their day-long response to a different terrorist attack every season.

Fox Chairman and CEO Dana Walden revealed the news at the Television Critics Association today (January 15), saying:

24 had previously returned in 2014, with Sutherland, for a twelve-show shortened series entitled 24: Live Another Day.

Sutherland stated in mid-2015 that the show “is definitely over now for me.”

24 originally ran for eight seasons and 192 episodes between 2001 and 2010, and is considered the longest-running US espionage-themed TV drama ever having outlasted other iconic spy shows including The Avengers and Mission: Impossible.

A pilot episode for the new series is expected to shoot shortly.

“It’s a new CTU, a new cast of characters. It’s a completely different story in terms of the special ops groups that we’re focusing on. It’s a very contemporary feeling story about the potential to activate new sleeper cells in the United States and radicalizing Americans. It’s a whole new story.

There are nods in the pilot to prior CTU agents, there are a couple photos that will feel reminiscent of the original, but no ongoing [return] characters.”

“There’s also a female co-lead who is a former head of CTU. It doesn’t feel like it is fully replicating the original in terms of how much Jack Bauer carried by himself, but it’s a very prominently featured lead.”