Welcome To Elizabeth's Place!: Comic-Con Backstage: Kiefer Sutherland discusses the possible end of '24'

Kiefer Sutherland's Return To Television Gets Cautious Praise

Kiefer Sutherland can't have felt anything but pressure as his first major TV role since 10 phenomenal years spent on '24' aired for the first time last night (26 January 2012).
Fans and critics were certainly eager to see how the Canadian actor was going to follow up what has come to be known as one of the iconic TV characters of the 21st century in secret agent Jack Bauer.
'Touch,' which sees Sutherland playing a single father of a mute son who sees things other cannot, aired last night for the first time - and the answer to whether he's managed to follow up what may be career defining role successfully?
A cautious yes, according to the critics.
Newsday was effusive in its praise, saying the program was "A bit melodramatic, a bit manipulative, Touch is still one of the best pilots of the 2011-12 season to date," and others were similar praiseworthy though understandably a little more cautious given it was the pilot episode.
"It's Mr. Sutherland's portrayal of the father--unyielding in his effort to break through to his mute child and grasp what he's trying to say with his numbers--that is the heart of this story, the power likely to sustain this promising enterprise," said the Wall Street Journal, whilst
TV Guide said "[Touch is] emotionally compelling but wildly fantastical and undeniably manipulative."Not all were enthused though, The New York Times commented "The 11-year-old boy at the center of the story has never spoken and is also the show's narrator.
It's a perfectly acceptable device, if not a particularly interesting one in this case," whilst the Los Angeles Times weren't fans at all, stating "Ironically, given a show that so clearly wants to touch its audience--from that weighty one-word title on down--we have met, apart from Martin, hardly a single character who incorporates more than the hint of an actual person.
"Contactmusic

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Comic-Con Backstage: Kiefer Sutherland discusses the possible end of '24'

Jack Bauer will return for another Day of "24" starting next January on FOX. That means that once again, Jack has cheated death. Even if we establish, though, that Jack Bauer is essentially a television immortal, time may still be running out for Kiefer Sutherland's gun-toting alter-ego.

"I don't know with regards to 'The Last Season' or anything," Sutherland told reporters backstage after the "24" Comic-Con panel on Friday (July 24). "I really don't. It is the last season that I've been contracted to do '24,' but I really don't know. We're so focused on making Season Eight. But obviously the requirements would be that the writers felt that they could really bang it out. If Howard [Gordon] came to me and say, 'The way I saw those last scenes play, I have an idea for Season Nine that would be unbelievable,' I would have to listen to him for that. I think we're all very away of wanting to protect what we believe is a very strong and important legacy that is '24.' All of those things. Again, the choices to do or not to do it have nothing to do with my contract, have everything to do with whether or not an audience still wants to watch it and cares and whether or not we feel we have something to offer."

"My sense, and I think today kind of confirms it, I think fans kinda root for Jack and I think I kinda root for him as well and I think people would like to see him at least have the option to have a good life," Sutherland said. "We've stripped a lot of those components away over the years, by virtue of killing everybody, that whether he wants to live or die seemed to become kind of innocuous, like 'Who cares?' There was nothing really to live for. So what we did for this season is to really try to create something that would make Jack want to live. We started off with just this relationship between he and his daughter and his granddaughter and her husband and that family, because his family was literally torn apart after Season One."

Sutherland added, "For me as an actor and Jack as a character, the desire for Season Eight is to protect all of the things that would make living worthwhile and also live within the context of what he morally accept himself doing or not doing."

How will Sutherland react to the end of his run as Jack Bauer, whether it comes after next season or several years down the road?

"I think it's gonna be very complicated," he said." Whether this is our last season or next season's our last season, we certainly know we're on the shorter end of the stick than the longer one."

He continued, "In Season One and Season Two, it's such a shock to your body, the workload, that you can't wait for it to be done. And somewhere and somehow in the groove of everything, you start to get into a rhythm of it and you find ways to make it easier for yourself... I know for a fact that it's not gonna be 'Wahoo!' It's gonna be a combination of a lot of things and it's not gonna be easy."

http://www.hitfix.com/articles/2009-7-25-comic-con-backstage-kiefer-sutherland-discusses-the-possible-end-of-24