24 Legacy: What Did You Think?

Did any of you watch the 24 Legacy premiere? Since I was a big Jack Bauer fan on the original 24 I wasn't sure if I would like this series. But, oh, it was good to hear that clock ticking again.

The show started off with a bang with a team of Army Rangers (a team that had killed a terrorist named bin Khalid) being picked off one by one---until they get to team leader Eric Carter. He manages to escape with his wife and calls the old head of CTU, Rebecca Ingram. Only three people knew the new identities of the Army Ranger team, and one of them was the new head of CTU, Keith Mullins.

Rebecca agrees to help Carter find the last surviving member of the team, Ben Grimes, and keep the op from the new CTU head. (That never goes well, if past 24's are anything to go by.) Ben is a drifter and not thinking straight, so it takes some maneuvering to find him. (The new tech is no Chloe, but he'll do in a pinch I guess.) When Carter mentions the assassins were looking for a strongbox that was taken from bin Khalid that night, Ben goes to his hiding place and retrieves it. Carter finally catches up with Ben, and they empty the box to find a flash drive with bin Khalid's network of sleeper cells, with their activation codes. Before Carter can take it in, he's faced with another terrorist team trying to kill him, and when he dispatches them all, Ben is gone with the flash drive. He's not going to give it back, either, unless he's paid two million dollars by the U.S. or bin Khalid's people, he doesn't care. Poor Carter is stuck trying to figure out how to get the money without getting himself killed.

Of course there are several side stories going on with Eric's wife and his drug-dealing brother, a girl in a high school who is planning to do something terrible (and a teacher is in on it) and the husband of Rebecca Ingram who is running for president.

I thought the pacing was really well done and my attention was riveted the entire time. Even without Jack, I think this series has a real chance of finding its own audience because of the sheer intensity of the subject matter. The characters have drawn me in and I can't wait for next week.

If you watched it, what did you think?