Canter Bridge

Just when it seemed that 24 couldn’t get any better, it did. A lot better.

Season Four introduces the usual agonizing plot twists but adds several exceptional new players: ‘Edgar’, Chloe’s geeky (and ample) sidekick, Secretary of Defense Joseph Heller, his daughter Audrey, and the steely, purposeful terrorist Marwan.

Jack Bauer continues as the show’s pivot: preternaturally principled in defense of his country, tactically beyond the pale, always on the edge of love but never quite achieving it.

The show is riveting, compelling, addictive. Superlatives need not apply, we’ve already got most of the available ones on salary and hard at work.

Good grief, this is excellent television, a periodic DVD treat that’s right up there with fried scrapple, my mother’s macaroni and cheese, and just one or two other really good things.