Season 4 of Fox’s “24” came out on DVD on Tuesday, with seven discs filled with making-of and commentary goodies that you’d expect, as well as a big surprise–a 10-minute prequel to Season 5.
Here’s what we learned:
The first snippet from the new season is set in Chicago, and a Chicago Tribune newspaper-vending box can be seen early on. Jack Bauer, who faked his own death at the end of last season, looks pretty scraggly, shaggy and beat-up. The new season takes place a year after the last finale ended, long enough for Bauer to have acquired some nasty-looking hair extensions.
Chloe arrives in the lonely Chicago parking lot where she’s hiding out to help Bauer. She says that someone has figured out (from trolling her computer hard drive) that Bauer is not really dead. Soon enough Bauer is running … running for his life! Well, he’s not really running, he’s driving for his life.
And it just so happens that in this car-chase sequence, Bauer’s driving a Toyota, the company that “presented” the Season 5 prequel. This chase scene eats up quite a few minutes of the 10-minute prequel.
Bauer’s fine in the end (what a shocker!). The bad dude in the BMW is not so lucky. But there’s a mysterious figure on a motorcycle who sees the whole chase go down. Could it be Nina Myers in disguise? Now that would be cool.
Anyway, that’s about all that’s on the prequel. Tick … tick … tick … only 40 more days until Season 5 of “24” premieres Jan. 15 on Fox.
