The TV Zone

I had a productive chat with "24" honcho/show-runner Howard Gordon yesterday - "HoGo," I've long called him, though not to his face because he'd probably "Jack Bauer" me - and he had a lot of things to say. All interesting...

They'll be included in a "24" seventh-season curtain-raiser that'll run in this Sunday's Newsday (and I encourage you to buy a copy - this is a wonderful newspaper and we need subscribers).

In any event, one of my towering interests - among many related to this show - has to do with its future, and I asked Howard: Well, how many more seasons? And without further ado ... his answer:

"I take it one hour at a time. The important thing is to find the right end to the show. Kiefer feels this way [too] and it's entirely possible the eighth year will be the last year. This is me talking, but we'll know when it's time to leave. We won't want to be dressing a corpse. As long as we can figure out a story that means something to Jack - but we don't want to be glutinous about it and make it go on forever."

Is this posturing of the sort people in showbiz routinely go through - as routinely as you and I brush our teeth? You know that routine: Tell the network you just can't POSSIBLY do another season and then they throw another hundred million at you, and just like that, you can do another season ...

I don't think this is posturing, and here's why. Gordon's serious. By his account, production of the seventh, which launches Sunday, was torture - no pun intended - and he's not sure how much more life this franchise has in it. (Some fans started wondering the same during the sixth season.) This one actually went through three rewrites - sounds more like a feature grind than a TV one ...

My read: A la "Lost," Gordon, Bob Cochran and Sutherland et al. will start to lay the groundwork for a mega-finale season that'll draw new fans and reinvigorate the loyal base. Will this be the eighth or ninth? Beats me, but if numbers lag during the seventh, then it'll be the eighth. Yeah, it's heartbreaking to even contemplate the end of "24" but "Lost" will be gone soon enough - and so will "Battlestar Gallactica" and "Prison Break." All good things must ... you know the rest of the cliche.

Meanwhile, my super-quickie review of the seventh season's first four hours: They're good, often very good. You, dear fan, will be happy. That's a promise.