FOXTheir creative juices took a licking, so, for now, there'll be no more of that incessant ticking.
Fox has confirmed to E! News that there will be a brief hiatus in the production schedule of 24, with the series taking an 18-day break to allow its besieged writers additional time to work on—and, it seems, improve the quality of—scripts for the upcoming seventh season.
Kiefer Sutherland & Co. will cease flexing their acting chops on Sept. 15, after completion of the 18th episode of the January-starting season, and will resume production on Oct. 9.
Proof that even Jack Bauer can do with a break once in a while.
Despite the unscheduled three-week work stoppage, producers have assured viewers that the new season's launch will not be affected, nor will the planned two-hour 24 prequel, which is already in the can and set to air Nov. 24.
As for the break, 24 executive producer Howard Gordon wants fans to know the timeout is to prevent a dip in the show's quality, not because of one.
"We had a couple of scripts that we weren't happy with," he told Entertainment Weekly. "We just couldn't get this direction to work, and we found another one that we liked better, so we wound up retooling it.
"The only, only, only concern at all is getting it right. Our feeling was this: We're so happy with what we've done so far, and to the extent that we had that luxury [of time], we said, 'Why not make it as good as we could?'"
The cast and crew have been making it as good as they could, without pause, since last April, when they returned from the writers' strike and got straight to work on the series' long-pending new run.