“24”

Fox, Mondays at 9 p.m.

Although this season of “24” has had its ups and downs, Monday’s episode was by far the best episode of the show since last season’s finale.

“24” is always at its best when it forces its heroes to make emotional choices between their loved ones and the well being of the country in seemingly impossible situations. This week we had the cuckoo first lady finding out that the Russian ambassador was to be killed and putting herself in the line of fire so that the President does something to stop the assassination.

Should President Logan do everything he can to stop the assassination and let nerve gas be released throughout the United States, or should he let the assassination take place and stop the deaths of thousands of Americans. Now that is great television.

Oddly enough, Jack wasn’t seen much throughout the episode and when he was, he acted like a human who makes mistakes instead of his usual never-wrong killing machine characterization. I like this new Jack Bauer and hope he sticks around because he is so much more interesting than what we’ve seen recently.

With all that excellence going on elsewhere, imagine my surprise that my favorite part of the show was the CTU storyline. The hour reminded me why I liked these characters so much in the first place before they just spouted off boring statistics.

Contact ALL reporter Robert Taylor at [email protected].