24 and its relevance

One of my favorite shows on television right now is Fox's 24. The most basic premise of the show is that the main character, Jack Bauer, has to neutralize some kind of terrorist threat to the U.S. over the course of a day (aka 24 hours, get it?) It's not quite as simple as it sounds though, considering that the threat often changes in complexity and urgency and the men and women behind the the threat are often highly elusive or else working way below the actual mastermind of the plot. Also, he prefers to employ more extreme measures for stopping the threat at hand, such as "going dark" in undercover operations and brutal interrogations that generally include both threats and torture. I think this show does a great job of juxtaposing the issue of ethics and humanity in dealing with hardened criminals and terrorists with the issue of determining effective means of extracting information from these men and women in order to combat crime and terrorism. I also think that this show is so popular because these issues that it raises hit very close to home as far as our nation's current fight against terrorism and controversy over interrogation techniques.