Jack Bauer's 24 Days of Pizza

Ingredients

• 1/4 lb of anthrax (not recommended)
• 2 ¼ tsp active dry yeast
• 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 enormous Dennis Haysbert
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 terrible filler storylines
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 3 cloves garlic
• Dennis Hopper's war crime of a Serbian accent
• 2 cups fresh spinach
• 1 cup ricotta cheese
• 1 ½ cups shredded mozzarella cheese
• ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
• ½ tsp red pepper flakes
• ½ tsp dried oregano
• 2–3 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves, finely chopped
• Unlimited stock terrorists

I just cannot get over my love of the early aughts network TV thriller series 24. I’ll never get over it. I know there are better shows. I know there are much better shows.

But, for me, this is The One. This is the block of raw espionage action material sitting squarely in the center of my reptilian brain stem.

It’s immovable. It’s permanent. It’s me.

But why? The answer, very simply, is timing.

I was 17 on September 11^th, 2001. I was a suburban kid using a brain soaked in cortisol and testosterone, bursting with the kinetic energy absorbed from comic books and action movies.

Forget target demographic. I was available for and amenable to true radicalization.

I’m being serious. I don’t think 24 hit anyone harder than it hit me. If you wear a 24 tattoo or have read all the mass market paperback novels or something, then maybe your fanhood is a degree truer than mine, but until I meet that psychopath, I’ll claim first position in this knighthood.

As a teen, I had no grip on reality. I didn’t want one. I wasn’t happy at home or in school. Critical pieces of my self and life weren’t missing, they just flat-out did not exist. They had not formed yet. Critical thinking, tact, and self-confidence—for starters—were just ideas I’d heard of, maybe. Those items and others weren’t in my inventory. I was deeply unfinished. I dealt with this by throwing myself and my mind as far and as fast as I could. I stayed out of my house. I spent inordinate time with friends or people I thought I wanted for friends. I knew the inside of local pool halls, gyms, libraries, coffee houses, movie theaters and comic book stores too well.

The value of a show like 24 to a kid like that, at a time like that, wasn’t just stimulation. It was occupation.

24, by dint of its subject matter, quality and—this is important—format, offered a lockbox for my attention.

I gave it my rabidity, it gave me a vivid fantasy extension of a world I recognized.

Over years,—those years, 2001 through 2010: The Patriot Act, The War on Terror, The US Invasion of Iraq, Abu Ghraib—a filmic and novel piece of high-concept IP reflected the nightly news back to my hungry eyes in the form of a keyed-up serialized action drama peopled with telegenic TV actors, brimming with elaborate action sequences, and told with reasonably (and reliably) high quality.

No drug could have provided a more satisfying high.

My parents divorced during my senior year of high school. One night, I came downstairs and slotted a Pop Tart in the toaster and walked away.

What likely happened next, as our local firefighters later explained, was a simple mishap: The Pop Tart broke upon ejection, lodged, and created a dangerous little pocket of excessive heat, and caused the toaster to ignite. Our kitchen and some of the first floor of our home was destroyed.

I spent the next nights at my best friend’s house and then later my family (there were five of us, I was the oldest child by seven years) moved into two adjoining rooms in an Embassy Suites one town over. I imagine that my parents—my dad in particular for some reason—wondered what appalling crime they must have committed in some past life to earn such a sentence: to be penned in, over months, with the party from which they are actively trying to divorce.

I stayed away from the hotel as much as I could, but I needed to sleep somewhere.

That spring, I took lifeguard training classes at my high school in the evening. Afterward, I’d shower in the locker room, before heading out to my next timekiller. But on Thursdays, I did drive back to the hotel. I needed to catch this urgent and violent new show called, simply, 24.

I had first caught a glimpse of a 24 TV commercial in the Phoenix airport while heading home from a college tour.

Kiefer Sutherland, an actor I recognized from Young Guns and maybe Flatliners sprinted–silenced pistol drawn–through a dark office hallway, a few glints of electric yellow emergency lights reflecting off his weapon and highlighting his hair (or at least that's how I remember it).

It had some of the look of the TV thrillers of the time but–finally–sped up and blown out. It singaled more overlap with N64's Goldeneye than any contemporary drama. It announced, instantly, as The Action Show.

One night, I got lucky and found the hotel room empty. I had the TV and the room to myself. I watched in peace and solitude, totally enraptured, as 24’s man of action Jack Bauer investigated an enigmatic government facility out in the middle of the woods at night.

He triggered an electronic alarm and, under the assault of strobing security lights, faced off against two new enemies decked out in full riot gear, wielding tasers and batons.

And Jack lost the fight! He was overpowered, captured, and dragged into the mysterious subterranean shelter. The episode ended on a perfect cliff hanger.

“Best show on television,” I said aloud, to myself, to no one. And I meant it.

I missed some episodes because of banalities like sports and other immoveable obligations, including–heartbreaker–the finale; an episode I didn't view until the night I bought the DVD box set on release day at midnight from a 24-hour Wal-Mart.

I–a manic and alcohol-buzzed college freshman non-employee–was the one to pull apart the box of to-be-stocked merchandise on the floor of the electronics section.

Instructions

Step 1: Battle the Dough

1. In a small bowl, dissolve the yeast and sugar in warm water. Let it sit for 5–10 minutes until it bubbles and froths.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour and salt. Add the yeast mixture and olive oil, then mix until a dough forms.
3. Knead the dough on a floured surface for about 8–10 minutes until smooth.
4. Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a damp cloth, and let it rise for 1–2 hours, or until it doubles in size.

As of this writing (February 2025), 24 has seemingly run its course. We haven't seen Jack since 2014.

Revival rumors recur regularly. A movie is alleged.

I'd bet we'll eventually get Jack's return in some form or another, but nothing is promised.

If you've followed his saga, returning to the beginning is a bittersweet experience.

The pilot episode drops us into the Bauer home (seemingly upper middle class Los Angelinos) just past midnight on the day of the California Presidential Primary.

The Bauers–husband Jack, wife Teri, teenage daughter Kim–are up late. Jack and Kim wrap up their chess game while Teri clicks away on her laptop. (Why is there a bench press in the family room?)

Jack wears sweats, snacks on yogurt, hangs his arm around Teri. He smiles.

Then the phone rings. This is, really, the single turning point of the character's life.

If you know what the next decades will put him through, you know that it starts now: when his second-in-command Nina Myers calls him back into his office at the Los Angeles Counter Terrorist Unit on the day of this California Presidential Primary.

Step 2: Activate the Oven

1. Preheat your oven to 475°F (245°C). If using a pizza stone, place it in the oven while it preheats.

Act 1

The show begins (launches is a better word) at midnight and, famously, "events occur in real time," so the whole affair concludes at midnight the following night.

Season 1 is divided into two acts.

In the first, Jack's family is kidnapped. The perpetraitors squeeze Jack to assassinate ascendent US Presidential candidate David Palmer.

Our man must outwit the enemies to save his family and neutralize the plot against Palmer simultaneously. He contends with multiple traitors, an endless wave of enemies to battle, a few hours as a fugitive from the police himself, and, always, the ticking clock.

A full first season was never guranteed, so the first half of season one, the midnight-to-noon arc, is self-contained.

Step 3: Detonate the Spinach

1. Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the minced garlic and sauté for about 30 seconds, until fragrant.
2. Add the spinach and 1 tablespoon of fresh thyme (or ½ teaspoon dried thyme). Cook until wilted (about 2–3 minutes). Season with a pinch of salt and black pepper. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

The first story arcs are the strongest. The material in episodes 1–6 must have had the benefit of more time to bake.

Jack rolls into his CTU where we meet his colleagues and get a sense of the persistent strain in the office: He recently turned in his own crooked agents and now he's a polarizing figure at best.

And it's easy to see why Jack is disliked. He's terse and offkey. I did not remember him being so unlikeable.

But character is about to get thrown in the back seat anyway because a major crisis has ignited. An urgent and credible assassination threat against California Senator David Palmer arises; a US commercial airliner is spectacularly downed; and daughter Kim sneaks out of the house to party with some strange new friends (with secret ties to Bauer's enemies).

In a swift batch of episodes, the story advances.

Bauer (and his writers) methodically pull us into the deeper waters of this thriller with precise and speedy storytelling. We get shootouts in darkened office buildings. A mystery body in a trunk. A jailbreak. And the sun hasn't even risen yet.

This is the good stuff.

Step 4: Interrogate the Ricotta

1. In a small bowl, mix the ricotta cheese with 1 tablespoon of fresh thyme (or ½ teaspoon dried thyme), a pinch of salt, and black pepper to taste.

Act 2

Two decades later, 24 was revived as two limited series (24: Live Another Day and 24: Legacy).

Each of these was only 12 episodes long, not actually 24 and each materially benefitted from the compressed real estate.

Season 1's most serious problems occur in the run of episodes between the two major arcs. Call it a midday slump.

This is where the real-time format works against the show: There's filler because there's just too much space to fill.

Jack thwarts the assasination attempt and rescues his kidnapped wife and daughter by noon. Good man.

But, turns out, he was only facing the Junior Varsity squad.

The true heavies show up afterward with a more serious gameplan.

So now we have to start all over. New tensions must be built. New story beats must be earned. New traitors must be unmasked. Seeds must be planted in midday to be reaped nearer midnight.

The show doesn't exactly grind to a halt here, but nearly.

This is when the rattiest of story beat reserve parachutes like AMNESIA and DRUG DEAL GONE BAD are deployed.

It's painful to get through these hours. But our perserverence is rewarded.

When 24 was near the peak of its popularity, a rumor circulated that Jack Bauer and Die Hard's John McClane would meet in a feature film. A crossover action spectacular.

That was clearly a terrible idea and the universe is better for it never happening–but why was that even conceivable in the first place?

Because of the final eight episodes of 24's first season.

This is where the show regains its footing and climbs nearer the action Olympus of a Die Hard.

A sequence of legitimately interesting clues bring us out into the woods just past 7 PM. Jack, alone and desperate, wanders a patch of remote woods where he has reason to believe SOMETHING is about to go DOWN.

And he's right.

The sun sets and we're back to the good stuff again: A secret Department of Defense prisoner holding facility, a rogue Serbian war criminal (played by Dennis Hopper) returns from the dead, Punisher vans careen into bad guy hideouts, a MAJOR character makes a heartbreaking villain turn, nighttime shootouts on docks, and then finally a head-on car crash/gunfight between former allies.

In 2001, this was sumblime network TV.

There just wasn't anything else that approached this level of genre glory.

24 would go on to summit other peaks of quality over its eight year run. But this was its first.

Step 5: Execute the Pizza

1. Roll out the pizza dough on a floured surface to your desired thickness. If using a pizza stone, sprinkle cornmeal on a pizza peel or baking sheet to prevent sticking.
2. Brush the dough lightly with olive oil.
3. Spread ricotta-thyme mixture evenly across the dough.
4. Scatter the sautéed spinach and garlic over the ricotta.
5. Sprinkle the mozzarella cheese evenly.
6. Add grated Parmesan cheese, a sprinkle of oregano, and red pepper flakes.
7. Finish with the remaining thyme over the top.

Midnight

24's television premiere aired on november 6, 2001 (delayed a month by 9/11); the finale on May 21, 2002. America went to war in Iraq in March 2003.

The show was born amongst, battled through, and trafficked in the very guts a very specific and consequential era of modern American history. It knocked hard against current events in ways that were fitting, prescient and challenging. It was also–and this is critically important–commercial entertainment.

As an exercise in genre, I would argue that 24 is a formal success. The structure, plotting and tension are exemplary.

The flaws of the first season are self-evident; but, what the hell, everyone involved is clearly trying their damndest to make a 24-hour Die Hard movie. And they just got so much of it right.

And, as we know, they'll get more time to work on their recipe. They've earned it.

Step 6: Serve Justice

1. Transfer the pizza to the preheated oven (or pizza stone) and bake for 8–12 minutes, or until the crust is golden and the cheese is bubbly and slightly browned.
2. Remove from the oven and let the pizza cool for a couple of minutes before violently slicing.

Extra Revenge Garnish

• Drizzle with olive oil or balsamic glaze.
• Add a few fresh thyme sprigs for a fragrant presentation.
• Sever a terrorist's thumb and use it later to advance the plot.