‘24’ pushes envelope with terrorist strike

Through four TV seasons, Fox’s thriller “24” has propelled fans through some fearlessly over-the-top plot twists.

One season, for example, hinged on how intelligence operative Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) narrowly helped foil a nuclear bombing that would have wiped out Los Angeles.

The writers might have outdone themselves, though, with Monday night’s episode, which ended with terrorists blasting Air Force One out of the sky.

President Keeler (Geoff Pierson) was on board, and while his condition won’t be revealed until next week, it’s safe to assume he won’t make the next White House photo op.

Putting a commander in chief in mortal danger is a staple of the thriller genre. In the 1997 film “Air Force One,” for instance, Harrison Ford played a president who squared off against hijackers, and NBC’s “The West Wing” incorporated an assassination attempt into its plot.

But actually dispatching the leader of the free world in an act of mayhem generally is considered a no-no, even within the realm of popular fiction.

Fox executives – not known for their squeamishness, as evidenced by leering fare including “Temptation Island” and “Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire?” – raised flags when “24” writers proposed a spectacular finale for Pierson’s character.

“They felt like (killing the president) was over the line,” says Howard Gordon, an executive producer who co-wrote the episode.

After raising concerns about an early draft of the script, network executives reached a consensus with the producers about the exact fate of Pierson’s character and details such as how much of the attack would be shown.

By dramatizing a successful terrorist attack on a president, “24” is going further than other dramas have dared, especially when the memories of the Sept. 11 attacks remain vivid.

For Fox, the stakes are high because “24” has spent much of this season recovering from a shaky ratings performance last year.

The show has never become a huge mainstream hit, relying instead on a modest but devoted fan base.

Gordon speculated that viewers grew bored last season with episodes that charted Bauer’s interactions with a drug lord. New episodes have corrected that problem, he believes, by returning Bauer to his more natural element as an antiterrorist agent.

Fox moved the series to Mondays starting in January, which robbed it of its potent “American Idol” lead-in.

Still, viewership has climbed 26 percent, to an average of 12.3 million viewers, according to figures from Nielsen Media Research.

Ratings in the crucial young-adult demographic are up 21 percent.