While I was gripped by the first season of "24" from beginning to end, there were times when it derailed and you could feel series co-creators Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran struggling to get things back on track. Its short-term and long-term goals became habitually misaligned, and its 180-degree turns grew progressively predictable: after a few of them, we started steeling ourselves for the next elbow in the story, and the more desperate, soap-operatic twists (such as a character contracting temporary amnesia) went so far as to threaten the show's efficacy. One in fact embarks on "24"'s sophomore effort with antennae up, trying to ferret out the moles before we even know their names; the biggest rug-pull the second season can and does offer is to etch a relatively straight-arrow course, with established allies staying that way and narrative cheats (not reversals, mind you) kept to a minimum.

How does "24" thrive, then, more or less de-Usual Suspects-ized? The answer is by way of a melancholy that's astounding for television principally belonging to the espionage genre. Although 9/11 cast a considerable shadow over (and threatened the prosperity of) "24" when it debuted in the fall of 2001, insomuch as it cost the pilot a climactic beat, many of the episodes were already in the can pre-September Eleventh; it wasn't until season two that the half-life of the attack on America had an unimagined impact on the exploits of Counter-Terrorist Unit (CTU) agent Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland), with the abrupt, hugely personal demise of a major character in season one standing as all but a symbol of national loss as "24" resumes. The premiere season's tragic ending certainly improves the characterization of Jack: no longer just an "errand boy" as earlier described, he's despondent, estranged from his daughter (the viciously cute Elisha Cuthbert), and ultimately suicidal; what happened in the preceding adventure spurs him to action in the second season (which takes place twelve months after the events of the first), but not because he still has faith in justice. No, he accepts President Palmer's (an excellent Dennis Haysbert) invitation to help prevent the detonation of a nuclear bomb in an undisclosed Los Angeles location seeking only martyrdom.

Palmer, by the way, is black, and though a big enough deal is seldom made of this fact, there is an irrefutable subtext at work when, once news of the weapon and its possible Middle-East origins surfaces in the media, white America responds with riots against its Arab countrymen. No mere 9/11 parallel, in this context it's as though having a black Chief of Staff adds a pressure-cooker element to the United States' ever-tentative race relations. Ceaselessly fatalistic (the Grim Reaper continues to loom ruthlessly in the vicinity of Bauer), "24" creators Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran sustain the show's page-turner quality during its second season by ransacking the fallout of its every development for emotional interest and political resonance. Though you may accurately prognosticate a lot of what transpires in season two, nothing can prepare you for how personally you wind up taking it all.

COMMENTARY PARTICIPANTS

"11 A.M. - 12:00 P.M." Carlos Bernard (actor), Sarah Wynter (actor), Michelle Forbes (actor)

"1 P.M. - 2:00 P.M." Jon Cassar (director), Sarah Clarke (actor)

"1 P.M. - 2:00 P.M." Jon Cassar (director), Sarah Clarke (actor)

"5 P.M. - 6:00 P.M." Penny Johnson Jerald (actor), Joel Surnow (producer)

"10 P.M. - 11:00 P.M." Xander Berkely (actor), Robert Cochran (producer)

"3 A.M. - 4:00 A.M." Kiefer Sutherland (actor), Joel Surnow (producer)

"4 A.M. - 5:00 A.M." Dennis Haysbert (actor), Howard Gordon (producer)

"24: Season Two" arrives in a 7-disc set from Fox just in time to promote the network launch of the third season. (Once again, I find it difficult to imagine waiting a week between episodes--a single day is already unendurable.) Each "hour" has been transferred in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen and looks spiffy; image quality is on a par with the first season DVD package, if the slightest bit softer. Audio is now in Dolby Digital 5.1, the upgrade most detectable in an increased amplification of dialogue. Commentary tracks for various episodes (see sidebar) aim to highlight featured cast members, while the final platter contains a frankly glorious batch of extras.

In "On the Button: Exploding the CTU" (13 mins.), F/X coordinator Stan Blackwell reveals that 90-something air-charges were packed into false walls to create the illusion of a plastique explosion, his explanation of the hows and whys exceedingly good for this sort of thing. Reminiscent of a PBS special on the making of a seminal "Homicide" episode, Marc Ostrick's two-part "24 Exposed" (87 mins. total) dismantles the production of the penultimate and final episodes of "24"'s second season, both of which were directed by Jon Cassar, who seems to exercise an unusual amount of clout. (In part 1, executive producer Cochran calls "24" a "director show.") Much of the running time is devoted to a fight choreography and the clever lengths to which all involved resorted in order to keep details of the genuinely shocking cliff-hanger finish, shot before 450 extras, under wraps. Forty-four deleted or alternate scenes from twenty-one episodes, capable of being branched into their respective hours, are also corralled--with optional commentary from either Cassar and DP Rodney Charters or Cassar and producer Howard Gordon--on the seventh platter (though consistently intriguing, I'd advise watching these elisions without reintegrating them, since they throw off the show's often-impeccable pacing), which is capped off by a multi-angle demonstration of Nina's interrogation from "1:00 P.M. - 2:00 P.M.".-Bill Chambers

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