'24' Finale: Time runs out for Jack

NEW YORK - How many more ways could Jack Bauer have saved the homeland from a world of terrorists? How many more times could he inflict and suffer injury in round-the-clock cycles? How much can any man take?

NEW YORK - How many more ways could Jack Bauer have saved the homeland from a world of terrorists?

How many more times could he inflict and suffer injury in round-the-clock cycles?

How much can any man take?

Well, Jack operates at a superhuman pitch, judging from eight seasons' worth of counterterrorism derring-do on "24." His endurance is amazing. No coffee breaks for him. No wasting time on small talk. The clock is always ticking, so he says what he says fast, in his vigorous purr.

In the hands of series star Kiefer Sutherland, Jack has done a bang-up job. So has "24," boldly shaking up serial drama with its ambitious and demanding formula. Even so, fatigue is evident, a condition apparently shared on "24" by Jack with the show's creative team and its audience. All have come to seem a bit weary from the unforgiving pace of this high-rev Fox thriller.

"24" ends tonight at 8 with the final two installments of this last day's 24 sequential, real-time hours. But what was once groundbreaking and breathtaking about "24" has come to feel, well, sort of yesterday.

By now, the audience is well-versed in the "24" protocol: a wildly dramatized view of our nation's response to the threat of terrorism as it takes the form of nerve gas, bombs, snipers, bioweapons or what-have-you, tightly framed within each season's frenzied 24-hour window.

This season, it's nukes that have fallen into enemy hands and threaten a piece of Manhattan -- plus the assassination of a Mideast leader deemed essential to an all-important peace accord negotiated by U.S. President Allison Taylor (Cherry Jones).

Jack is in the midst of all this hoo-ha, of course, including pushback from evil Russian operatives who secretly are dead set against the agreement.

Meanwhile, Jack has chalked up yet another lost love.

Count 'em: In the first season Jack lost his wife, who was killed by a former flame and trusted fellow agent of Jack's in the Counter-Terrorist Unit who was shockingly exposed as a cold-blooded mole. A few seasons later, another colleague-paramour was left in a coma after undergoing torture to save Jack's skin.

And this season, gorgeous Renee Walker (Annie Wersching), a former FBI special agent, was offed by the Russian sniper with whom Jack later dealt, shot through a bedroom window as she and Jack were savoring post-coital bliss.

No wonder Jack went rogue after that. He even defied his loyal CTU ally Chloe O'Brian (Mary Lynn Rajskub) in his wild-eyed escapade to avenge Renee's execution.

Last week, Jack went really ballistic and forcibly abducted the man who had ordered the hit. That man was none other than treasonous, resigned-under-pressure ex-President Charles Logan.

Played by Gregory Itzin, Logan was key to the events of Day 5 several years ago, and his return to "24" has been the happiest twist in this current twisted season. Logan wormed his way into President Taylor's peace process as a ploy to repair his ruined image and, as he puts it, get back in the game. Like every game he plays, the wretch has cheated throughout it.