24: Redemption – Day 7 Prequel Gets Some Fresh Air

24: Redemption is the prequel to 24: Day 7. It’s also the gift to us, the viewers, for having to wait for the next season of 24 for such a long period of time.

In Redemption we meet a collection of characters as this prequel takes place between the hours of 3 and 5PM.

• A most annoying bug named Frank Trammell (Gil Bellows) who is a govt lackey trying to serve a subpoena to Jack to get him to a Senate Subcommittee questioning session.

• Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) is in Africa helping out at a school for young boys run by an old special OPs buddy Carl Benton (Robert Carlyle).

• The evil of this 2-hour dose of action is Colonel Benjamin Juma (Tony Todd) who’s abducting young children, brainwashing them into becoming his army of gun-toting children. It’s haunting to have this addressed in plain view. Colonel Juma leads a coup in his country and all h*ll breaks loose. It’s elements of this coup that Jack has to deal with as he moves to get the children out of the country.

• Colonel Jumas coup is funded by a shady businessman named Jonas Hodges (Jon Voight).

• We get to see Peter MacNicol reprise his role as Tom Lennox, even if it was for just a few moments.

There was a lot filled in during this two-hour moment that has established characters for the upcoming season. It didn’t disappoint as we got the usual level of intensity and action that we expect out of what happens around Jack Bauer.  But unlike the usual settings of warehouses hidden away in industrial complexes or in back offices where people get “questioned”, we had a mostly outdoors experience this time through.

Poor Jack… no rest for the weary. He kept trying to move on and leave but he kept getting drawn into doing the right thing. Which in the long run, was save the children who were from the school and get them out of the country before they were abducted into the evil Colonels army.

Meanwhile the President Elect gets sworn in. Her son, Roger Taylor (Eric Lively) looks like he is going to be a target of Hodges’ henchmen because a friend of Rogers discovered some interesting information on Hodges, but has ended up under an oozing pile of fresh cement somewhere. Hodges is covering all his bases.

Is it me or did a lot happen for a mere two-hours? They seemed to stick to time constraints, but there’s that nagging feeling. I like Tony Todd and I think he’ll make a great Colonel Jumas and adversary. Just don’t mess with him too much or you’ll be dealing with the Candyman!

Tidbit: Redemption was filmed in Cape Town, Africa and Kiefer Sutherland was the executive producer. Is this fast or what: Redemption will be available on DVD come Tuesday! Remember – 24: Day 7 will premiere on January 11th, for a two-night premiere.