The cast and crew of 24 have completed shooting the final season of the FOX action series.

While the 24 series was innovative when it first began, eight years later it just doesn’t feel the same. Star Kiefer Sutherland explains, “It’s a very, very difficult show to write.” Normally executive producer Howard Gordon will come up with a great idea for the following season midway through the current season, but this season, “he just wasn’t feeling it.” Gordon felt the FOX series, about the life of special agent Jack Bauer, should end right here and that they should be making feature films about the character instead.

While Bauer’s life plays out slowly, with each hour seen in real time, it hasn’t played out behind the scenes the same way. Throughout these eight years, Sutherland notes that between the crew and cast, which has starred Mary Lynn Rajskub, Cherry Jones, Carlos Bernard, Elisha Cuthbert, Dennis Haysbert, and Kim Raver, there have been sixteen marriages and thirty-something children born (not to mention Sutherland spending time in prison for a DUI arrest). They’re very much a family, making it difficult to say goodbye.

Not that it’s the end altogether for this collaboration of talent, which has seen a total of 18 Emmys in its time. We’ll see Bauer and friends again in the not too distance future in a feature film. It won’t be completely the same, however, as the movie won’t play out in real time like the series has. This will open up the possibilities of what Jack Bauer will be able to do.

For the 24 TV show though, it’s time to say goodbye.

The last few hours of Bauer’s life on the series will be a little different than usual. There’s not a massive crisis going on, as Sutherland explains, “It’s a much more personal ending.” Chloe (Rajskub) has to go after Jack, going against his wishes, which in all this time she’s never done before. She’s put in a position of power and has to deal with making decisions she’s never had to before, and so sets out to find him and confront him.

Rajskub guarantees it will be “pretty explosive.” Recalling her final day of shooting, the actress says, “When they said, ‘Cut!’, I don’t know what I was thinking. And then they said, ‘This is Mary Lynn’s series wrap.’ And I just looked around. The crew was surrounding me. And I just kind of burst into tears.”

You can catch the season finale of 24 on FOX, fittingly enough, on May 24th.

What do you think? Will you tune in to watch the 24 series finale?

Image courtesy FOX.