My wife is watching the last episode of 24 as I type this.
I consider it to be poorly written torture and espionage porn, though it is well directed, its pacing reminds me of the first Taking of Pelham 123 movie with Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw, which is high praise from me.
Still, I don’t watch it, after about 5 minutes, I find myself numb.
I watched a few year's worth on DVD, just to see what the buzz was. The only part I really liked was several years ago when my good buddy David Newsom played the evil Defense Secretary's evil henchman who goes to CTU to find the mole by torture — and tortures the wrong person & gets bogus info! Imagine that, "24" implying that torture can produce counterproductive results! But mainly, the idea of Newsom as a heavy is hysterical to his friends, because IRL he's such a sweetheart.
http://24.wikia.com/wiki/David_Newsom