24: Legacy Pilot Episode Script

24 appears to have nine lives. There’s just no stopping the 24 hour intensity format. After 8 original seasons/days, 1 tweaked continuation called 24: Live Another Day, the show will be resurrected a third time under the name 24: Legacy.

Season 1(0)
Attached to the project, are Corey Hawkins (Straight Outta Compton) and Miranda Otto (Homeland, The Lord of the Rings). Presumably, Otto will be running CTU, while Hawkins plays a military hero, assisting her to stop a terrorist attack. The first season, or should say tenth, will probably – just like 24: LAD – consist of 12 episodes. That’s still 6 times longer than a movie, but for all you binge watchers out there, it might be a disappointment. There’s nothing like a 24 hour day, full of action, surprise twists and that famous CTU ringtone.

That’s Nice And All, But You’ve Got The Script?
It’s still a year away, assuming 24: Legacy will premiere in January 2017. The script is probably not even finished yet. So in order to ease the anticipation, I wrote it myself. Yes, the title might be a bit misleading, but there is a script. It is completely 24. And I believe it would, if I say so myself, be a perfect way to start off the new season. There’s a threat, things blow up, people keep secrets, there’s a bad guy, an even badder guy, bad guys turning on each other, there’s a hilarious character with a dog, CTU is a mess, planes are going down, i.e. the whole Bauer Shebang, just without any of the Bauers involved.

The Script
As being a fan of the show myself, I think other fans will love it. Check out the script below:

24legacypilotscript

The day starts, just like the very first season, at midnight. Maureen Kingsley makes a cameo, and there are a few other references to the Bauer Era. But the story stands on its own. To make the who’s who easier, I’ve named Hawkins and Otto’s characters Corey and Miranda. Enjoy.

Update

I’m sorry to inform you that the legal team of FOX got wind of my script and I had to take it down. Even though I clearly stated that it was a spec script, a script written by a fan of the show with no ties to the official producers and not affiliated with FOX in any way, lawyers be lawyers, I suppose.

Spec scripts are fairly common in Hollywood. It’s one way for showrunners and the like to find writing talent. Obviously, these ‘speculation scripts’ use characters and story arcs already established. No, the lawyers knocking on my door said, you can’t use any copyrighted property. So there you go.

2016 Q1 Pilot Season

It’s the beginning of the year and CBS, NBC, ABC and FOX are busy ordering, reshooting and test-audiencing their pilots for the 2016-2017 season. What are we going to watch after we get bored by (the already cancelled, just doesn’t know it yet, dead show walking) Second Chance, (style over substance) Quantico, (paint by numbers) Blindspot and (sprawling) Limitless? They’re holding the cards. Let’s take a peek at their hands.

24: Legacy
A year ago, FOX was in the preliminary stages of creating an Expendables-like action series. Legendary television action heroes would team up and kick, strangle, shoot and blow up bad guys. I suppose, given the stubborn nature of these characters (Magnum, Jack Bauer, Michael Knight, Sydney Bristow), they couldn’t make a deal with them to share the limelight, so there hasn’t been news about this idea for a while. They did come up with a reboot of sorts – yes, another one – to continue the 24 franchise. No matter the ratings, no matter the critical acclaim, 24: Live Another Day was very disappointing. A clean slate was promised, and we got more of the same. Luckily, it only lasted half a day. FOX seems to have come to its senses, because they’re serious about starting from scratch, with 24: Legacy. No Jack. No Chloe. No Bill. No Audrey. They’re all out of the picture – i.e. let Jack rot in a Russian prison. New players, new CTU, new leading man: Corey Hawkins (Straight Outta Compton, The Walking Dead). Also starring is Miranda Otto, who’s switching from one Howard Gordon show (Homeland) to the next. That’s all good news, on paper. However, it is once again about a ‘potential largest-scale terrorist attack on American soil’. When are they going to realize it’s not the scale of the threat that once made this series so great?

MacGyver
While FOX is reworking its past successes, CBS thought it’d be a good idea to bring back MacGyver. The guy who could melt steel with a matchstick, blow up tanks with a popsicle, make a trampoline out of toothpaste. Even in the eighties, this show was already too goofy. The only way it would work is, if they come up with not just realistic, but real physics tricks. My guess is the 2016 audience doesn’t like to be fooled as much as the one of 30 years ago, so they’d better bring in the Mythbusters.

Re-Imaginations
These aren’t the only re-imaginations. NBC thinks it can strike gold in B-movie territory. Apparently, there’s a good enough reason to continue the story started in Cruel Intentions (1999). For Taken – Liam Neeson’s I’m going to hunt you down trilogy – they’ve created a prequel series. It’s about how ‘a young Brian Mills develops his particular skill set’. So, basically another MacGyver show. If you change the name of Mills into ‘Dr. Phil’, then you get the logline of CBS’ Bull. A procedural to inflate Phil McGraw’s ego a little more, turning his younger self into the incredibly smart man that he (thinks he) is, who’s helping people prepare for trial. That sounds a lot like the 2006 series Justice. With The Following obliterated, FOX gets its creep on once again, with The Exorcist. Set 15 years after the 2001 movie ended, CBS’ Training Day will pick up the story that got Denzel Washinton his Oscar. Ethan Hawke’s character will not only be older, but also morally more ambiguous.

Supernatural Beings and Lawyers
What’s a pilot season without vampires, werewolves and angels? Written by Monica Owusu-Breen (Alias, Fringe, Revolution, Brothers & Sisters, Charmed and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), Midnight Texas brings all of your supernatural suspects to life. Also on NBC: Suits First Class AKA Miranda’s Rights and Timecop Sliders AKA Time, written by Shawn Ryan (Mad Dogs, The Shield). The green apples in ABC’s basket: Cold Case 2.0 AKA Conviction, created by Liz Friedman (Elementary, House MD). ‘Macbeth with a Cuban twist’, The Death of Eva Sofia Valdez, created by Charise Castro Smith (Devious Maids). The People vs Somebody Else AKA The Jury, written by VJ Boyd (Justified), directed by Neil Burger (Billions) and produced by Carol Mendelsohn (the one who founded the CSI factory).

ABC
There’s no telling when the superhero hype’s going to slow down, but we’re getting closer. ABC puts another series out there, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. spinoff Marvel’s Most Wanted, to completely clog the trend. Nobody cares about models, but that’s no reason to pass on Model Woman, a sort of Models Inc In The Seventies, written by Helen Childress, who’s got one other writing credit to her name (Reality Bites). If we didn’t have enough legal business already: Notorious focuses on a criminal defense attorney and a cable news producer. Stephanie Sigman (Narcos, Spectre) stars in Presence as a private investigator, created by John Ridley (12 Years a Slave, American Crime). Also on ABC: Bizarro Revolution AKA Spark, created by Michael Cooney (Identity). Romeo & Juliet The Sequel AKA Still Star-Crossed, created by Heather Mitchell (Scandal, The Chicago Code). And another Time Machine Series AKA Time After Time, created by Kevin Williamson (The Vampire Diaries, Stalker, The Following).

The Ghost of Dave Eggers
Over on CBS: Dave Eggers’ The Circle Meets Dr. House AKA Bunker Hill, written by Jason Katims (Parenthood, About a Boy). Katherine Heigl’s 68th Chance To Show Her Acting Skills AKA Doubt, and Sherlock Is A Woman AKA Drew, written by Joan Rater (Grey’s Anatomy). Although CBS’ Zoo was a (and this is the appropriate term) turd of a show, FOX just made Zoo 2: More Sick Animals under the name of Zoobiquity, written by Stephen Nathan (Bones, Joan of Arcadia). Also on FOX: Dave Eggers’ The Circle Meets Hill Street Blues AKA A.P.B., directed by Len Wiseman, who’s done the pilots for Hawaii Five-O, Sleepy Hollow and most recently Lucifer. Quantico Homeland Mashup AKA Recon, written by Caroline Dries (The Vampire Diaries). The Way Of The Ball Or What Was That Clint Eastwood Movie Called Or Was It That Kevin Costner One? AKA Pitch, starring Kylie Bunbury (Under the Dome) and written by Dan Fogelman (Galavant, Danny Collins).

A Title So Bad
Two more FOX shows are Shots Fired, about ‘racially charged shootings in a small town’ and (working title) Star, starring Queen Latifah and Benjamin Bratt, a kind of Nashville, this time in Atlanta. The last show on our list, makes us come full circle: ABC’s Designated Survivor. A title so bad, the leading man takes you by surprise: Kiefer Sutherland. It’d be wrong to assume he’s going to play another Bauer-ish character, especially given the logline: ‘A lower-level U.S. Cabinet member suddenly is appointed President after a catastrophic attack during the State of the Union kills everyone above him in the line of succession.’ That sounds interesting. The show, which has been ordered straight to series, is written by David Guggenheim (Safe House) and produced by Simon Kinberg (X-Men Apocalypse, The Martian). Now, is Sutherland going to play this Cabinet member and what’s he going to do as acting President? Who knows. This is by far the most promising pilot of all, but please, ABC, change the name. Mr. Sutherland Goes To Washington would even be a better title than Designated Survivor.

A Slick Cat And Mouse Game Of Insider Trading

Showtime’s newest drama Billions will be one of those shows people talk about in a few years time, saying they were there at the very beginning. They knew, as far back as January 2016, this series about Wall Street was going to be awesome. It’s considered important, in Geek Land, to discover something, stick with it, tell people to watch it and when it becomes a worldwide phenomenon, claim you knew it was brilliant before anybody else did.

Catch Up
It happened with Breaking Bad, Homeland, House of Cards and most recently with Mr. Robot. Shows that kind of fly under the radar for a while, until suddenly newspapers and news programs start reporting on them. It’s like the world, over the course of just a couple of weeks time, opens its eyes. It’s actually a beautiful thing. Well, ‘world’, I can save you the embarrassment of having to catch up on another television drama next year, because you can join the geeks as of today. All you need to do is check out the pilot episode of Billions and you’re fully up to speed.

Grey Area
This is a show about two guys trying to bury each other. A ‘pissing contest’ is another description. It is not, however, a show about right and wrong, good guy versus bad guy. The story takes place in the biggest grey area of our time: Wall Street. Real estate. Insider trading. Sleaze campaigns. Press manipulation. Algorithms. And ‘fuck you money’. U.S. Attorney Chuck Rhoades (Paul Giamatti, Straight Outta Compton, The Ides of March, Sideways, The Negotiator) puts criminals behind bars. No matter if they’re wearing pinstriped suits or three striped sneakers. He’s just and fair, whether it’s bankers or drug dealers. He does sound like one of the good guys, but nobody’s perfect. He can be quite rigid. Rancorous. Manipulative.

The Axe
Chuck has got a banker – or ‘bankster’ – in his sights: very sharp, smooth, hedge fund strategist Bobby Axelrod (Damian Lewis, Homeland, Wolf Hall, Band of Brothers) and his company Axe Capital in particular. There’s something fishy going on with his investment behaviour, or should I say the behaviour of small companies Century Capital, Old Oaks Investment and Quaker Ridge, who are all, one way or another, linked to Axe Capital. It looks like Bobby might have insider information, which is illegal, but it’s hard to prove. Ari Spyros (Stephen Kunken, The Affair, Bridge of Spies) from SEC tries to persuade Chuck to build a case, but he knows better. The evidence is way too thin at this point.

Bobby’s Achilles’ Heel
Spyros has brought in the head of Century Capital, Dan Margolis (Daniel Cosgrove, Dirty Sexy Money, Days of Our Lives). The fact that Margolis comes by Bobby’s office is too much of a coincidence. He’s probably made a deal with the SEC, promised to help them flush Bobby out by proposing a shady deal, to see if he bites. Bobby’s too smart of a man to fall into his obvious trap. There is one thing, however, which could prove to be Bobby’s Achilles’ heel: Chuck’s wife Wendy (Maggie Siff, Mad Men, Sons of Anarchy), who works for Axe Capital as an in-house psychologist. She’s good. Very good. Bobby wants to keep her on, and even though Wendy and Chuck don’t discuss their jobs, it might be a risky thing to have one of the Rhoades walking around, who knows everything that goes on, having doctor-patient confidentiality and all that.

Bedroom Activities
So are we going to address the sadomasochistic bedroom activities of the Rhoades family? Why not. The opening shot of the pilot doesn’t leave us much choice. Chuck likes to get tied up, have burning cigarettes being put out on his skin and his wife ease the pain by the healing powers of the golden shower. Like in Mr. Robot and House of Cards, the sexual games between couples don’t do much for the plot. It’s nothing more than a detail, really.

Sublime
Chuck and Bobby meet each other once in the pilot, and it’s like watching two wolves trying to decide who’s the alpha male. It’s probably because there’s only one scene in which they interact, but there’s definitely great chemistry between Giamatti and Lewis. Two great actors, playing off on each other, none of them backing down; the matter of who’s the bigger alpha is still undecided. One more thing: the look of the pilot is amazing. Production (Marcus Viscidi, Rendition), cinematography (Eric Steelberg, Lone Star, Up in the Air), direction (Neil Burger, Divergent, Limitless), it’s all sublime. As slick as its subject matter, in fact.