With the pace of television storytelling kicking up a gear, it seems inevitable the ticking-clock drama 24 would end up so tightly wound that it wraps a whole day of edge-of-your-seat action in half the time.
At just 12 hours in length, 24: Legacy does exactly that. And with its amped-up tension, and double-time speed, the creative stepchild of the classic thriller series seems strangely more relevant today than it was when the original premiered in 2001.
![Miranda Otto and Dan Bucatinsky in the 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM episode of 24: Legacy.](/web/20170208200342im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/7/8/0/i/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gu76w5.png/1486436197823.jpg)
"The issues that it deals with are still so incredibly current and in some ways I feel even more so than they were at the time," Australian actress Miranda Otto, who stars in the new series, says.
"The show takes on the changing nature of terrorism and what's happening in the world today," she says.
![Miranda Otto revels in the pace of 24: Legacy.](/web/20170208200342im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/7/8/0/p/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gu76w5.png/1486436197823.jpg)
Otto was a fan of the original series, recalling it had a "very fast-paced story, and it's fascinating to me that other shows didn't adopt the same format, that no one else tried to take on the real time kind of thing".
The rebooted 24 is focused on American war hero Eric Carter, played by Corey Hawkins, who becomes enmeshed in a terrorist plot after returning to the United States after a tour of duty.
Otto plays Rebecca Ingram, the former head of the now revived Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU) in Washington DC. Fans of the original series would know the CTU is the agency that employed that show's action hero, Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland).
The series, Otto says, combines the kind of hot-button issues which dominate news headlines with conventional action storytelling. It is "adrenalised, addictive" television, she says.
Perhaps the most striking difference between the new 24 and its antecedent is the absence of the show's hero Jack Bauer.
Otto is intrigued by the idea that Bauer could reappear in the updated narrative.
"Kiefer's gone on to do another show, you know, he's being the President [on Designated Survivor], I mean, it's a never say never situation," she says. "You never know whether he might appear at some stage down the track, I don't know."
The deep association between character and show, she says, illustrates something about 24 which is rarely discussed. "This idea that there are certain people who are compelled to do this kind of work.
"There are certain character types who are drawn to that, who are at their best in highly chaotic situations," she says. "And that that's essentially who Eric Carter is. He's born to be in there, but he doesn't know that that's what's gonna happen. But he's hurtling towards it whether he likes it or not."
Although she is not anxious to return to any of her earlier roles, Otto agrees that in the business of television, actor and characters are sometimes wrenched apart before they have finished what they came to do.
She says she loved her character on Homeland, Berlin CIA station chief Allison Carr.
"When they said I was [being written out of the series] I completely got it, because I had done so many things that to my mind it would have not been feasible she would have made it through, that would have stretched the truth.
"But it would have been fun to see her turn up somewhere. Putin's bride, or working for Donald Trump, being his campaign manager, maybe. It would have been fun to ask, what did Allison do next?"
WHAT 24: Legacy
WHEN Ten, Sunday, 8.30pm