Barack swept the Potomac primaries! America's liberal again! We're all addicted to hope! So it's not all that surprising that Variety reports today that 24 co-creator and executive producer Joel Surnow has left the show. Insiders are crediting his departure to the exhausting amount of work required to mount a 24 episode real-time, action-packed television series, but we're wondering if there was maybe another, more political, more secret reason.

Fox's shameless televised brutality-orgy 24 is sorry about constantly torturing brown Islamic Muslims and their freedom-hating sympathizers for all those years, the TV show was just trying to fulfill America's revenge fantasies, sort of like the Iraq war. Fox has patriotically agreed to create a kinder, gentler 24, now that the war and president are unpopular, now that actors are shunning the show and now that even the toture-happy military has asked producers to just please stop. Its insane proposed plot changes, detailed after the jump, of course have nothing to do with the loss of 6 million brutalized viewers.

That deafening cheer you heard last night, so loud it blew the Ye Rustic Inn's front door right off its hinges and into an adjacent stripmall's parking lot, had nothing to do with Brett Favre's crushing defeat, but rather a triumph of the highest order involving one of Silver Lake's favorite sons. For Kiefer Sutherland, you see, had emerged from the Glendale City Jail a free man at precisely 12:05 a.m., having served the entirety of his 48-day sentence, where he passed the long hours "cleaning sheets, pillowcases and blankets on laundry duty." John Balian, a jail spokesman always forthcoming with kindly soundbites and incremental Kiefer updates, offered that the 24 star was wearing "a shirt and jeans," and "looked like he was glad to be out." Why was the beloved Christmas tree assassin forced to serve out his entire sentence, where lesser shock-starlets have been released early for far more serious, traffic-flow-flouting crimes? The AP report explains:

Our rough calculations bring us to Day 17 of Kiefer Sutherland's 48-day stint in the Glendale pokey—perhaps the writers strike can lend us their ring girl— and while we've already established that this would be a bleak Christmas (and birthday) for Kief, bereft of cupcakes, hearty Tannenbaum tacklings, and single malt holiday cheer, we barely knew the extent of it:

From the Who Knew? file: When he's not trying to restrain Jack Bauer from gathering America-saving intelligence by going after a terrorist's genitals with a belt sander, CTU's Bill Buchanan likes to keep his life balanced by teaching yoga class. [CinCity2000.com]

Handicapping the field of Republican presidential nominee hopefuls, 24 showrunner/televised-torture innovator Joel Surnow says that Hollywood's half-empty-handful of conservatives are leaning Giuliani-ward, an expression of support that can't bode well for Law & Order star Fred Thompson's already-doomed candidacy. Also, he's not exactly bullish on Hillary Clinton's electability: "'I'm not even sure that Hillary is a fait accompli [to win the Democratic Party nomination] as this point,' Mr. Surnow told a group of reporters and bloggers in a wide-ranging interview during the Young America's Foundation's (YAF) West Coast Leadership Conference. 'Are we nuts thinking Hillary Clinton could be president of this country? Honest to God, just stand back and think about it.'" And for those without the imagination to "just stand back and think about it," the upcoming season of his show (if it ever airs) should play out in thrilling detail the apocalyptic worst-case scenario that could face the nation if it follows 24-America in putting a Hillaryesque president in the White House. [Washington Times]

· A striker on the Grey's Anatomy-boosted Prospect Studios picket line sent in this photo of Katherine Heigl proudly decrying AMPTP president Nick Counter's weinderdom. This is the picket sign by which all subsequent efforts will be judged.
· Fox has indefinitely postponed the premiere of 24. And considering all the strike-related scheduling changes, it looks like Kiefer Sutherland took on that extra jail time for nothing.
· Click here if you need a limoncello-flavored pick-me-up. Come on, just do it. Your ears will thank us, we promise.
· Refusing to cross the picket line, The Office's Steve Carell phoned in sick with an acute case of "enlarged balls."

· Finding The View to be an unacceptably highbrow discussion of topics of concern to the modern woman with the free time to watch TV during the day, Debi Mazar, Aida Turturro, and Karen Duffy are shopping around a "New Jersey take" on the format. [THR]
· As fleetingly exciting as it was when the studios dropped that residual-rollback proposal they never would have followed through on, the threat of a strike remains "high." Keep stockpiling those canned goods, everyone! [Variety]
· The CW's Online Nation earns the distinction of being the first new Fall show to be canceled. Somewhere, a trio of underachieving, modern-day Neanderthals breathe a sigh of relief that they've survived the initial round of network executions. [THR]

· Showing a Baueresque level of self-sacrifice, Kiefer Sutherland takes one for his TV team, pleading out to 48 days of jail time that can be served on a two-stint schedule that won't interrupt the shooting of 24, even though he probably could have served fewer days if he'd opted for a consecutive sentence. If eighteen months of being tortured by the Chinese couldn't break him, seven weeks should be a breeze. [THR]
· After putting up "solid" premiere numbers, ABC's bold Cavemen experiment falters, dropping off 25 percent in its second week. Enjoy your lovable, squash-playing, Swedish-furniture-hawking Neanderthals while you still can. [Variety]

Earlier today, the quite unexpected news that Noted Hollywood Liberal Janeane Garofalo would be joining the cast of 24, a television program co-created by a Self-Described—Albeit Jokingly, Ha!—Right-Wing Nutjob, was announced, a collision of bleeding-heart-matter/conservative-antimatter that could release more destructive energy on the Greater Los Angeles area than a nuke detonated in Valencia. (Have we drenched your screen in enough hyperbole yet? We think we have.) But how does Garofalo feel about taking the gig? A reporter from the Ottawa Sun in the right place at the right time (i.e., on the set of the less politically divisive TV project Binky "about the bittersweet relationship between a cranky rock critic and her mother's Jack Russell Terrier") gets her first thoughts:

· Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz are in talks to star in a film version of the musical Nine for the Weinstein Co; when reached for comment on his potential cast, Harvey Weinstein said, "I may be jumping the gun, but if Penelope doesn't get nominated, I'll willingly blind myself with a rusty salad fork." [Variety]
· Noted liberal Janeane Garofalo (she even had an Air America show!) is joining the cast of 24 this season; oh, to be a fly on the wall overhearing the debates she'll be having with self-described "right-wing nutjob" co-creator Joel Surnow at the craft services table! Surnow, of course, can always retaliate for any political acrimony by having Jack Bauer torture her government agent character with a belt sander for suspected collusion with terrorists. [THR]
· Paramount chooses sides in the scintillating hi-def DVD format war, aligning with HD-DVD over Blu-Ray. [Variety]
· Hollywood Out Of Ideas, Your Head Will Explode If You Have An Original Thought After The Age of 30 Edition: Warner Bros. pulls a long-gestating remake of Logan's Run off the shelf, handing the project over to commercial director Joseph Kosinski for his feature debut. [THR]
· Hairspray becomes just the tenth musical to cross the $100 million mark in domestic box office, proving that there was, in fact, a healthy market for John Travolta in terrifying housefrau drag. [Variety]

· Hollywood Out of Ideas, Tiny People Injected Into the Sickly Body Of Originality Edition: Roland Emmerich will direct a remake of Fantastic Voyage for 20th Century Fox. [Variety]
· Production has temporarily stopped on 24 so that the hit show's writers have enough time to adequately dramatize every apocalyptic scenario that would probably come to pass if a Hillary Clintonesque president ever assumed our highest office. [THR]
· Former Daily Show/Colbert Report EP Ben Karlin explains the just-announced, combined film/television deal he signed with a certain premium cable outlet: "When my reps asked me what I wanted to do next, I said firmly, 'not TV.' They said, 'HBO.' I had to admit, they had me there." [Variety]
· ABC's new NASCAR in Prime tanks its premiere, probably because the show clearly belongs on Fox. [THR]
· Jerry Bruckheimer informs CBS that it must buy his drama pilot about a "globetrotting team of freelance treasure hunters" or he will withdraw every one of the 45 weekly hours of programming he generates for them; the network, of course, happily complies, remarking about how much they always wanted a more expensive, scripted version of The Amazing Race. [Variety]

Cherry Jones (it's OK, we need an IMDb consult to put a face to the name, too) inherits one of the least secure jobs on TV, the president of 24's terrorism-ravaged America. Can't wait for the first scene where she's asked to ignore the previous 6 times Jack Bauer has single-handledly saved the country from annihilation and orders his immediate arrest for treason. [THR]

As unlikely as it sounds, a recent international legal symposium in Canada's capital devolved into a philosophical debate over whether or not the star of a popular primetime Fox program had the right to employ cruel and inhumane torture tactics as a means to achieving a justifiable end—and the name Paula Abdul never once came up. No, visiting U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was actually defending the morally ambiguous actions of 24's Jack Bauer, who'd think nothing of turning his own brother's Pain-O-Meter to 11 if it meant stopping the needless obliteration of another Valencia. From The Globe and Mail:

There comes a point in every long-running, Peabody Award-winning series' lifespan when its creative team is faced with the artistic dilemma, "Well, we've already done the episode where Oprah's asshole and vagina find themselves in a doomed hostage situation. Where to go from there?" In South Park's case, it was to send a nuclear missile up Hillary Clinton's ladyflower, in a recent, 24-inspired episode entitled The Snuke. (Viacom's YouTube-scouring stormtroopers have already shot on sight anyone suspected to have posted clips, but here's a CNN report about it that, amazingly, never once utters the word "vagina.") A jubilant South Park staffer wrote to tell us about the exciting delivery that soon arrived at the production offices:

Both The New Yorker and the LAT are online with stories about a recent meeting between the torture-happy producers of 24, military officials, and actual interrogators organized by the Prime Time Torture Project of advocacy group Human Rights First, in which the show's writers were politely asked to consider (they're anti-torture, so no defibrillator paddles, bamboo shoots, or knotted ropes suitable for repeatedly striking a truculent story editor in the genitals while sitting naked upon a bottomless chair were used) more accurately depicting the use of physical coercion in intelligence gathering on their hit series. From the LAT:

· This is what it looks like when Kiefer Sutherland watches Valencia get nuked.
· Unsurprisingly, the paparazzi aren't respecting Lindsay Lohan's privacy during her stint in rehab.
· Ken Levine, one of the "unemployed" writers Aaron Sorkin pilloried following that now-infamous LAT piece, offers what he really thinks of Sorkin.
· These Worth1000 Photoshop contest images of a variety of male stars remade into women are the stuff of nightmares. Bad, bed-wetting ones.

After a one-year hiatus in which Russians were granted the honor of being 24's Ethnic Group Hellbent on Wiping Out Our Nation, Muslims find themselves cast as the [spoiler alert, if you haven't seen the premiere] nuke-detonating fanatics charged with bedeviling Jack Bauer and his CTU pals this season, prompting an American-Islamic relations advocacy group who once pleaded with Fox to give them a break to renew their protests over Muslims' portrayal on the show. The AP reports that Fox issued a statement late Wednesday night answering the criticism, reassuring concerned parties that they're committed to dramatizing that true believers of any background are capable of depopulating Cerritos with an improvised nuclear device:

· A tip to those easily freaked out by the way 24 dramatizes the methods that terrorists can use to wipe you out: You might want to skip tonight's episode.
· Britney Spears dropped $40k to stay at the two-story Hugh Hefner Sky Villa at the Palms over the weekend, which includes a fee for the concierge to keep the kids busy at the slot machines while mommy and her new friend test out the Jacuzzi.
· Compared to the bi-curious pain that Miss Nevada USA put Donald Trump through, you'd think he'd be pretty excited that Miss New Jersey USA merely was impregnated by her live-in boyfriend. And the Miss USA folks really move fast, as the runner-up who assumed the NJ tiara due to her predecessor's inability to uphold the pageant's anti-knocking-up bylaws already has her headshot in the place of honor on MissNewJerseyUSA.com.
· Stars Killed By Gunfire: Perhaps the most morbid local TV station website slideshow we've ever seen. A real achievement!
· Cocktail conversation topics to avoid with director Taylor Hackford: "'Ask him what he's done since 'Ray' - that's guaranteed to get you punched out,' one pal of the couple helpfully advised."

We pass along the above Fox.com promotional clip for 24's upcoming premiere not only because the idea of Santa Claus using CTU resources to infiltrate a chimney-free stronghold is certainly cute enough to waste two minutes of an already useless pre-holiday workday on, but to point out its missed opportunity to appeal to the series' hardcore fans: When the little girl opens that present in the final frames, it really should've contained the freshly severed head of a terrorist (a double-agent elf who sold him out as part of a convoluted plan to divert a toy shipment to the Middle East?) that Santa had to kill to ensure the completion of his Yuletide mission. Still, not a bad effort.