1. Have A Proper Conclusion
Traditionally, the conclusions to a season of 24 were terrific to begin with, before tailing off around season 6. We had Jack's wife die in his arms, Palmer lying on the ground, Jack weeping in his car, walking off into the sunset after faking his death and then kidnapped by the Chinese. Fantastic and memorable endings, one and all, and cliffhangers worthy of the clichéd mantle. It all went wrong after that. Jack staring out to sea like a mopey and rejected teenager, Jack lying on a gurney waiting like the rest of us for his contract to guarantee his appearance in the first episode of series 8 and then finally, Jack simply leaving the country unmolested. The ending to season 8 was perhaps the most disappointing. After a fantastic scene with Chloe where he gets to say farewell, Jack is simply sort of, half-heartedly let off the hook by President Taylor and advised to leave the country before the manhunt for him begins. It was a deflating way to finish a final season, and leaving things up in the air made it inevitable that a follow up would arrive when Fox needed to fill a gap in the schedule. This new miniseries needs to have a good conclusion, one way or another. This means either coming up with a cliffhanger as strong as the first five seasons had, and that could be followed on by an immediate follow-up series linearly, or doing the unthinkable and killing off Jack so that the Bauer legacy can be set definitively. It won't be an easy task to achieve, and I'm glad that I'll be the one watching it rather than writing it.