The 24 Greatest 24 Moments

24: Redemption, 3:00PM - 5:00PM

Whatever you do, don’t take travel tips from Jack Bauer. If you get caught in a slum-based gun fight with African war-lords, don’t pop open a handy nearby fridge and use it as a bullet-proof shield.

It might look preposterously cool at the time, but you will get shot in the stomach.

Still, at least Jack didn’t use it to protect himself from a nuclear blast. Only an idiot would do that.

Season 4, 10AM-11AM

How do you delay a suspect at a gas station long enough for Chloe to set up satellite surveillance? Easy. Tug on a ski mask and stage a hold-up...

Season 3, 6am-7am

If Jack doesn't shoot his boss, Ryan Chappelle, through the head, then former British agent Saunders is going to poison LA with a lethal virus. “God forgive me,” whispers Jack as he pulls the trigger. Chappelle's body crumbles to the floor. The 24 clock ticks out silently in tribute.

Season 1, 11PM-12PM

"I was just doing my job," Nina Myers whimpers as Jack holds a gun to her face. “How many people who trusted you lost their lives today because you were doing your job?” Jack snarls back. More than he thinks... as he'll realise when he finds his wife dead. A shock ending so harsh the producers almost bottled it, filming an unused kittens and candyfloss finish where Teri lived.

Season 1, 10am-11am

The first and best of Jack's many interrogation scenes. “You probably don't think I could force this towel down your throat, but trust me, I can. All the way. Except that I'd hold onto this little bit at the end. When your stomach starts to digest the towel, I pull it out. Taking your stomach lining with it. Most people probably take about a week to die. It's very painful.” Ouch.

Season 5, 6PM-7PM

With a deadly nerve gas flooding through CTU's air-con system, the staff cluster in the airtight situation room. Chubby programmer Edgar doesn't make it, though. Despite moving at top waddling speed, he falls gasping to the floor in full view of everyone, mouthing Chloe's name as he pegs it. For only the second time, the 24 clock ticks out in silent tribute.

Season 3, 10AM-11AM

Bad guy Saunders seems to have thought of everything, calling in a heavily armed helicopter in which to make his escape. Jack sees his chopper and raises him two fighter jets, calling in serious air support to blow the whirlybird up.

Season 5, 7AM-8AM

Two minutes – TWO MINUTES! – into Day Five and 24 springs the biggest shock of the show so far as a sniper bullet slams through the skull of extra-nice ex- President Palmer. Boy, is Jack going to be pissed off about that...

Season 2, 5PM-6PM

You never know who to trust. All season long, simpering blonde bride-to-be Marie has been little more than a wimpy annoyance. Who'd have thought she'd turn out to be a gun-toting terrorist bad-girl, turning the pistol on her own fiancé? “You really are very sweet...” Bang!

Season 3, 11PM-12AM

Nina's got Jack chained to a chair. Which makes him helpless, right? Not our Jack. He headbutts Nina in the face, smashes the chair and before you can say, “You killed my wife, bitch!” is strangling her with the chain...

Season 3, 12pm-1pm

So there's a ticking bomb crammed full of a killer virus. Jack needs to get it into an airtight vault in the next two minutes. Trouble is, it's chained to Chase's wrist. The two CTU agents both look at the fi re axe hanging from the wall. “Do it,” says Chase. Chop! Aaargh! Jack saves the day but one-handed Chase will never play piano again...

Season 2, 2am-3am

Tortured by Stark's men, Jack's heart finally gives out. He's dead, so it's all over. Right? Wrong. Time to start hitting him with a defi brillator. Somebody get a big needle and some adrenaline!

Season 4, 1PM-2PM

With CTU “compromised”, Jack calls in “the only person I can trust right now.” Cue the just-in-time arrival of wooden man Tony Almeida to save an ammo-less Jack and Audrey, gunning down the bad guys who have them pinned in a parking garage.

Season 5, 3AM-5AM

Jack hijacks an aircraft and forces the co-pilot to put down on the nearest bit of flat land before a fighter plane shoots them out of the sky. “You can either try and land this plane on the freeway – or I will!”

Season 3, 2am-3am

“You don't have any more useful information, do you, Nina?” whispers Jack, as he corners her in the same room where she killed his wife two seasons earlier. “I do,” Nina gasps desperately. “No, you don't,” deadpans Jack. Bam! Bam! Bam! The wicked witch is dead...

Season 1, 11PM-12PM

Thinking the Drazen mob have killed daughter Kim, Jack drives a van through the front of their warehouse and guns down everything that moves.

The icing on the cake is his animalistic execution of an unarmed Victor Drazen (Dennis Hopper, no less!), pumping bullets into him and carrying on firing long after the gun clicks empty.

Season 2, 7am-8am

Four hours ago, he was flatlined. By dawn Jack's ignoring his still dodgy ticker as he tries to take down an entire terrorist army at the LA Coliseum. They don't stand a frickin' chance...

Season 2, 10pm-11pm

Someone has to crash-land a plane containing a ticking nuclear bomb into the middle of the desert. Jack wants to do it, but George Mason persuades him to let him do it instead.

“You still have a life, Jack. You wanna be a real hero, here's what you do. You get back down there and you put the pieces together. You find a way to forgive yourself for what happened to your wife. You make things right with your daughter, and you go on serving your country. That'd take some real guts.” Sniff...

Season 3, 3am - 4am

A deadly vial of airborne toxin attached to a timer is sitting next to the air-con fan of a packed hotel. CTU agent Gael Ortega reaches out carefully to grab it, but... Noooooo!... it goes off, showering him in the lethal virus and condemning almost everyone in the hotel to death.

Season 2, 8am-9am

Jack blows away a suspect he's interrogating and then snarls, “I'm gonna need a hacksaw.” When you're infiltrating a terror cell, nothing says “trustworthy” as effectively as the severed head of a snitch, eh?

Season 3, 11AM-12AM

“You have been lying your whole life, but you won't lie your way out of this,” snarls Julia Milliken, widow of political bigwig Alan Milliken, as she holds a gun on queen bitch Sherry Palmer. Julia then shoots Sherry and blows her own brains out.

Season 3, 8pm-9pm

How do you prove your loyalty to a deranged drug lord? Simple: put the gun he hands you to your partner's head and pull the trigger. Jack won't do it, will he? Or... will he? “You should never have come down here, Chase. You should have listened to me.” Click!

Season 4, 1AM-2AM

So, Chloe's just a socially defective computer expert, eh? Say that to the terrorist she blows away with an assault rifle. Nerds everywhere punch the air in triumph.

Season 6, 6AM - 7AM

At the end of Season Five Jack was handed over to the Chinese to be tortured on a big boat. 20 months later, he was handed back, complete with massive bonkers beard / dead eyed stare.

Seeing our normally clean-cut hero - he even shaved when he was a junkie - with such unkempt face-fuzz was disturbing. And great.