'24' torture debate to continue all season

TCA -- The producers of "24" aren’t finished debating the torture issue.

The opening scene in Sunday’s season premiere where Jack Bauer defends his trademark use of extreme interrogation methods before a Senate committee will not be the show's last word on the controversial subject this season. In fact, torture will be an ongoing debate all season that might not be resolved until the May finale.

Conceding that the inclusion of the Senate scene was partly inspired by the criticism of "24" by human rights advocates, executive producer Howard Gordon says torture will be "an evolving question" that will play out "throughout the season."

"There was a conundrum of how do we do a show that has taken quite a bit of heat for allegedly advocating this way of law enforcement," Gordon says. "I hope people have the patience and the appetite and the desire to watch the whole season. The answer to these questions will not be known until the very last episode."

Adds star Kiefer Sutherland: "If you take a look at the debate over physical torture in our country, I thought it was fantastic to embrace that and bring that debate into the show. The use of torture in the show is simply used ... as a dramatic device to show you the urgency of a situation, that there was just no other alternative ... It was never meant as some kind of validating this kind of behavior in the real world. To bring that debate throughout the course of these ’24’ episodes, I thought, was a real important thing to do."

"In reality," he says. "I think [interrogation experts] will tell you that less than 10 percent of the information they get from situations like this are helpful and, in fact, can be misleading."

Gordon was also asked about the somewhat unusual casting choice of Janeane Garofalo as a member of the FBI’s tech team. Garofalo's presence has divided some of the show's fans.

"It was sort of a leap of faith," Gordon says. "She’s someone we just wanted to see, someone we wanted to write for, someone we felt we could create something out of the otherwise fairly dry material she’s given."

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