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The silent clock made its unfortunate return in the season finale of24: Legacy.
Credit: Steve Dietl/FOX
In case you didnt watch the original24series, the silent clock is used whenever an important character has died.
Its the shows way of honoring the fallen.
(For our full recap,click here).
Guy D’Alema/FOX
That hasnt stopped executive producers Manny Coto and Evan Katz from considering possible stories for a sophomore season.
The original idea was for them to end up working together in a fairly different ending.
This is just the way24works is these stories just kind of evolve organically.
What was the original ending?EVAN KATZ:There are several.COTO:There was the musical version.
We didnt end up doing that.
In the first iteration of whats there, it wasnt Tony who ended up [at the farmhouse].
Then, Manny had kind of a last-minute save where he realized that was a perfect place for Tony.
We just gave Tony a little cover in that he wasnt going to kill this little girl.
It feeds into that wonderful mercenary quality of that character where youre never quite sure where hes coming from.
Were you attracted to this fight also because of the symbolism, Past24vs.
New24?COTO:Yeah, absolutely.
When the idea hit, that was certainly all in the mix.
The mythic quality of it was just perfect.
Thats why we grafted onto it so quickly.
It was too good not to do.
I expected to check in on him before the clock ran out.
One: By definition, the story has to end up focusing on Carter and Rebecca and Donovan.
But we also did have some scheduling issues with Carlos, who also has a directing career.
So, he is in the 12th episode and what he ends up doing feels right.
We also sort of had to craft the solution around how much time we had with him.
Thats why we waited to bring Tony in.
It wouldnt have been right to make him more integral to the ending than he is.
Ithasto be about Carter and Rebecca and Donovan.
You could even see him doing for Eric what he did for Rebecca off-book stuff.
So, its interesting.
Theres a whole host of fascinating possibilities for Tony.
It became a possibility once we realized she had done these things in her past.
It does seem sort of like the character needed to pay.
What is so attractive about that theme?COTO:To me, its the classic heros journey.
At least in my mind, doing the heroic thing always involves some form of sacrifice.
Does it leave a scar on them or not?
What kind of a scar does it leave?
There are people in our government who do bad things.
But its just the way the story evolved.
It felt right for them to give it a shot.
Its really her arc they have two different arcs.
Carter is deciding that, despite all of this, hes going to go on with CTU.
Shes deciding if she can live with this.
It just naturally [seemed] to us that this is where it had to end up.
Donovan is still patriotic.
I think thats whats interesting.
He is gonna be able to do good and become president, but he has compromised himself.
Thats going to come back in some way or another to hurt him.
For us, Donovans soul is now in play.
In the last act of episode 12, he told an outright lie to the FBI agent.
The show still hasnt been renewed for season 2.
Its impossible to do a season 1 without throwing out ideas for season 2 in the room.
We definitely want to see Tony back.
You said that Tony represents the darkest path of past CTU.
Can you tease what has inspired your ideas for season 2?
Is the world going off a cliff?
I think that would be something to really explore in season 2.
Theres something there to be done, without getting into plot.
Personally, a larger world crisis would be the way to go and would be really fascinating.
