Another Terrorist Plot, Another Very Long Day

A lot of secret agents have popped up on television since Jack Bauer first saved the day in 2001. None of them is nearly as intense, of course.

If anything, these spies are surprisingly loosey-goosey, given all the clear and present dangers lurking in real life. The naval investigators on the CBS drama “NCIS” protect national security with panache and perky good humor; so do their colleagues on its spinoff, “NCIS: Los Angeles.” The outcast intelligence operative on “Burn Notice” on USA is cheekier than James Bond in the Roger Moore years. And even he is a wallflower compared to the latest action man on the block, a cocky private security expert, on the new Fox show “Human Target” (reviewed on Page 15). Saucy spy spoofs are in vogue: “Chuck,” an NBC action comedy, about a geek-turned-spook, is in its third season. On Thursday FX introduced its own, far raunchier and polymorphously offensive animated version, “Archer,” about a screw-up secret agent who only inadvertently foils terrorist plots.

“24,” on the other hand, begins its eighth season on Fox on Sunday — 10 weeks after the Fort Hood attack and only 18 days after the suicide bombing of a C.I.A. base in Afghanistan — as sober and unsmiling as it was when it made its premiere, barely two months after the attacks of 9/11.

In a universe of insouciant special agents, Bauer is, if nothing else, souciant.

Police procedurals, medical shows and courtroom dramas are always popular, because countless viewers have some direct experience with crime, medical emergencies or legal fees. Espionage is more esoteric, so spy series usually come in clusters at times of heightened anxiety over world affairs.

In the ’60s the cold war inspired shows that tapped into, then blunted, people’s worst fears about nuclear annihilation. Shows that posited cool, witty secret agents, like “I Spy,” “Mission: Impossible” and “The Man From U.N.CL.E.,” or bumbling operatives, like the parody “Get Smart,” made the unthinkable more manageable. Like a children’s bedtime story, those series addressed the faceless beast by giving it an identifiable, even amusing form.

After détente came along in the 1970s, television spies grew scarcer: “MacGyver” (1985-1992) featured a former Special Forces operative who mostly worked the home front. “La Femme Nikita” (1997-2001) was based on a French spy film.

Today anti-terrorist tales are in fashion, and they keep even the most likely threats at a comforting make-believe remove. It’s not that the violence is in any way muted; if anything, special effects reach for Imax overstatement. Instead the heroes are blithe and invulnerable.

Viewers can witness hijackings and suicide bombings without losing sleep because debonair agents defend Western civilization and crack wise as they crack heads and global conspiracies.

Except, of course, on “24.” The series is not known for plausibility, but it still tries to keep a scrim of current events over its action sequences and preposterous subplots. This season is based in New York, where an assassination plot against the moderate president of an Iran-like Islamic nation could disrupt a nuclear disarmament agreement about to be signed at the United Nations.

When fate brings Bauer an early warning, he is retired, burned out and planning to return to California with his daughter and granddaughter. But Bauer cannot shirk one more call to duty. It’s all so familiar, yet the premiere presents counterterrorism with a straight face — something that few other such series can keep.

After the initial success of “24” like-minded shows followed but didn’t last, perhaps because they were too unrelenting. “Sleeper Cell,” a Showtime series about an undercover F.B.I. agent who infiltrates an Islamic terrorist cell, had only two seasons. “The Unit,” on CBS, had four but fell out of favor as viewers moved on to more lighthearted fare. (The ABC drama “Alias,” which started a few months before “24,” lasted five seasons, possibly because it grew outlandishly silly.)