24

A day in Jack Bauer's life is a terrible thing to volunteer for. 24 follows a counter-terrorism agent trying to stop a threat while his colleagues, his family and the people giving orders create problems of their own. The ticking clock and split screens make waiting for a phone call feel almost as urgent as a chase.

Kiefer Sutherland is the reason the machinery holds together. Bauer can be exhausted, furious and frighteningly certain that he is the only person who can act, sometimes within the same conversation. The stronger stretches give that urgency a human cost rather than simply finding him another door to kick through.

There are repeated twists and some substantial leaps of plausibility. This is a thriller to get swept up in, not a realistic account of intelligence work. Start with the original first season: its personal stakes give the larger conspiracy something to bite into. Homeland takes related questions of trust and professional obsession into a more psychologically complicated drama.