Classic Moments: The shock ending to '24' Day One

In conjunction with this week's 24 Day One Retrospective, Cult Spy returns to the final moments of the real-time show's first season when Teri Bauer was murdered by the duplicitious Nina Myers.

The Context

Jack Bauer had saved Senator David Palmer from assassination, saved his daughter Kim from numerous kidnappings and somehow saved his own neck too. But with the villainous Drazen family defeated, the dust had seemingly settled on Day One of 24 and the clock was ticking down to its final few moments. It was simply a matter of winding down after extreme tension and watching Jack have a much-deserved reunion with his family after an immeasurably hard day at the office, followed by the end credits and some channel hopping. Or so we thought…

The Moment

Teri, fresh from escaping the clutches of the terrorists at her supposed 'safe' house, returns to CTU and discovers that Nina is a mole for the villainous Drazen family. Before she can alert anyone, Nina ties her to a chair and returns to work. The evil traitor visits her before making her escape, and tells Teri that someone will find her. As she leaves, she suddenly swivels round and fires a bullet into Mrs Bauer's stomach. Any hope of her survival is dashed when Jack arrives on the scene to find her tragically dead. Roll credits.

The Aftermath

Viewers were immediately left with a sickly feeling in their stomachs, heightened by the fact that poor Teri Bauer had endured so many hardships such as kidnapping and amnesia over the course of the day. She trusted Nina, who we knew to be a traitor by that stage, and we were helpless to intervene as the woman who had an affair with Jack killed his wife.

Traditionally, the end of a season of a mainstream show – like with a film – was designed to leave an audience on a 'high'. Leaving them on a downer was risky business indeed, but the subsequent success of 24 demonstrated that viewers were not deterred from coming back. The manipulation of their emotion was definitely addictive, and the trend for downbeat season endings has been followed by other rival shows since.