so...

Stephen Merchant has a cameo in the first episode of 24 this season as a lackey in CTU, and Kumar plays a convincing (non-pot smoking) terrorist. I thought the first episode was too hokey and unreal (bargaining for Jack Bauer to sacrifice him to a terrorist?) but thankfully we knew all along that Jack would be back to killing indiscriminately in no time. Having a 4-hour season opener was a great idea.