101 Best Written TV Series

Aired: FOX, 2001-2010

Heading into its debut, the challenges facing this intriguing new thriller were narrative ones namely, the ability to attract, and hold, a large audience through a story that unfolded by the hour, in weekly installments. By November 6, 2001, the show's premiere date, a series about a counter-terrorism agent trying to foil an assassination attempt had been thrown into an entirely different context. In subsequent seasons, as the shock of the 9/11 attacks began to dissipate and 24 settled into its status as a bona fide hit, the series became a flashpoint for the larger, and mostly political, discussion going on about the effectiveness and justification of the use of "advanced interrogation techniques." In the hands of Jack Bauer, anyway, extra-legal torture worked, as did 24's winning storytelling formula; viewers were plainly hooked, and serialized dramas in the mode of a thriller were suddenly the rage.

Credited Writers

Remi Aubuchon
Geoff Aull
Brannon Braga
Michael Chernuchin
Robert Cochran
Anne Cofell
Neil Cohen
Elizabeth M. Cosin
Juan Carlos Coto
Manny Coto
Athan A. Demetrius
David Ehrman
Adam Fierro
David Fury
Alex Gansa
Howard Gordon
Gil Grant
Patrick Harbinson
Lawrence Hertzog
Maurice Hurley
Chip Johannessen
Evan Katz
Howard Katz
Stephen Kronish
Peter M. Lenkov
Michael Loceff
Shauna McGarry
Matt Michnovetz
Steven Long Mitchell
Sam Montgomery
Andrea Newman
Nicole Ranadive
Joel Surnow
Craig W. Van Sickle
Virgil Williams