Am rewatching the series, up to where Jack has just busted Salazar out of prison (loving it, day 3 is my fave in lots of ways, but I digress!) has just occurred to me how strange it is that for a series called 24, that the signature clock uses the 12hr clock!?
Why 6pm for example, why not 18:00? Given that CTU is a government, crime fighting agency, using 24hr/military time would seem to make sense?
There's actually a number of reasons.
1. Alot of Americans can't actually tell a 24hr clock. It just isn't widely used in the states outside the military.
2. It would confuse people whom don't watch every week.If 23:24:13 displayed during an episode then an uniformed viewer may believe it to be hour 24, the season finale.
3: It would sound stilted on the intro screen.
Those are my guesses anyway.
I'll see your 12 hour clock and 24 hour clock, and raise you the following, (all tongue in cheek of course);
At the beginning of every episode jack points out that all events happen in real time.
Then what's happening during those 5-7 minutes or more during commercials? If you notice, when the show returns after the break, the clock has advanced an equal amount in minutes.
'All events occur between '×pm' and '×pm'...1 hour exactly.
I figure I'm missing some 20 minutes or more every single hour of every single show. What happened during those 20 minutes...I wanna know! Will those missing minutes be included in the supposed DVD releases? I'll be waiting on baited breath.
195 episodes × 20 minutes = 3,900 minutes, or 65 hours.
That's 65 extra episodes we've all missed. Jack guaranteed we would see 1 full hour.
No wait! Seeing as how each episode rendered only 66.6% or 2/3rd's, then that would equal 97.5 extra episodes...lost...due to commercials.
I didn't say it. .Jack did...blame him