Thomas Hibbs likes the show "24", arguing that it is the best thing on in primetime. I agree. Last season was great, although I have to admit that it would have been better if the show had been titled "12." (It's tough to write 24 episodes on a single plotline.) Still, the screenwriting is quite an achievement, because everything has to happen in real time. As one of the producers recently said, on a normal show, if the hero flies from LA to New York, the camera can show him departing and then immediately arriving. On "24," they can't let the hero fly to New York unless they really want to spend five hours of the show depicting a plane ride. The challenges of 24's screenwriting remind me of the challenges Hitchcock faced in filming the Jimmy Stewart movie "Rope," where he used long, uninterrupted shots (up to ten minutes long, if I recall).