History Series / TwentyFour

** If anything, [[OurPresidentsAreDifferent Allison Taylor]] as well. She began in ''[[SpecialEpisode Redemption]]'' as an idealist. By the end of Day Seven, she's gone through IDidWhatIHadToDo to a level almost matching the Palmers. It strongly struck home as well: she's lost her son ([[HeKnowsTooMuch murdered to uphold the conspiracy]]), her daughter (who mistakenly issued a hit on one of the {{BigBad}}s), and [[spoiler:her husband (who, after all that pain, not only decided to divorce, but also to [[HeroWithBadPublicity vent it with the media]])]].
* BrokenAesop: In Season 8, the two military officers conspire against President Taylor to turn the IRK President over to the terrorists to get the terrorists to not detonate the nuke in New York City. They succeed, and, although they kill president Hassan, the terrorists DO disarm the nuke (which CTU would NOT have found and stopped in time otherwise). Taylor angrily denounces the pair of conspirators and has them arrested. So we get TWO broken aesops: 1. It is wrong to try to save the lives of tens of thousands, even if CTU is incompetent, because disobeying the president is far worse. 2. If you give terrorists what they want, they will comply with you and not cause further trouble.

* KickTheSonOfABitch:
** In the first episode of Day 2, Jack murders Marshall Goren and chops off his head in order to infiltrate a terrorist cell. Considering that Goren was charged with eight counts of kidnapping a minor, two counts of child pornography, and first degree murder, it's hard to feel bad about it.
** Jack [[spoiler: throwing Margot Al-Harazi out the window to her death]] in Day 9.

* KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade

** Several of ''24''[='=]s story arcs are highly similar to the British series Series/{{Spooks}}, which also aired throughout the 2000s. They include the counter-terrorism team being locked in their office because of a nerve gas threat, the hero teaming up with AlexanderSiddig as a potentially-untrustworthy Muslim ally, a plot to crash airplanes together in midair, and a hacker breaking into the traffic light network to cause havoc and blackmail the government (before ''Film/LiveFreeOrDieHard'' as well). There are more similarities, as well, but are just generic enough to be stock [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror war on terror]] plots, like a season revolving around UsefulNotes/{{Iran}}'s -- or [[{{Qurac}} "Kamistan's"]] -- nuclear program and a subsequent peace deal derailed by terrorism.

The series also leans ''heavily'' into GreyAndGrayMorality. Jack may have ChronicHeroSyndrome, but he's also an UnscrupulousHero, the TropeNamer for the "JackBauerInterrogationTechnique," and a BrokenAce from season after season of "IDidWhatIHadToDo" chaos. While the villains are unquestionably bad people who are willing to kill, EvenEvilHasLovedOnes (who, of course, Jack is willing to use as leverage against those villains in true CowboyCop fashion).

* RedHerringTwist: Season 2 ends with an assassination attempt on David Palmer, who falls to the ground in grave health. However, the resolution to this is never shown [[note]]except in ''24: The Game'' for UsefulNotes/PlayStation2[[/note]], and Season 3 takes place three years later with a rejuvenated Palmer and a completely new plot.

* ArtisticLicenseTechnology: Whenever someone (typically Chloe) has to hack something and we see an IP-address, there's a very good chance that the IP-address is completely impossible in the real world. All IP-addresses shown can be assumed to be IPv4, since that was the standard when the show first came out, and as such consist of 4 numbers separated by dots (for instance, 192.168.0.0, which is typically the gateway-address for whatever network you are connected to). None of these numbers can be higher than 255, and the first is usually 10 or 192 (10 for Class A networks, 192 for Class C networks). On more than one occasion, the IP-addresses in 24 completely ignore the rules, as seen for instance near the end of ''Live Another Day'', where Chloe accesses a computer whose IP-address is completely impossible (for one thing, the third number is somewhere in the ''5000''-range)! Generally speaking, if Chloe is the one doing the hacking, you can be absolutely sure that the IP-address breaks the rules established by the IPv4-standard.

* PyrrhicVictory: Are there any victories on this show that don't have ''some'' element of this? But special mention should go to Day 3, because it's the plan set in motion by Jack, Tony, and [[spoiler:Agent Gael Ortega]] that exacts a terrible price from each of them before they accomplish what they set out to do. It's [[MoralOfTheStory kind of the point of the series, if you think about it]].

** Whenever a news broadcast is seen on the show, it's usually either Creator/{{Fox News|Channel}} or [[BrandX a fictional network that's not Fox News]] but [[CaptainErsatz may be vaguely reminiscent of CNN or Al Jezeera]].