A day of reckoning on ‘24’

I sing to you of “24,” Fox’s gloriously preposterous television show, which comes crashing to its Season 7 close tonight, proving that love means never having to say you’re sorry, even for a life devoted to torture.

Never mind that the whole all-in-a-single-day conceit is old and unnecessary or that the dialogue consistently makes “Scooby-Doo” look like Tennessee Williams. Forget all the ridiculous inconsistencies.

Put aside even the absurd image of a ruthless dictator with a doomsday weapon whose only goal is to take over some crap country called Sangala. (No sacks of gold bullion? No nuclear weapons? No “I’ll take all the red states and 10 lifetime passes to DisneyWorld”? My God, man, what kind of tyrant are you?) Put all these niggling matters out of your mind because “24” is terrific television, this was a great season, and here are 10 reasons why.

1. We love Jack. Kiefer Sutherland may be a head-butting, drunk-driving mess, but as the internally tormented yet eternally resolute Jack Bauer, he is inspired. Infected this season by a nameless bio-weapon (some neuro-infector that is neither contagious nor particularly hearty, which is strange for a bio-weapon), he managed to get the job done while coughing and squinting in pale sweaty anguish.

2. Dueling keyboards. We knew we were in for a treat when Janeane Garofalo showed up as the tart-tongued, frozen-faced Janis Gold, the FBI’s answer to CTU computer whiz Chloe O’Brian (Mary Lynn Rajskub). But when Chloe took over the FBI mainframe -- well, watching the competitive hacking and deadpanned barbs fly was even more fun than wondering what exactly Jack was injecting himself with that allowed him to carry on.

3. Madame President. Cherry Jones is about the only actress alive who can utter lines like “I want real-time updates on Jack Bauer’s condition” with a straight face, remain in office after her son apparently commits suicide and her husband is taken hostage, appoint her wayward and utterly unqualified daughter chief of staff in the middle of a huge crisis and make us believe that these are things an actual president might do.

4. Jon Voight. As Jonas Hodges, Military Contractor Gone Mad, Voight not only chewed up every piece of scenery in sight, he swallowed it and then, Houdini-like, coughed it back up as the key to our jaded hearts. Yes, he was a villain, but who wasn’t stricken when his car blew up?

5. The body count. Really high. And here we were afraid “24” would suffer under the new presidential administration.

6. Tongue-in-cheek attempts at political correctness. In answer to criticism for the show’s brutality, we got Larry Moss (Jeffrey Nordling), the biggest pantywaist to ever run the FBI. Continually hampering Jack’s efforts to, um, save the world with his ridiculous concerns about protocol and the Constitution, Larry finally got with the program only to be strangled to death by the traitorous Tony. Lucky him; he missed the “It’s never too late to turn to God” speech from the imam Jack abducted but later apologized to. Oh, Jack, if only we could all follow your spiritual path.

7. Invasion of the White House. Any situation that involves the president in peril in the Oval Office is as cheesy as it is improbable, but golly, it works every time, doesn’t it?

8. Renee Walker (Annie Wersching). What is it about a redhead? We know Jack is too emotionally maimed for anything remotely like a romantic relationship, but we keep hoping, and we hear she’s back for Season 8.

9. Father and child reunion. The return of Kim Bauer (Elisha Cuthbert) was so sneakily anticlimactic that we knew something more was afoot. All that girl has to do is get within two feet of her dad and there she is, tied to the railroad tracks yet again.

10. That really cool iron-door-clanging sound. “24” can lose the digital clock and even the split frames, but that ominous booming separating each scene has become an auditory icon, right up there with Homer’s “Doh” and the theme from “Chariots of Fire.” Is it available as a ring tone?

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mary.mcnamara@latimes.com

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‘24’

Where: Fox

When: 8 tonight

Rating: TV-14-V (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 14 with an advisory for violence)