It would be almost impossible to find a fan of 24 who is willing to put the sixth season of their favorite show up against the best in the series' history. After the widely-agreed-upon best season of the hit show in its fifth awful day, the sixth trip around the clock just didn't click with viewers or critics. Some think that the show has jumped the shark, never to return. Those folks don't have enough faith in Jack Bauer or the creative team behind 24. The interesting thing about a show like 24 is that the writers clearly have to plan a whole season from episode one of every year. A show like Heroes, which watched its second season start horribly this fall, can adjust to complaints and come back better in the latter half. A show like Lost can kill off characters when the blogosphere makes it clear that they don't like them. A show like 24 is stuck. But not from year to year. Mark our words - the team behind 24 will take the lessons learned from the failure of season six and come out much stronger in season seven. Whenever that may be.

So, for 24 fans, season six won't be where the show jumped the shark but a pivotal chapter in the history of the action series when it's finally over. Does that make it any easier to watch? Not really, but, like Jack has done so many times, you have to sacrifice sometimes. The sixth season of 24 starts strong - with a nuclear attack and the return of Jack from a Chinese prison - but falls apart somewhere in the middle, coming back together a little bit in the final episodes. The fact is that most fans were still reeling over the brilliance of season five and were a little harsher on six than they needed to be. It's the worst season yet, but it's still better than a lot of options on the dial. And this is the only 24 you're going to get for a long time with things like writer's strikes and DUIs making the return of the show still unscheduled. It seems possible that there won't be any new 24 for close to a year. So, quite complaining about season six and take what you can get.

If you're a hardcore fan of 24 who is actually buying the much-maligned season six after watching it on the air already, you must be coming for the extras and you'll be very satisfied. There's a commentary on selected episodes but it's the deleted scenes and the seventh disc of special features where this collection really shines. The 24 season sets have won awards in the past. The sixth edition may have disappointed on TV but it doesn't lower the bar for the standards set by the DVD releases.

The seventh disc includes a pretty lame season 7 preview, which is mostly just a montage of scenes from season six, considering they haven't filmed anything yet for season seven. They should have just left it off. But that's really the only complaint, the lack of a true season seven sneak peek or prequel, something the DVD sets have been timed to do in the past. The 24: Season Six set includes 23 deleted scenes with commentary (including a slightly alternate ending), and a series of relatively standard featurettes called "Master Illusionist: Special Effects," "Inside the Writer's Room," "The Technology of 24," and "Opening with a Bang".

Then things get a little weird. There's a short spoof with Ricky Gervais, where the Extras star cameos in the background of a pivotal 24 scene. There are the webcast diaries, a collection of very brief behind-the-scenes docs that were first broadcast online. Next are a series of 'mobisodes' that aired online and on Sprint phones after the season and followed Jack for another 35 hours. Fans will also find a PSA from Kiefer Sutherland. No, it's not about drinking and driving. It's about global warming and how green the production of 24 has gone. Oddly, there's a season 2 of Prison Break premiere episode preview. Um, we're more than halfway through season 3 of Prison Break. Weird. Finally, there's a DVD-ROM feature where buyers of the season six set will be able to use their DVD to access exclusive content after the new episodes air for season seven. That's a great idea for a special feature and further proof that Fox and the producers of these 24 sets are innovators in the world of TV on DVD. Even if the show itself has faltered.