24. 9 tomorrow night,

Channel 29.

ANOTHER day, another insane terroristic threat.

And Jack's back.

Time to synchronize your watches, "24" fans. The clock starts ticking at 9 tomorrow night - that's 8 a.m. in "24" time, producers having apparently opted to begin and end the 24-episode season in daylight - and unless you spent the past five months on roller-coasters, your heart may not be in shape for the ride.

Which will, according to Fox, be uninterrupted by commercials, courtesy of a major auto company I won't identify.

Why not?

Because I'm not supposed to be telling you much at all about what happens in tomorrow night's season premiere.

Kiefer Sutherland asked me not to.

The actor, who plays Counter Terrorism Unit agent Jack Bauer, didn't actually seem very threatening in the taped message to critics that accompanied the season's first two episodes, but having seen them, as well as his homicidal explosion last season against evildoer Victor Drazen (Dennis Hopper), I've decided it couldn't hurt to honor his wishes.

Because however nice Kiefer seems right now, Jack's turned into a real grump since last we saw him.

He's not shaving, he's stopped going to work, and he's not returning phone calls.

But then, who can blame him?

You save the next leader of the free world, not to mention your own teen-age daughter, from bad guys with Baltic accents while your supposedly trustworthy colleagues stay safe and warm back at the office, their only apparent responsibility to keep an eye on your wife, and the next thing you know, one of them's killed her.

It's enough to make any man rethink the whole right and wrong thing.

Jack's not the only one who's done some rethinking.

His wayward daughter, Kim (Elisha Cuthbert), having apparently forgotten her own part in the twisted, "Perils of Pauline" saga that last season ended in the death of her mother, Teri (Leslie Hope), has decided to blame Daddy for everything.

Jack's CTU supervisor, George Mason (Xander Berkeley), has grown a beard, while another CTUer, Tony Almeida (Carlos Bernard), has shaved, obliterating his one distinguishing characteristic and posing a problem for the episode recappers at televisionwithout

pity.com, who'd dubbed him Soul Patch. (Can't wait to see what they name "Roseanne's" Sara Gilbert, who's joined CTU as a techie. Darlene?)

Other hairy developments include an influx of blondes. Not only does Kim, now working as a nanny, look even fairer than last season, but both her female employer and her young charge are perfect blond Angelenos, as are a couple of sisters we meet along the way who I'm betting will turn out to have something to do with Jack's latest crisis.

None of them, by the way, seems to be having much fun.

If anyone's remained essentially unchanged, it's David Palmer (Dennis Haysbert), who's now president of the United States, protected by the Secret Service from his scheming ex, Sherry (Penny Johnson Jerald), but not from the threat of Really Bad Things.

Forget "The West Wing's" Jed Bartlet: President Palmer is television's new fantasy leader, tall, good-looking and so upstanding that he's the despair of some of his more cynical advisers (though he seems to have the full support of one, played by "Homicide: Life on the Street's" Michelle Forbes).

I'm counting on Palmer to get us all through the coming "24" hours. Because, frankly, Jack scares me silly.