'24' could be coming back with Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer

Someone fetch the defibrillator, because 24 could be making another comeback, with Kiefer Sutherland as the one and only Jack Bauer.

According to Deadline, Howard Gordon, one of the show's writers and original producers, has said that discussions are now taking place to bring it back.

Speaking at the Television Critics Association press tour, he said: “Fox certainly wants to do it, and we’re talking.

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“When I say talking, what it will be. The big headline being it has to be worth doing. We can’t do it to just do it. We want to find the right story.

“I hope that there will be some traction this spring, just deciding what it might be.”

He added that Todd Harthan, who is currently making medical drama The Resident, is working up ideas for the comeback.

As recently as last week, Fox president Michael Thorn had hinted that the show could be set to return.

He told Deadline: “We continue to talk about 24. There is nothing that is ready to announce on either front but if there is a way to do another 24, we would be thrilled to do it. But it has got to feel special and worthy of doing as opposed to just another season.”

It wouldn't be the first time that the show had been resurrected, though in May last year Fox turned down two new series of the show – a prequel and a real-time legal thriller – that had been pitched.

The show ran for an intial eight series and 192 episodes, with Sutherland playing the grizzled counter-terror agent Jack Bauer.

It pioneered the idea of a show happening in real time, with each episode being one hour out of a single day.

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After airing its seventh season in 2008, it returned for its eighth, called 24: Live Another Day, in 2014.

A TV movie, 24: Redemption, was also released in 2008.

A spin-off series, 24: Legacy, featuring all new characters, aired in February, 2017, before being cancelled in July the same year.

But Sutherland said last year that he'd be willing to return to the character 'as long as the story is good'.

He told Lorraine Kelly: “It got to a point, where how many bad days can one guy have?

“We decided to finish it at that point, but I've also learned never to say never on 24. We shot the last season here in London and I didn't expect to do that.

“I said we were never doing 24 again, I was wrong, so I learned to stay quiet about that.”