24 star Kiefer Sutherland.

LOS ANGELES -- For Jack Bauer, it felt like torture.

No, there were no stun-guns or electrocutions, no flesh wounds or rope burns. Just a question: could 24 keep ticking following a bruising sixth season -- derided by critics and fans -- as well as a crippling strike by Hollywood's writers? Or was terrorist-thwarting uber-agent Bauer -- and conversely the actor who plays him -- bound for the broadcast television equivalent of Gitmo?

"We were very, very scared about it," star and co-executive producer Kiefer Sutherland tells journalists at a press conference in a Beverly Hills hotel. "Television as a medium has lost 40% of its viewership ... I was aware of the terrible ramifications for Major League Baseball after it went on strike. The National Hockey League went on strike and it was replaced by f---ing poker. And poker did better. And you can't find a hockey game now. So yeah, I was terrified."

Impressively, though, 24, which airs Mondays on Fox and Global, has retained its audience since its seventh season premiere in January. Moreover, transplanting the action to Washington D.C. has, in the minds of its detractors, reinvigorated it creatively. Sutherland is understandably thrilled.

"The fact we managed to come back and do the same numbers we had been doing in previous years -- you have no idea the relief it's been for our whole crew."

And there was at least one benefit, he adds, to the strike-imposed hiatus. "We had 15 months to shoot what we normally do in 10."

The additional time to fine-tune the season was a twist so welcome by the show's architects that production for the forthcoming eighth season is beginning in May, rather than August, as it has in years past.

"We will have finished 22 episodes by the time it goes to air. So if at any given moment we need to stop to figure something out, we've afforded ourselves that time. I don't know why it took us seven years and a writer's strike to figure that out, but we have."

But how much longer will the series -- or Bauer -- last? Presumably at some point the 42-year-old Canadian will be ready to mothball what's become his signature character. Sutherland, however, doesn't sound like he's in a terrible hurry. "I think there are other actors who have managed to dance around being pigeonholed or typecast much better than I. For a good 10-year stretch I was the bad guy. Before that I was the teenage guy. The last 10 years I've been the Jack Bauer guy. Apparently it doesn't bother me that much because I haven't done much about it. But I would hate to think I'm completely limited."

So it's to be expected he found it "a fantastic counterbalance" to voice Gen. W.R. Monger -- who he describes as a cross between the drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket and Yosemite Sam -- in Friday's 3-D animated outing Monsters vs. Aliens. Still, he's under no illusions about his own comedic gifts.

"I think all of us have been funny at dinner, which is very different than making a movie or being on stage being funny ... I think one of the reasons I did an animated film is I got to leave the physicality at the door."

No time for 24 movie

Don't start counting the minutes to a 24 feature film yet.

Although reports have persisted for years that a movie based on the Emmy-winning drama is in the offing, Kiefer Sutherland confirms Jack Bauer won't leap to the big screen until the show has ended.

"We always thought it would be cruel and unusual punishment to ask the writers, who in the course of 10 months write the equivalent of 12 films, to 'By the way, if you have an idea for a feature film that's so special, then write that as well.' "

A movie, he adds, would be "a two-hour representation of a 24-hour period. So we would lose the real-time aspect which would be a huge freedom for the writers."

The show's creators nearly cheated the real-time format this year. Sutherland explains the Africa-based prequel that aired in November was a condensed version of four episodes originally penned for this season.

"But they couldn't figure out how to get Jack Bauer to the States in real time."

One solution they considered? Re-adjust the show's clock for the switch in time zones. "So he gets on the plane at 11 o'clock in African time and he lands in Eastern Standard Time at 11:01. But I think a couple writers laughed and said, 'No, we're not going to do it.' "