TV's '24' may be savvy, but it's not smart about LI
Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer in "24." A key episode of the season is shot in Long Island. Credit: Brian Bowen Smith/FOX
Long Island played a key role in Monday's episode of "24," which takes place this season in the New York area.
One of the show's key plot points this year involves keeping uranium rods out of the hands of terrorists. On Monday, we learned that the rods were in a truck that had been "redirected" to a weigh station off the Wantagh Parkway.
Hmmm. As any Long Islander knows, there can't be a weigh station on that road because trucks aren't allowed.
We asked executive producer David Fury, who grew up in Old Bethpage and also wrote the episode, for an explanation:
"At one point the nuclear rods were being brought into Manhattan via the Jersey Turnpike," he notes. "But since bringing them into Manhattan was going to prove a hurdle to the terrorists later, we opted to make the storage facility on Long Island.
"I tried to pull up some roadway that would be slightly less conspicuous than the LIE for the trucks transporting the materials toward the city," he continued. "I kind of remembered trucks weren't allowed on the Wantagh, but it sounded good, and at the very least, it would give fans something to talk about on the Internet. Some people think '24' takes place in the future. . . . Maybe by then, the ban on trucks is lifted."
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