Gone for almost 20 months but certainly not forgotten, “24” exploded back onto television screens this month for its seventh season.

Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) has once again woken up on the wrong side of the bed and must undergo 24 more hours of malice. Good thing he wore his bullet-proof jammy jams.

On a mission to simultaneously silence his critics and enemies, Jack started the day in court, on trial for his innumerable violations of the Geneva Conventions. That scene quickly dissolved as he was wrangled into working alongside the FBI’s top agent on a matter of national importance. His mission: take down his presumed-dead former best friend Tony Almeida (Carlos Bernard), who is at the very the bottom of the bad guy food chain.

Tony and his legion of goons are in possession of this year’s MacGuffin, the CIP module, which can take down airplanes, corrupt power grids and do just about everything else needed for plot advancement. Tony’s higher-up is a bloodthirsty war monger fully intent on using the module to blackmail President Allison Taylor (Cherry Jones) into withdrawing American troops stationed in the fictional country of Sangala, Africa.

OK, now disregard everything I just said, because Tony is actually deep undercover with his old pals from the now-disbanded Counter Terrorist Unit and is working to stop the evil Colonel Dubaku. Along with Jack, the second CTU must navigate its way around FBI presence all the while keeping up appearances with the bad side. Sprinkle in the usual tales of intrigue, a fresh cast of characters and Washington, D.C. as a backdrop and you’ve got one epic joyride a mere five episodes in.

In the case of “24,” now in its seventh “day,” the producers aren’t giving us anything we haven’t seen before. The old governmental conspiracies, the completely irreverent technobabble and the iffy subplots are all still there, only this time around it somehow feels new. A dismal sixth season, in addition to last year’s writers’ strike, allotted the writers more time to polish the story and, like Jack, silence their own critics in the process.

The entire season thus far feels like a backhand to “24” detractors everywhere, hitting on every little facet, from the negative reviews of the previous season to the overuse of torture, and it’s absolutely brilliant.

Welcome back, Jack.