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Watch terrorist scum blow up San Antonio. Watch Jack Bauer be sacrificed to stop the reign of terror. Watch Jack Bauer go all Dracula on a terrorist scum. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, “24″ is back, and Jack Bauer, despite spending 2 years (or thereabouts) in a Chinese prison being tortured and forced to eat soy sauce and Kung Pao chicken 7 days a week, is still the baddest man on the planet. Or is he? Ol Jack is having doubts about his ability to do the job, or as he confesses to an unlikely source, “I don’t know how to do this anymore.”

Season 6 of “24″ starts off with the usual bang for the buck, arriving on January 14 with a 2-hour block, followed up the next day with another 2-hour block.

So what has happened since Day 5, when we last saw Jack being hauled away by Chinese forces? It’s good news and bad news for Jack: the good news is that Wayne Palmer (D.B. Woodside), the new President, has negotiated Jack’s release from the Chinese; the bad news is that Jack is going to be sacrificed to terrorist scumbag Abu Fayed (Adoni Maropis), who wants to do to Jack what Jack did to his bro back in Berlin many years ago, and who is now currently blowing stuff up real good in America. Fayed’s deal to Palmer: give me Jack, and I give you the location of the terrorist leader, Hamir Al-Assad (Alexander Siddig, “Deep Space Nine”), whose death will surely end the campaign of terror.

Now ain’t that just a bitch? You’d think that after all Jack has done for the good ol U.S., they wouldn’t just ship the old boy to die like that, but I guess you’d be wrong.

Other tidbits of note: Morris O’Brian (Carlo Rota), Chloe O’Brian’s ex, is now working for CTU; Karen Hayes (Jayne Atkinson) has been promoted to the Oval Office and is married to CTU chief Bill Buchanan (James Morrison). There are other new faces around CTU, including middle management hottie Nadia (Marisol Nichols), and Milo the tech guy (Eric Balfour) is back. There is a bit of tension between Milo and Morris, perhaps something to do with Chloe (Mary Lynn Rajskub), who Morris calls a “hottie” and grabs her ass while they’re at work. I like this guy already. On the Palmer side of things, we meet Sharon Palmer (Regina Hall), Wayne’s crusading civil liberties lawyer sister (i.e. the dull plot filler) and Tom Lennox (Peter MacNicol), Wayne’s new advisor, who is all wormy and whatnot, but you know he’s gonna end up being the good guy.

By now you know the drill, and Season 6 is no exception. Things kick off with a bang and in full swing, and progresses unpredictably toward a series of continuing plots that don’t come up until one crisis has been averted. The plot of the moment is CTU’s search for the terrorists blowing up shopping malls, buses, and trains across America. Oh yes, it appears Mr. Fayed is cause quite the mayhem around the good ol U.S. of A. And by the end of the premiering four-hour block, Jack Bauer has all but given up, and his observation that he “can’t do it anymore” seems to have taken full hold of our hero.

But a major catastrophe might bring him back into the fold, considering — Oh wait, I can’t spoil that for you.

Here’s a hint:

KABOOM!!!!!