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James Bond may be back, but so is Jack Bauer. Besides the fact both men are indestructible super-agents who take long unexplained absences, they remain heroes with nothing in common.

Consider the differences: James Bond is a suave British operative who routinely saves the world and usually gets the girl; Jack Bauer, by contrast, is a casual dresser who rarely shaves and never gets the girl, but he still manages to save the world, with his own inimitable force majeure. And resourceful? Jack once bit a man to death.

As capably portrayed by Kiefer Sutherland, Jack Bauer finally returns in 24: Redemption (Sunday, Fox and Global at 8 p.m.), a two-hour TV movie “prequel” to the seventh season of 24, which starts Jan. 11). The movie picks up from the sixth-season finale, which aired way back in May of 2007 – and follows a year of chaos for TV's most-watched real-time drama.

To recap briefly: Last winter's writers' strike forced the cancellation of the scheduled seventh season of 24. Perhaps worse, at the same time that 24 writers were pounding the picket lines, the show's star was spending seven weeks in a California prison on an impaired-driving charge. Restarting the clock on 24 turned out to be a source of salvation.

“I made a really bad mistake,” admitted a humble Sutherland during his fleeting appearance at the summer TV critics' tour in Los Angeles. “Going back to work was something I felt comfortable doing. It was a safe place. I was grateful to have that opportunity; I have friends that made similar mistakes and have not been that lucky. I was very aware of how lucky I was.”

When viewers last saw Jack Bauer, he had again saved the civilized world, or at least prevented a nuclear confrontation between the United States and Russia. Yet again, no one said thank you, and Jack's heroic actions were disavowed by his own country. And yet again, Jack ended his longest day alone, sitting on a Malibu cliff, staring out toward the ocean and an uncertain future.

The TV movie picks up the story not long after, with Jack relocated to the fictional South African region of Sangala, where he appears to have found some contentment teaching at a tiny school in the jungle. “Jack was completely disillusioned at the end of Season 6,” said Sutherland, 41, who also holds executive producer rank on the series. “There was something wonderful about him finding a new beginning in South Africa.”

The school is operated by the new 24 character Carl Benton, a retired U.S. Secret Service agent played by Robert Carlyle. A former mentor to Jack and no stranger to danger himself, Benton is trying to make amends for sins of the past with the school, which takes in young orphans from the war-torn region.

“Carl and Jack are old friends from the same dodgy undercover world, so they understand each other,” said Carlyle, best known for his film roles in The Full Monty and Trainspotting. “Carl left that world long ago and has found inner peace helping others in Africa; for a little while, it looks like Jack might find the same peace, but then everything falls apart.”

Trouble still has a way of finding Jack Bauer. His newfound pastoral existence is shattered by the discovery that a local warlord named Colonel Benjamin Juma (Tony Todd) is drafting young African children to serve in his militia; hundreds of innocents have already died. At the behest of the U.S. government that recently rejected him, Jack is pressed back into hero service.

The parallels with real-life African conflicts lent a chill to the movie's location shoot in Africa last spring.

“The realness was always there for us,” said Sutherland, who served as one of the celebrity lensmen for Captured in Africa, an exhibition of photos taken during the shoot by the 24 creative team, which is on display at L.A.'s Paley Center for Media until Jan. 11. “There's a massive problem in how the world has dealt with Africa. In this case [in Redemption's plot], the [U.S.] government's response is a human one – ‘We can stop a genocide.' I believe that's something Bill Clinton apologized for not doing in Rwanda. We centred the entire movie around that.”

In 24's accepted real-time fashion, the movie alternates between explosive events unfolding minute-by-minute in Africa and Inauguration Day back in Washington, D.C., where the new president-elect Allison Taylor (Cherry Jones) is being sworn in as America's first woman president. Simultaneously, behind the scenes in Washington, the clearly malicious power broker Jonas Hodges, played by Jon Voight, is trying to shift public attention to the looming crisis in Africa, with assistance from the duplicitous State Department official named Frank Tramell (Gil Bellows). By the time 24 resumes its regular broadcast schedule with its two-night, four-hour premiere in January, the cast of conspirators and their anti-America plot will be in full swing.

The real question for 24 devotees is: Will it be worth the wait?

“The movie prequel will transition right into the next season without missing a beat,” says Sutherland. “The conflict that starts in the movie is the same conflict that carries all the way through next season. … I really believe it's one of the best scripts we've ever had on the series. Diehard fans are going to be very surprised.”

Further details on the show's upcoming season are being kept secret. (All guest players on the series are required to sign non-disclosure agreements.)

Even Carlyle, who boasts a long track record of playing fearsome characters – ranging from Trainspotting's psychotic Begbie to Adolf Hitler himself – is hesitant to reveal whether his character survives beyond the TV movie. “Now, if I were to tell you that,” he said with a small grin, “then I fear Jack Bauer might pay both of us a visit … and it wouldn't be a social call.”