Will 24 Come Back? Is This Bones' Final Season? Fox Boss Answers Burning Questions

Peter Rice fielded reporters' questions at the 2014 Summer TCA Press Tour on Sunday, July 20

By Tierney Bricker Jul 20, 2014 5:51 PMTags
24: Live Another DayFOX

Is Jack coming back...again?

That is the question on every 24 fans' mind after the resurrected Fox series' recent finale, which (Spoiler Alert!) ended with Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) in the custody of some revenge-seeking Russians after the heartbreaking death of Audrey (Kim Raver). (Still sobbing over here!)

At the 2014 Summer TCA Press Tour on Sunday, Peter Rice, the Chairman and CEO of Fox Networks Group, weighed in on whether 24 could live another day again. Plus, he sounded off on whether or not the upcoming 10th season will be its last...

24: Live Another Day: Rice said he's "always been a fan" of the show, and said he thought its recent comeback "was fantastic." But the network hasn't "had a specific conversation about it coming back yet. I'm sure we will in the future. It's a wonderful franchise.

"Kiefer, Evan [Katz], Howard [Gordon] and Manny [Coto] did a great job this year," he continued. "When you look at the show itself, I think it has many more stories to tell, but I think we need to sit down and talk to the creators about it."

Bones: Heading into its milestone 10th season, Rice highlighted Bones' versatility on the network's schedule, and said, "I hope this year's not the last year. It's a fantastic series." However, he noted this is stars David Boreanaz and Emily Deschanel's "last year contractually, so we have to have that conversation with them. I hope that that would come back."

Michael Becker / FOX

American Idol: Rice admitted that the longrunning reality series "played musical chairs in the last few years" with its judging panel, Fox decided to keep the lineup of Jennifer Lopez, Harry Connick Jr. and Keith Urban because "the feedback we got from the fans was that they liked liked this set of judges."

While the network is "excited for the season,"  Rice was honest about the show's struggles, and said, "If I have a criticism of the show for us last year, we haven't found in the last two years a group of kids who have captured the imagination of the public. They've been really talented kids, but for whatever reason, there hasn't been that catalyst behind the show."

Hieroglyph: Fox earned the honor (or, you know, the opposite of that) of being the first network to cancel a new series (before the season even began) when they decided to pull the plug on Hieroglyph, an "ambitious" drama set in Ancient Egypt. Though it was originally ordered straight to series, because "of the scale of it," Rice simply explained, "Ultimately, we looked at the first episode and we discussed it and we decided it didn't really live up to the ambitions we had for it. When you take a swing that big, you have to try and land it. We ultimately looked at it and thought we're not going to get there."