This is now the seventh series of 24 - making it, by anyone's calculations, an extremely unfortunate week. God may have created the world in seven days, but, in a similar time span, 24 has launched nuclear missiles on Los Angeles, released weaponised viruses, had one evil President of the United States organising terrorist attacks, and another President assassinated. It's been a salutary lesson in time management for the indolent and idle.

The Counter Terrorist Unit agent Jack Bauer, meanwhile, has been kidnapped by the Chinese Government, become a heroin addict to maintain his cover, lost his daughter, watched his wife die, and put in some serious hours of either torturing or being tortured. This is a man who has been taken into a deserted warehouse and had his testicles flayed with a length of electrical flex more times than we've had hot dinners. Russians, Iranians, Africans, Slavs - they've all had a go at Jack's knackers. If he ever gets a day off, he's going to have to spend it picking out a new set of genitalia from a plastic surgery catalogue.

It is, perhaps, indicative of just how much torture there has been on 24 - it's been like some unholy amalgam of Strictly Come Torturing, The Torture Roadshow and Gavin and Torture - that this new series opens with Agent Bauer giving evidence at a Senate hearing on the now disbanded CTU. It's all “Geneva Convention” this and “Are you above the law?” that.

“Would you say you broke with procedure during this interrogation?” the presiding senator asks at one point - discussing a case in which Jack tortured a terrorist planning to blow up a bus.

“Probably,” Bauer shrugs, turning his basilisk stare up to 11.

Bauer, it is clear, is still a man who makes nails look gay.

Still, Jack's not going to be sitting in a courtroom, looking incredibly buff in a nice clean suit, for long! 24's structure means that, within eleven minutes of episode one, all cataclysmic mother-of-god crazy bananadom breaks loose, and then gets copied on to an urgent memo headed “Bauer - Sort This Out”. 24 always likes this to be real, unexpected “Oh my BLIMEY!” type stuff and this time around they've come up trumps: someone from Jack's past has returned, and with an almost unrecognisably fatter face. Plus plans to end Western Civilisation, etc, etc. Before the end credits, planes are falling from the sky, and Jack is stoically preparing to torture someone with a pencil. God I love this show. May Jack Bauer and his genitals never know peace.

Of course, Bauer's enemies are both many and varied. I'm currently working on a theory that one of them is operating under cover at ITV, pointedly recommissioning Wild at Heart in an ignoble attempt to stupid the world to death.

Wild at Heart is, without doubt, the dimmest and most objectionably facile drama on TV at the moment. The pitch is that a British vet (Stephen Tomkinson) takes his family (couple of sulky teenagers and Amanda Holden) to Africa, to save zebras, accompanied by The Best of Ladysmith Black Mambazo.

Despite the fairly gigantic central premise - AFRICA - the main cast are, with almost admirable objectionableness, very white, and the show's thematic remit - lovely twee family teatime animal lovely loveliness - was perhaps fatally holed at the end of the last series, when Amanda Holden was horrifically burnt to death in a gigantic inferno.

Still, as the new series opens - Holden's ashes still drifting down on the African extras - we all get to wonder at a new miracle: elephant make-up. A local pachyderm has been injured, necessitating a goo of tomato ketchup, wallpaper paste and sawdust, liberally applied with a long-handled broom to its arse, in lieu of a wound. The final effect is still marginally more subtle than much of the make-up on Hollyoaks.

All the animal-related stuff on Wild at Heart has long provided deeply rewarding comedy. Every week, a side plot will revolve around animals - stoically ignoring the fact that animals just can't act. This week, the script called for “lions attacking an elephant”. The final on-screen realisation of this consisted of someone frantically waving a rubber trunk at two fat, uninterested lions, accompanied by post-production trumpeting noises.

Jack Bauer, I don't know why the ITV1 drama department has such a grudge against you, but I surely to God hope you manage to break into their office and flay their testicles soon.

24, Mon, Sky1, 9pm; Wild at Heart, Sun, ITV1, 8.30pm

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