Has "24" gone off the rails? Yet again?

As a fan of "24" since the show began — what, 24 years ago? — I've put up with most of the thriller's extremely implausible plot twists, even occasionally defending it against the rants of others.

And if you haven't watched the show — as Jack would say, trust me — when "24" goes nuts, it really goes nuts. And it goes nuts somewhere in each and every season.

But this year it seems to have gone really wacky, zany nuts on a semi-regular basis.

Still, Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer is such a compelling character, and the show is still so darn exciting, that I haven't been able to turn away.

Each cliffhanger episode brings me back the next week, no matter how annoyed I may get. (In fact, my wife gives me a bad time because even if we're out late on a Monday, I've recorded that night's episode and have to watch it before retiring.)

But "24" can certainly test your patience. (Just as I test my wife's.)

I know some fans gave up on "24" a season or two earlier, but it wasn't until the latter half of Season 6 that it really began to wear me down. The show started to go off in directions that, even for "24," were just too unlikely or paranoid to accept.

Suspending disbelief was beginning to feel like an aerobic workout.

But I stuck it out. And after a year off, courtesy of the 2007 writer's strike, the show's creators promised that this season (which ends with two episodes on Monday) would get "24" back on track. And for a while that seemed to be the case.

Then the false endings began to mount up: AHA, DISASTER HAS BEEN AVERTED … oh wait, maybe not. HEY, ANOTHER DISASTER HAS BEEN AVERTED. Oh, wait, I guess not.

Pretty soon there were more stops and starts than the final act of your average Steven Spielberg flick. No kidding. The show this season had a false ending every five or six episodes … er, hours … in its 24-hour cycle. And really, how many times can you do that when you're saving the world in a single day?

Then there's the problem of audience loyalty toward longtime characters, chiefly Tony Almeida (Carlos Bernard), who died in Season 6.

SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't been watching and plan to catch up with Season 7 on DVD (to be released Tuesday), you may want to stop reading now.

As Season 7 began, Tony was, to Jack's surprise, alive and well. Only instead of being a good guy, he was now a bad guy. Say what?

But wait! It turned out that Tony was a good guy after all; he was working deep undercover.

Then, late in the run — whoops! Tony's a bad guy after all. A very bad guy. That's REALLY deep undercover.