Fans of the Fox drama-comedy 24 (and there must be a few who read this blog) will be pleased to hear that McFarlane Toys plans to release two Jack Bauer action figures, with the first hitting stores this August. Okay, maybe ”””fans””? isn”””t the right word. More like ”””the ”””24””” equivalent of the most crazed, pathetic Trekkie lunatics.””? Let”””s face it: anyone who regards these figures as anything other than a cold-blooded financial investment is carrying fandom to unhealthy extremes. Also, it doesn”””t even look like Jack Bauer.

Actually, there”””s a reason for that. The doll in the picture is a double; Jack Bauer tortured the first doll to death. According to Kiefer:

We started torturing him around 11 o’clock at night, and, by two o’clock in the morning, we had set him on fire in the parking lot. We got up the next day and there was just this puddle of wax. His clothes didn’t burn, which I thought was pretty cool… and then I got a call the next day saying, “Did you like the doll?” I said, “Yeah, it was great.””? And they said, “Well, OK, good, you gotta send it back to us because that was the prototype….”

On the plus side, the doll earned Kiefer”””s grudging respect because it never, ever talked. On the minus side, where will this end? First Christmas trees, and now dolls. If there”””s an episode this year that features Jack torturing adorable cocker spaniel puppies, I”””m going to tune out and limit my viewing to House or something.