Jack Bauer gets the bullet as Fox calls time on 24

Fox is to cancel 24, its long-running espionage drama, which pre-empted history with its 9/11-style terrorism plots and depiction of an African-American president in the White House. The report of its demise comes as the award-winning series finds itself at the centre of a real-life diplomatic row.

Variety claims that Fox is close to making an announcement that the current season, the show's eighth, will be its last. Although hailed as ground-breaking when it premiered in 2001 for its "real-time" storylines - all 24 episodes in each series take place as consecutive hours in one day - ratings have fallen in recent seasons while critics have come down hard on the current series. Meanwhile production costs on 24 - which takes up to a year to shoot per season - have escalated.

However federal agent Jack Bauer - played by Kiefer Sutherland - and the Los Angeles Counter Terrorist Unit may not be forced to shut up shop completely. Last month, Fox's film arm hired State of Play writer Bily Ray to pen the script for a 24 movie. According to Variety, Sutherland, who is an executive producer on the film, is said to have helped come up with the plot. Should Bauer's first big-screen outing get the green light, his next mission will see him go to Europe.

Although 24 made its small-screen debut in November 2001, the show was developed before the September 11 attacks and seemed prescient in its portrayal of the post-9/11 world. Meanwhile Dennis Haysbert's first black US president was seen as a ground-breaking precursor to the 2008 election of Barack Obama - and came five years before the West Wing put another charismatic young man from an ethnic minority, Latino politician Matthew Santos (Jimmy Smits) into the White House.

Meanwhile, 24 this week became embroiled in a row between Britain's MI5 and American officials. Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, the former secret service chief, claimed that the Pentagon's interrogation techniques had been inspired by Jack Bauer. At a lecture in the House of Lords yesterday, Manningham-Buller was highly critical of American conduct during the 'war on terror', saying: "Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld certainly watched 24".