Freddie Prinze Jr. Will Join Jack Bauer on the Next Season of 24

Freddie Prinze Jr. is back baby.  The legendary husband of the even-more legendary Sarah Michelle Gellar has snagged himself a plum role on the eighth (and final?) season of Fox’s “24″.  According to The Hollywood Reporter, Prinze will play Davis Cole - the field ops leader at the newly reconstituted CTU.  Cole wants to follow in Jack Bauer’s footsteps, which means he must suffer an untimely and highly emotional death.  Someone should really introduce this Cole to a guy named Chase - the former CTU field agent who harbored a similar Bauer-worship until his hero sawed off his hand.  Freedom ain’t free people.

Day eight of “24″ began filming this Wednesday with several other full-time and recurring cast members added, including Amil Kapoor as a Middle Eastern leader, Chris Diamantopoulos as the president’s new chief of staff and Jennifer Westfeldt as a journalist.  Telling you these actor’s names is probably a fool’s errand, though.  The shelf life for new “24″ cast members is about 18 hours max.