The US military has asked the producers of 24to reduce the amount of torture scenes in the TV drama, writes James Donaghy

As Fox's ratings leviathan 24crashes its way through a sixth season of terrorist-versus-counterterrorist mayhem, its popularity grows unabated. The Emmy-winning 24doesn't just tap into American paranoia about the terrorist threat - it pours petrol on it, followed swiftly by a flaming rag. But not everyone is raising a cheer at the show's ever-growing body count. The New Yorker reports that Brig Gen Patrick Finnegan has met the show's producers to request that they tone down its torture content.

One of his concerns is that 24damages America's image abroad with its depictions of human-rights abuses. As Finnegan said: "The disturbing thing is that, although torture may cause Jack Bauer some angst, it is always the patriotic thing to do." We shouldn't be surprised by this - after all, protagonist Jack Bauer decapitated a paedophile and presented his head in a holdall as a goodwill gesture to terrorists he was infiltrating. Nonetheless, what was once a rollercoaster ride of cliffhangers is increasingly becoming a video-nasty gore-fest. Torture used to be a last resort on the series where all else failed, but by season four, innocent civilians were being tortured when they weren't actually hiding anything. It could be snapping fingers, assaults with sanding machines and defibrillators, or mysterious nerve-frying injections - 24 has been turning into A Clockwork Orange, to the point where, in a recent episode, Jack tortured his own brother by suffocating him with a plastic bag.

Partly, this is because the stakes have increased with each series - chemical warfare, bio-terrorism and nukes have hit Los Angeles in quick succession. A bigger threat demands a bigger response and, if you can save 20,000 lives by breaking a metatarsal here and there, history is likely to forgive you. But given the show's popularity with the American military rank and file, the normalisation of torture is not something to be taken lightly. And dramatically, it is becoming the easy option for a cheap thrill.

Still , 24'sproducers must secretly be chuffed - when the military gets involved, you know your show has struck a chord. But maybe it's also the sign of a show running out of ideas. And after Abu Ghraib, isn't the portrayal of torture without consequence a plain lie?