Much has been written about “24,” the heart-stopping Kiefer Sutherland action series that was good last season and is fantastic this season. The situations are thrilling, the dilemmas unthinkable, the action relentless.

But let us pause for a moment and pay tribute to the show’s — and indeed, all of television’s — most stupid character: Kim Bauer.

Kim, played by Elisha Cuthbert, is hero Jack Bauer’s teen-age daughter. Last season, she managed to get kidnapped something like four times in 24 hours — often by the same people from whom she kept escaping, granted, but four abductions in one day is still excessive.

This year, Kim has displayed an even more alarming lack of competence and foresight. Her father told her early on to leave Los Angeles because there was the danger of a nuclear bomb being detonated by terrorists. To prevent widespread panic, Jack told her not to tell anyone. Subsequently, Kim has told practically every person she has come in contact with. She always shows a flicker of thought as she goes through the decision-making process, but in the end, her decision is the same: I should tell this person about the bomb that Dad told me not to tell anyone about.

Later in the day, she was arrested for a crime she didn’t commit, and she escaped by setting fire to the police car she was riding in. The fire caused the officer to wreck the car, badly injuring himself and his other detainee, Kim’s boyfriend — but at least dim-witted Kim made it out!

Almost immediately, she was lost in the woods, stuck in an animal trap, and being pursued by a cougar. Then a reclusive right-wing militia guy played by Matt Dillon’s brother came along, rescued her, took her to his cabin, and tricked her into holing up in his bomb shelter with him. (She told him about the bomb, of course.)

“24” is a finely melodramatic program that exists in a constant state of climax, with some truly good writing and acting taking most of the edge off the outrageousness. But then there’s Kim. The writers don’t seem to know what to do with her. With any luck, having escaped from the cougar, she will now be eaten by dinosaurs.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page D19.

Newsletter