Eleventh Hour: Agro
By fred | October 24, 2008
(S01E03) This show focuses on Hood, obviously. He is the main character, and also the raison d’être of this show, without him there’s nothing left. Sure, he isn’t the only regular character, but Rachel Young is only his handler, as she says, or just a bodyguard, or a highly-paid driver, take your pick. But it’s not like with House, where of course the cranky doctor is the reason for the show to exists, and why all patients want to be treated there, because he’s House, that genius doctor, because while that is true, he isn’t alone.
House has a team of smart, gifted doctors that do help him in his daily life, a team that could manage to survive without him. Here, Hood is everything, and he is alone. He’s got no team, no (best) friend, no sidekick, and again, Young is more like a driver than she is really helping. But if Hood is everything, the problem is that we don’t really know much about him, and he doesn’t even seem all that special.
Some people are unlike any other, it doesn’t take long to see why and in what Gregory House or Charlie Crews or even Temperance “Bones” Brennan are so unique. Not just because they’re experts in their respective fields, but also because of who they are, as people. But Hood, he’s just some doctor or scientist, and he’s a consultant for the FBI, but why is he so special ? He doesn’t seem to be smarter than the rest of the world, he doesn’t seem to be much different than anyone else, and he doesn’t even seem to see and resolve things that anyone else would.
I think the first scene with Hood this week was a perfect example of all that’s wrong with the show. First of all, you’ll have noticed that Young wasn’t there, and no one cared. Because whether or not she’s here, it’s all the same really.
Then, are we really supposed to believe that the NTSB would have required to wall Hood for such a case ? So those guys’ job is to work on plane crashes, that’s what they do all year long, they probably have their own specialists who also work on nothing but plane crashes all year long, and yet not one of them could think about this whole rapid temperature change thing, even though I gotta say it sounded very simple and obvious to me, especially in the case of such a plane crash.
That made no sense, that was just stupid. Worse of all, was Hood’s little demonstration. It’s supposed to be the moment where we see how he’s turning this very complicated science gibberish (let’s pretend it was some), and make it simple for all to understand, using daily life things. It was ludicrous, there is no freaking way that the NTSB guy needed such a thing to understand, Hood could have said it all in one sentence, they’re all smart people who actually know what they’re talking about here.
This entire scene looked like some elementary school science fair project and was clearly meant for us, the audience, too stupid to understand what “rapid temperature change” could possibly mean. This is the sort of scene I feel insulted by, and a strong sign of poor writing.
Other than that, the actual case of the week wasn’t very exciting, because long before Hood we knew who was behind it, only left was for them to catch up, and trace back the whole thing. And in the end, I felt this episode was way too “preachy”, we were told about not knowing what we eat, the use of reassuring “medical-sounding” terms that were only advertising lies, evil corporate, world hunger, profit, all of it, but it was never any subtle, or done in a way that would make it somehow worth it. It was almost like a lecture…
Also, I may have missed it, but did we get any explanation as to why the daughter didn’t get sick ? I thought she ate everything during breakfast like everybody else ? It can’t be just that they all drank some juice or ate candy and she does not, I mean seriously, are we to believe the parents but not the daughter were high on candy ? What about the dog, was he addicted to candy as well ? What did I miss there ?
Anyways, I don’t think this is a bad show. Or, I feel there’s potential for it to become much better, and actually good. It’s not there yet, but it can grow, I sure hope it will, and I’ll be there next week to see how it goes.
What about you : Are you gonna change your eating habits now ? Did you like this episode ? Do you feel like Hood actually is doing more than what any other good consultant would do ?
Posted in Reviews
Shows: Eleventh Hour
