Eleventh Hour: Resurrection [series premiere]
By fred | October 10, 2008
(S01E01) There were two new series opposing each other last night on TV, the two of them being based on UK series. The first one is Eleventh Hour (CBS), and he second one Life On Mars (ABC). I was curious about both though excited about none, and so when it came down to deciding which one to watch first I just went by alphabetical order : Eleventh Hour was first on my list so it was easier that way, and here we go.
So here we go, with the made-for-CBS Jerry Bruckheimer-produced version of Fringe, as the show has been described. Like on Fox new series, this is a show about science, and we have this special scientist, or doctor, who’s been asked to investigate such out of the ordinary cases because his expertise is required to understand it all and break the cases. Note that unlike Fringe though, it seems to be actual science, not science-fiction (or fringe science).
Also, this show is boring, as well as rather bad. I’ll spare you comments about the usual classic if not boring introduction of the characters and all, much worse are thing like the fact that Jacob Hood (Rufus Sewell) is supposed to be the lead of the show, but his character is completely shallow. He was presented as always telling the truth or something, I think they were hoping to have some kind of character like House, but that failed miserably.
Hood was barely existing during the entire episode, he didn’t seem to have any personality worth spending time on, he didn’t had any presence on screen, he wasn’t even useful really, and most scenes were stolen by his FBI bodyguard, agent Rachel Young (Marley Shelton), who herself could actually be interesting. In the way she deals with people, in how she sent back anyone trying to ask her out, or not, in how she kept stealing things, plus it looks like she was actually the one doing the work, and definitely getting our attention.
Which leads us to another problem on this show : they go for actual science and not science fiction, fine, that’s a choice. But it might be a problem when we feel that Hood is useless in this case, that any FBI agent should have been able to work this case on his own, that his assistance or expertise wasn’t required, or even used. In other words, Young should have been able to work the case alone, and that probably would have made for a better show.
And yet, while she’s supposed to be a smart and cultivated woman, she apparently can be quite stupid — unless it is that they wanted to explain everything to us dummies, so they had her wondering where she’s heard the name of Geppetto before, or she had Hood explain to her what cloning was. That scene where he uses fruits to explain in the most basic way how cloning work (i.e. you take DNA from one dead guy and put it in a new cell to have a new baby, only even simpler) was probably supposed to show us how he’s a good scientist who knows his basics, and how cool he is to explain it all by using the simplest things, like fruits.
But it really didn’t feel like that, especially when you add that it was forced on us in the most silly way possible : Hood was explaining this to Young. Because you know, she’s smart and everything, she’s been working with him for a while now, they’ve actually been working the case for a few months at least, so obviously they never talk about cloning before now, for the third cloning-experiment they investigate.
And let’s not even talk about the scene where he inadvertently sits on his panic button, so that she ends up running in the whole hotel in her bathrobe pointing a gun at everyone around for nothing. They insisted on the panic button a lot before getting there making sure we all knew it was coming, and when it finally happened it was as expected : not funny, boring, and completely useless. It didn’t bring anything, not to the episode, not to any character, not to their relationship, just another failed attempt like so many things end up in this show.
So far I don’t really care about Hood, I’m not curious about his next case, about whether or not Geppetto is the woman’s real name or not, whether or not she’ll be the Massive Dynamics of this show, nothing. It actually surprising, but this had to be the most boring of all the Bruckheimer procedural.
That’s me, what about you ? Did you enjoy this show more than I did ? Did you find Hood an interesting character, or do you prefer Young as well ? Are you planning on giving a try for a few more episodes to this show ? When it comes to a procedural about science gone wrong, which is it for you : Eleventh Hour, or Fringe ?
Posted in Reviews
Shows: Eleventh Hour
You’re quite right, Fred. This show sucked. Bad science and no drama. It’s very difficult to believe that this Hood fellow would rate an FBI agent to protect him.
I’d also add that any FBI agent that had her gun out as much as Young did, wouldn’t be with the Bureau for long. Her drawing on that kid in the bathroom was as bad as the scene you mentioned where she was threatening numerous guests at the hotel they were staying at. Out of control.