Eleventh Hour: Savant
By fred | October 31, 2008
(S01E04) I recently talked about why Eleventh Hour was more exciting than Life On Mars, and as I explained, even though I’ll be the first to admit that there’s a higher quality level on ABC drama, this show is simply more exciting due to the way it’s been constructed, and that’s why I did tune in to watch it first.
Because when this episode opened, I had no idea what this would be about, it could go in any direction, and that makes thing quite exciting. Unfortunately though, it does seem as if Eleventh Hour really wants to remain Jerry Bruckheimer’s least interesting procedural, and if they don’t even try to get better at it and improve the quality of the show, I don’t see myself watching for too long.
Sure, it could be about anything, and this episode wasn’t like the previous ones, but that doesn’t mean it was very inspired either, I mean the crazy surgeon who wants to “fix” his kid and so starts to kidnap innocent kids and perform experiment on them, is very common thing on TV. But what really puts me down is the quality of writing on this show, which really isn’t very good.
They want to have a great character or do like what you see on other shows, when it’s well done and works very well, but they can’t really do it. For instance, when talking about autism back at the hotel (when leaving), of course Rachel had to be the dumb blonde again and say how she never understood anything about anything, as to give Hood a reason to do one of his little tricks where he uses daily items he can find to explain an otherwise very obvious scientific fact.
So he used her luggage of course to show something that definitely needed a little show, because otherwise how could one explain that “normal” people organize things, while those with autism do not, and have a whole mess in their brain (apparently), and finally the savant just focus on one thing and one thing only, ignoring everything else. I mean this is such a complex concept that, really, it did require for Hood to do a little show. Plus, how hilarious that he didn’t use his luggage but hers, so she was pissed. Oh man, so funny…
And often they feel the need to explain things for the audience even when it’s obvious, many times they way the come to a resolution and move forward on their investigation appear to be a little too easy, and then there’s pure moment of BS like for instance the fact that they suspected the head of the Autism Institute, and Rachel has all those contacts in powerful places an shit, and yet they apparently didn’t think of looking at all the places she had in her name, or they’d have found that place that eventually blew up sooner.
But my favorite one was probably “cracking the code” when Theresa wanted to give them a license plate. She was getting better, talking a lot considering she’d been quiet for years, and if she could ask to go to the bathroom, she couldn’t actually say why. She could speak, but not to give the license plate. And it’s not that her brain remembered it differently than us or was only able to formulate it in colors, she knew the actual letters and numbers she wanted to say, but instead of painting them on the wall, since she could see them see could duplicate them, no she had to use color codes so it looks mysterious and like Rachel and Hood were facing the mystery of a brain working in unusual ways and because they’re so good they cracked the code. Loads of BS, really.
I actually never watched the original UK series, but if it was any good maybe they should try to watch it back or something, because so far this show is not really very good. And the concept, as open as it may be, isn’t all that new or especially exciting either, so if things don’t get better soon, I’ll probably stop watching.
What about you ? Did you like this episode ? Are you annoyed by Hood’s little demonstration of things very obvious and that he could very simply explain with words only ? How much more episodes are you willing to watch before giving up if things don’t improve ?
Posted in Reviews
Shows: Eleventh Hour
