Zero Hour

Think the (hint! hint!) demon love child of “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and “Rosemary’s Baby,” meets “National Treasure.” The series seems inspired by all of them, mostly successfully.

Zero Hour has lots of twists and turns that could be worth following. It also has the DNA to be laughably bad.

Ambitious and intermittently entertaining, Zero Hour--and its celebrated lead--don't quite hit all their marks. But at least the mystery's a hoot.

A serial that's unpretentious, geeky fun but actually needs much more if it wants to be a never-ending Da Vinci Code. [15 Feb 2013, p.61]

Zero Hour‘s first episode ends on one hell of a promising cliffhanger, including a shock that comes out of nowhere but still makes sense. If director Pierre Morel can ask for a few more takes (occasional scenes feel like actors are still rehearsing) and if the script turns as strange as that episode-ending shock suggests it might, Zero Hour may actually be more new than recycled.

It takes a while for Hank and his assistants Rachel (Addison Timlin) and Arron (Scott Michael Foster) to grasp all this, even with the unwanted help of FBI agent Beck Riley (Carmen Ejogo). Once they have, and we have, the setup is solid.

Some viewers will no doubt find this intriguing, while others will be quick to dismiss it as overwrought poppycock. Fortunately, the show has Anthony Edwards at its center, bringing a much-needed Hitchcockian Everyman quality to his role as Hank Galliston.

This is “The Da Vinci Code” crossed with “Indiana Jones” with dialogue courtesy of a Magic 8 Ball.

The first episode does explain the premise pretty clearly--if you pay close enough attention and aren't laughing too hard.

For these stories to work, we have to invest in the everyman hero caught in the center, and while Edwards may be convincing as the "everyman" part of the equation, the "hero" eludes him.

The problem is that Zero Hour is either unwilling or unable to be that crazy all the time.

Even within the fantasy context of the show, there are a few elements that don't ring completely true, but it's easy to overlook them, if only because you're not given much time to think about things before Scheuring hurls another engaging plot twist in your direction.

Just know going in that you'll be far better served by acknowledging the towering silliness of the plot, because it's just about impossible to take it seriously.

It does have a lot of characters and a hopelessly confusing plot.... But the show is not without its strengths, particularly the scenes in which the magazine editor (Anthony Edwards, ER) argues with young staffers disappointed by his refusal to run a story about werewolves running amok in Romania.

Zero Hour is entirely dispensable, its silliness matched by its comic-book solemnity.

Zero Hour wants to be as brilliant as "Lost" but, sorry to say, feels more akin to the misfire "FlashForward."

This overly ambitious series tries to do way too much and ends up doing nothing particularly well.

Zero Hour, while initially tantalizing (priests, Nazis, Anthony Edwards, an unholy birth, a secret map--I'm in! I'm in!), is more than a little disappointing (flat-footed dialogue, absurd plot machinations, cardboard main characters, ludicrous historical leaps--I'm out! I'm out!).

Zero Hour is a terrible show. But for viewers who long to mock or hate-watch and for "Da Vinci Code" fans who like to be dragged along on a crazy ride to Crazytown, Zero Hour is a hoot.

It hyperventilates when it means to be breathless. [18 Feb 2013, p.44]

Without Anthony Edwards's unpretentious intelligence anchoring Zero Hour, I doubt I could have gotten through ten minutes of the pilot without gnashing my teeth in annoyance.

Preposterous, ridiculously earnest, poorly scripted and laughably acted, this is the series that Anthony Edwards chose to re-enter prime-time after a long tenure as one of ER's main men. He should've stayed in bed.

Zero Hour, like many of its fallen drama brethren, does the opposite, building layer after layer of false mystery around cardboard characters.

We’ve seen this over and over again: a series built around an elaborate concept, dressed up with a spooky mythology, then filled in with characters so poorly conceived, they may as well be called Kidnapped Wife Lady.

The acting is half-hearted, the characters are paper thin, and the dialogue and plot development are embarrassing. It’s as sophisticated as “Jonny Quest.”

Hapless, feckless, goofy, dumb: take your pick of adjectives, that is Zero Hour.

Even in a year that has given us clunkers like The Mob Doctor, Emily Owens, M.D. and Animal Practice, it's tempting to declare Zero Hour the worst or at least silliest show of this or any other recent season.

Zero Hour was rancid when it got here. The dialogue is stilted and almost entirely expository. The plot is like receiving a coloring book that’s already been colored.