It’s too
early to chime in yet on the Fall debuts and returns (I’ll save that for next
month), so instead today I want to spend a few minutes discussing one of the
casualties of last year’s television season. ABC’s ZERØ HOUR (2013) was a one
of the earliest promoted dramas of the 2012-2013 season, despite the fact that
it was not even set to launch until February 2013 as a mid-season
replacement. (This was perhaps the first
nail in the series’ coffin). The
promotional material was vague, but intriguing, and the show landed a strong
male lead in Anthony Edwards (who played the beloved “Goose” in Top Gun and the long-term fan favorite,
Dr. Mark Greene on ER). When the show finally launched I thought it
had some good potential, although I sensed its early demise early on when
pacing problems (coupled with the Lost-esque
plight of trying to walk the difficult tightrope between developing a
complicated series-long mystery and not alienating viewers with implausible
scenarios and too many unanswered questions) were evident. But it wasn’t until well after it was canceled
that the show hit its sweet spot, revealing a narrative that would have been a
novelty on network television. ZERØ HOUR ultimately wove an intriguing
plot that forced viewers to contemplate what would happen if religious extremists
stumbled upon the most advanced scientific technology to date. But, alas, the show didn’t start there and
didn’t get there in nearly enough time to ensure itself a second season.
So where did it
start? The opening minutes of the series
flashed back to 1938 Nazi Germany where a group of priests had gathered to move
and hide a mysterious religious relic that they feared could bring about the
end of the world if captured by Hitler.
The show then shifted to its modern day narrative arch. The main plot began by focusing on Hank
Gallistan (Anthony Edwards), the owner of Modern
Skeptic (a magazine specializing, fittingly, on investigating conspiracy
theories). Not long into the pilot
episode Hank’s wife, Laila, is abducted from her clock repair shop. This event starts the first segment of the
show: a scavenger-hunt-like race around
the world to rescue Laila (and, as a result, solve an ancient mystery and capture
a well known terrorist). In a previous
post I called this show a modern day version of National Treasure and it did have that flavor. Hank and his team of young magazines, along
with an FBI agent with a grudge against the man who captured Laila, White
Vincent (he was thought to have killed her husband), begin to solve riddles
housed in clues within ancient clocks scattered across the globe. Among other surprises, this adventure brings
them face to face with some inexplicable things, most notably the frozen corpse
of a Nazi solider preserved in a submarine in the Antarctic… a corpse who is an
exact double of Hank. Finally they
collect all the clocks, rescue Laila, and then the narrative morphs into its
next focus (following the revelation that Laila is not who they think she is).
Slowly the mystery that
drives the series is revealed. The twelve clue-containing clocks were hidden
by the Twelve New Apostles (the priests seen in the opening moments of the
series). The item that they were hiding
(the item that could only be found by piecing together the clues found in these
twelve clocks) was the original cross that Jesus Christ was crucified on. A hunt for a religious relic – not a unique
premise for a narrative (Indiana Jones,
anyone?) but that, of course, was only half of the mystery.
Hank et al. learn that
Laila is really a (…wait for it…) nun with a shady past, who is working for the
Rosicrucians, a group of Christian mystics dating back to the 17th
century. The Rosicrucians (later referred
to in slang as “the Angels”), who are trying to prevent the cross from falling
into the hands of “The Pirates” (the group for which White Vincent works). These modern day “pirates” are actually
religious extremists, hiding under the front of an organization called The 41
Trust – a nonprofit organization known for their philanthropy. In
truth, their charitable acts are actually masking their unethical scientific
experiments – the most horrific being the continuation of “Project Zero Hour,”
a human cloning study began by the Nazis.
(The cloning aspect of the show, which should have been evident from
Hank’s first encounter with his double on the submarine, was also foreshadowed
with other footage that showed both he and Vincent as WWII German soldiers and
later as 1970s inmates in an insane asylum).
The head of the 41 Trust, Melannie Lynch (referred to as “Mother”), is
after the cross so that she can scientifically bring about “the second coming”
by cloning Jesus.
Viewers learn that Hank and Vincent, modern day
foes, are clones of the two WWII Nazi soldiers – best friends who “parted ways”
(Hank’s original killed Vincent’s original) after they disagreed with what to
do with the crucifix (during the Apostle’s efforts to hide it from the Third
Reich). Hank is a “successful” clone in
that he has no imperfections, Vincent is an imperfect clone (in that he is an
Albino, hence the nickname “White Vincent”).
The 41 Trust wants to use both of them to determine how to create a “perfect”
clone of Jesus.
At this point the suspense of the series is
really good. Viewers now have a real
reason to want Hank and his crew to beat the Pirates to the cross. Both parties arrive almost simultaneously and
when the ancient crate is dug up, all that is inside are bugs: the cross has disintegrated and its remnants
have been eaten by beetles. End of
danger, right? Wrong. Somehow the 41 Trust had anticipated this and
had abducted a bug expert (this just happens to be the supposedly dead husband
of the FBI agent tag-teaming with Hank in this quest). With the help of the bug doctor, the Trust is
able to extract some blood from the beetles and after studying Hank and
Vincent, they are able to create cloned embryos to be inserted into female
carriers. After one successful trial,
one girl (Alima) is impregnated, the leader of the 41 Trust decides that she
will be the one to carry the new son of God and orders Vincent to kill Alima
and all of the other would-be carriers.
Instead Hank and Vincent help her escape. An explosion kills Melanie and (at first
glance) Vincent. The series ends eight months later. A scene shows Alima healing the sick in an
African Village – one of those sick being Vincent who had escaped the explosion
after all.
Overall, besides for a lot of moments that
required really turning up one’s “suspension of disbelief” dial, it was a
pretty interesting plot. I’m not sure
where the storyline could have gone after this first season but as a one-series
unit it did a good job of presenting a unique narrative that highlighted the
danger of advanced scientific knowledge in the hands of religious fanatics.
As I turn away from last season’s shows to
focus on those debuting this year, I’m not sure I see any new network dramas
that offer this level of complexity. I
suppose I should be happy, since these types of shows tend to simply get
canceled (wasting my time and frustrating me to no end), but instead I am sad, already
feeling that my DVR is lacking in any novelty and high-end intellect. But perhaps I’ll be pleasantly surprised.
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