Eleventh Hour (U.S. TV series)

Eleventh Hour
Genre	Police procedural Mystery Drama
Created by	Stephen Gallagher
Starring	Rufus Sewell Marley Shelton Omar Benson Miller
Theme music composer	Harry Gregson-Williams
Opening theme	Eleventh Hour Theme
Composer(s)	Graeme Revell
Country of origin	United States
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	18
Production
Executive producer(s)	Jerry Bruckheimer Jonathan Littman Danny Cannon Cyrus Voris Ethan Reiff Paul Buccieri Mick Davis
Producer(s)	Matthew Carlisle
Location(s)	Los Angeles, California
Running time	44 minutes
Production company(s)	Jerry Bruckheimer Television Granada Television International Warner Bros. Television
Distributor	Warner Bros. Television Distribution
Release
Original network	CBS
Picture format	1080i (HDTV)
Original release	October 9, 2008 – April 2, 2009
Chronology
Related shows	Eleventh Hour (UK)

Eleventh Hour is an American science-based drama television series, which is based on the 2006 British series of the same name. The series originally ran on CBS from October 9, 2008 to April 2, 2009 and aired on Thursdays at 10 pm (ET/PT).^[1] The series was a joint venture between Jerry Bruckheimer Television, Granada Television International and Warner Bros. Television.

Plot

Eleventh Hour follows Dr. Jacob Hood (Rufus Sewell), a brilliant biophysicist and Special Science Adviser for the FBI who is brought in to investigate crimes of a scientific nature that other agents may be unable to solve. Hood is the government's last line of defense, and it is his mission to keep scientific advances out of the hands of those with nefarious intentions. Special Agent Rachel Young (Marley Shelton), of the FBI's executive protection detail, is assigned to protect Hood. Both Dr. Hood and Special Agent Young are assisted by Special Agent Felix Lee (Omar Benson Miller), towards the end of the series.

Characters

• Rufus Sewell as Dr. Jacob Hood – a science adviser to the FBI, called in to investigate crimes that may have a scientific explanation. Even though Hood is extremely brilliant, he sometimes gets lost in his own thoughts, and this, coupled with his low attention span and poor social skills, causes him to be viewed as odd. He also has few instincts of self-preservation or danger, causing him to often do things that put his life in jeopardy, such as standing in front of a fleeing suspect's car to get the license plate, something that frequently annoys Rachel. Additionally, he does not know how to drive well, leading Rachel to insist she do all the driving. Hood appears to be an atheist and is knowledgeable on a number of scientific, mathematical and philosophical topics. He nursed his wife, who died of cancer, throughout her illness.
• Marley Shelton as FBI Special Agent Rachel Young – Hood's handler. Though she is employed to protect his life, she has also said that her job is "to protect him from himself" – something he makes very difficult for her. Hood might annoy her from time to time but she does care about his well-being, viewing his many techniques with a kind of exasperated affection, though she is frequently embarrassed by and for him. Rachel mainly gets annoyed when he gets too caught up in an investigation and does something stupid, or when he does things like accidentally sit on his panic button. It is noted throughout the series that Dr. Hood is her only friend, though male characters frequently flirt with her. She is the latest in a line of Hood's protectors, but she refuses to let him "drive her away like he did those others."
• Omar Benson Miller as FBI Special Agent Felix Lee (Episodes 14–18) – introduced later in the series when he asks (although it is later discovered that he begged) to help Jacob Hood on a case. After solving the case, he asks to work with Hood full-time, stating that the work they do is amazing. Felix is given the job and works as somewhat of a scout, helping out the team with heading to the location and gathering the material they need by the time Hood and Young get there. Though he likes the job, Felix feels underappreciated due to the lack of praise for the amount of work he does.

Production

The original ITV version ran for four 90-minute episodes. Before the American remake series premiered, CBS ordered 13 one-hour episodes.^[2] The pilot episode was produced with a budget of four million dollars, and the remaining episodes were given approximately two million dollars each.^[2] Despite shooting "Agro" as a second possible pilot, CBS premiered the series with its original $4 million pilot, "Resurrection", instead.^[3]

Reception

Despite the absence of any supernatural or science fictional elements, some critics compared the series to The X-Files.^[2][4] Eleventh Hour debuted after CSI at 10:00 but at 11.6 million viewers retained only 50% of CSI's audience. The show came in second in its timeslot after the premiere of Life on Mars. Although Life on Mars lost 27% of its audience in its second week, Eleventh Hour gained numbers and saw a further gain in its third week, leading CBS to increase its script order. On December 2, 2008, TV Guide reported that CBS has ordered five additional scripts bringing the series’ total number of episodes to 18.^[5]

The Biotechnology Industry Organization launched a blog, EleventhHourFacts.com, which features subject matter experts discussing the scientific basis of each episode through video interviews, live episode blogging and posts.^[6]

Ratings

Season	Timeslot (EST)	Premiere	Finale	Viewers (in millions)	Rank
1	Thursday 10:00 PM	October 9, 2008	April 2, 2009	12.11[7]	22[7]

• Seasonal rankings (based on average total viewers per episode) of Eleventh Hour.
• Each U.S. network television season starts in late September and ends in late May, which coincides with the completion of May sweeps.

Episodes

Episode #	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date	Viewers (in millions)
1	"Resurrection"	Danny Cannon	Mick Davis (teleplay) & Stephen Gallagher (story)	October 9, 2008	11.59
Local police in Seattle find 19 aborted fetuses in the course of a crime investigation. Dr. Hood and Agent Young arrive to investigate the possibility that the fetuses have been cloned, a fact which is proven by finding all the fetuses have identical DNA. They discover a young woman has been impregnated with fetus #20, and a plot possibly funded by a billionaire business man who lost his only son years before. The man who was hired to get rid of the aborted fetuses finally shows Dr Hood and Agent Young the warehouse where the women were taken to be impregnated in a small temporary procedure room but they find it abandoned. He also tells them that the woman in charge called "Gepetto" on the phone to talk about what was happening and receive instructions. The young pregnant woman ends up in the hospital bleeding and they discover she has a condition that will cause her and the baby to die if she goes into labor. The hospital reports this to the police when the woman escapes and disappears from the ICU. Dr Hood confronts the billionaire with one of the fetuses and forces him to realize that he can't bring his son back and they finally learn the young woman has been taken to a recently abandoned clinic. They arrive to find another woman performing CPR on the pregnant woman and Dr Hood starts to assist while Agent Young goes to find blood to transfuse into the dying woman. The woman who works for Gepetto attacks Agent Young but ends up being knocked out. Meanwhile, Dr Hood discovers that the woman who is performing CPR actually is Gepetto and she walks out, leaving him to try to save the young woman alone.
2	"Cardiac[8]"	Clark Johnson	Mick Davis	October 16, 2008	12.04
Several 11-year-old boys die of heart attacks.
3	"Agro[9]"	Danny Cannon	Heather Mitchell	October 23, 2008	12.16
Hood investigates several cases of food-related paralysis in northern California.
4	"Savant"	Danny Cannon	Heather Mitchell	October 30, 2008	11.48
Several autistic teens are kidnapped.
5	"Containment"	Danny Cannon	Adam Targum (teleplay) & Stephen Gallagher (story)	November 6, 2008	10.97
A mysterious disease threatens Pittsburgh, PA.
6	"Frozen"	Karen Gaviola	André Bormanis	November 13, 2008	11.60
A series of mysterious deaths by way of freezing the person solid plagues the Western coast of the US.
7	"Surge"	Guy Ferland	Fred Golan (story) & Angel Dean Lopez (teleplay)	November 20, 2008	10.67
A government experiment, in which US troops were subject to inhumane tests, goes awry in Nevada.
8	"Titans"	Nick Gomez	Speed Weed	December 4, 2008	10.91
College students are dying from the bends.
9	"Flesh"	David M. Barrett	Ben Lee	December 11, 2008	13.43
Co-eds, in Miami, suffer from flesh-eating bacteria.
10	"H2O"	Terry McDonough	Kim Newton (story) & Heather Mitchell (teleplay)	January 15, 2009	15.52
While investigating outbreaks of violence in Texas, Hood becomes affected as well.
11	"Miracle"	Paul Shapiro	Mick Davis (teleplay) & Simon Stephenson (story)	January 22, 2009	12.32
A young boy's cancer is miraculously cured after he drinks from a mineral spring.
12	"Eternal"	Jeffrey Hunt	Ildy Modrovich	January 29, 2009	12.71
Hood investigates a millionaire with two fully developed hearts who has congenital heart disease.
13	"Pinocchio"	Guy Ferland	Angel Dean Lopez	February 12, 2009	11.04
Hood investigates a cloning operation and suspects that Geppetto may be back.
14	"Minamata"	Dermott Downs	Adam Targum	February 19, 2009	11.23[10]
A helicopter pilot goes blind during a live televised traffic report and dies when the helicopter crashes. Hood tracks down the mysterious poison before other people go blind. A new member of the team helps with the investigation. Omar Benson Miller joins the cast as Special Agent Felix Lee.
15	"Electro"	Nick Gomez	Heather Mitchell (teleplay) & André Bormanis (story)	February 26, 2009	11.73[11]
Hood is called to investigate when 30 people are killed by lightning during a storm that lasts only 10 minutes.
16	"Subway"	Paul McCrane	Stephen Gallagher	March 5, 2009	12.15
Doctor Hood is called in to determine the cause of a poison cluster, which is killing people in Philadelphia.
17	"Olfactus"	Paul Shapiro	Angel Dean Lopez & Ildy Modrovich	March 12, 2009	11.78
Four homicides during fashion week due to sudden fits of rage lead to Doctor Hood being asked to investigate. Gretchen Morris, the bespectacled receptionist in this episode, is played by Samantha Shelton, Marley Shelton's real-life younger sister.
18	"Medea"	Guy Ferland	Stephen Gallagher	April 2, 2009	10.38
The Deputy Director of the FBI is accused of stealing a woman's child and Dr. Hood is the only one who believes her.

DVD release

Warner Brothers released the complete series on DVD in Region 1 on October 20, 2009 via their Warner Archive Collection. This is a Manufacture-on-Demand (MOD) release and is available through Warner's online store and Amazon.com.^[12] The series is only available online as a pay-per-episode offering on Vudu.

Cancellation

The show was canceled on May 19, 2009, due to its inability to hold the CSI audience lead-in.^[13][14] Upon learning of Eleventh Hour's cancellation, a small core group of fans banded together to form the Eleventh Hour Resurrection Campaign. They were unsuccessful in convincing another television network to pick up the show.^[15]

References

1. "CBS PressExpress – Eleventh Hour – About the Show". CBS. Retrieved 2008-10-10.
2. Kaplan, Don (2008-08-25). "Don't Blow It – Where 'X-Files' Meets 'CSI,' CBS Makes Daring $30-Mil Bet". New York Post. Retrieved 2008-09-18.
3. "Fox's "Disturb," CBS's "Hour" To Skip Pilots". The Futon Critic. 2008-08-23. Retrieved 2008-09-18.
4. "CBS Gets Jerry Bruckheimer's Eleventh Hour". MovieWeb. 2007-09-18. Retrieved 2008-09-18.
5. Matt Mitovich (December 2, 2008). Eleventh Hour Moving? CBS orders additional scripts, but may relocate drama. TV Guide. Retrieved December 3, 2008.
6. "Biotech association connects with 'Eleventh Hour' drama audience". PR Week. 2008-10-30. Retrieved 2008-11-14.
7. "Season Rankings (Through 5/24)". ABC Television Network . May 27, 2009. Retrieved 2010-07-07.
8. "Jacob Hood Must Uncover What is Causing Healthy 11-year-olds to Die of Heart Attacks, on "Eleventh Hour," Thursday, Oct. 16" (Press release). CBS. 2008-09-29. Retrieved 2008-10-10.
9. "Jacob Hood Investigates Cases of Food contamination that Result in Life-Threatening Paralysis, on "Eleventh Hour," Thursday, Oct. 23" (Press release). CBS. 2008-10-07. Retrieved 2008-10-10.
10. Thursday Ratings: Grey’s Anatomy still the demo king, Survivor stays strong. TV by the Numbers. February 20, 2009.
11. Bill Gorman (February 27, 2009). "Overnight Ratings: Fox Wins With American Idol – Thursday Visit".
12. http://www.wbshop.com/product/code/1000179840.do
13. Denise Martin (May 19, 2009). CBS renews slew of series including Old Christine, Cold Case and Numb3rs Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2010-07-07.
14. (May 19, 2009). Eleventh Hour cancelled, no season two. TV Series Finale website. Retrieved 2010-07-07.
15. "Eleventh Hour Resurrection Campaign"(blog). Retrieved 2010-07-07.

External links

• Eleventh Hour at the Internet Movie Database
• Eleventh Hour at TV.com