The 11th Hour

Ok, so my wife is a closet member of the PSEB, and so I've had to watch just about everything that Patrick Stewart has ever acted in. Some of it is great, both in concept and in execution, and some of it isn't.

The 11th Hour is a 4 part TV series built in concept and written originally by Stephen Gallagher of Dr. Who fame and was presented as a drama of sorts, written to showcase the terrible dangers of science and the evils thereof.

So I watch as the main character, Ian Hood, played by Patrick Stewart finds himself in a field where stillborn fetus' have been buried, along with crucifix's by a person who is in the employ of someone who Mr Hood has dubbed Jepeto. Fortunately for the plot the person who was hired to dispose of the "medical waste" has an attack of conscience once he realizes that what he is being asked to dispose of is unborn children. However it is not enough of an attack to make him call the constabulary and report his part time employers. The labyrinthian trail leads us to a 19 yr old pregnant girl with a truly repulsive ex boyfriend, and then on through a somewhat torturous path to a multi-millionaire who lost his son to a genetic disorder.
So, lets keep this short. You can find the plot summaries on Wikipedia.

The problems that I have with this is not the acting. Mr Stewart does an admirable job with what he is given, as does Ashley Jensen, who acts and Mr Hoods bodyguard and police (sorry Special Branch) and who actually fires her weapon at the fleeing car that they have managed to track down. Ms Jensen should have gotten a role on the new series Torchwood, she isn't nearly as naive as the current police girl.

No, the problem with this program is that they didn't see fit to assemble an ensemble that could engage the brain with the different areas of science portrayed. CSI is more than just Grissom. It's Grissom, Katherine, Warrick, Sara, Nick, Hodges, and Brass. 11th Hour is Mr Hood and his trusty bodyguard. It's not enough. I believe there can be some truly awesomely intelligent people in the world, but nobody is the best at every aspect of science. Hood apparently is. This isn't even Dr. Who, which suffers in my humble opinion, from the "pennies" budget problems. The sets were fine, the locations fine, the acting fine, but the stories just wouldn't hold me. I watched 3 of the episodes, and just couldn't really watch the 4th one.

Critiquegod's rating A for acceptable (but you better like Patrick Stewart)