Series premiere: 'Zero Hour' - Strike': Like clockwork
What did everybody think of ABC's new evil Nazi clock drama?
Anthony Edwards, Addison Timlin and Scott Michael Foster in "Zero Hour."
Credit: ABC
I posted my review of ABC's "Zero Hour" yesterday. Now it's your turn. What did everybody else think of the evil Nazi clock drama? Was it too crazy for you? Not crazy enough? Did you think Anthony Edwards was well-cast, or would you have preferred someone less straight-laced? Would you, like me, be happy to have the entire series narrated by the German clockmaker? Are you eager to learn more about these Rosicrucians and the baby with the eyes? Did the final revelation at pilot's end scare you or make you laugh? And will you watch again?
Have at it. Also... CLOCKS!
Alan Sepinwall has been reviewing television since the mid-'90s, first for Tony Soprano's hometown paper, The Star-Ledger, and now for HitFix. His new book, "The Revolution Was Televised," about the last 15 years of TV drama, is for sale at Amazon. He can be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com
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Login or create a HitFix account Login SignupWar Chief Shake Zula
February 14, 2013 at 10:04PM EST Reply to CommentIronic that they titled it "Strike" - the middle section was so murderously BORING that it hit Strike One on my 3-or-out rule. But the beginning and end were so fun (regardless of "quality") that I want to give it another shot.
guest
February 14, 2013 at 10:24PM EST Reply to CommentSo bad that it's painful to even try to watch.
Lee
February 14, 2013 at 10:54PM EST Reply to Comment"You just gotta believe" - Ha! No thanks.
Infinity isn't enough to make me sit through this drek for another minute; mind you though - I did last for about 30 minutes and then realized that I wasn't just embarrassed for everyone involved in the mess but I was now embarrassed for myself. So, I turned it off.
So...people get paid for this stuff, huh? I will never understand how something like this gets two cents to spend on it let alone the hundreds of thousands it must have cost.
I kind of figured they had pretty much exhausted everything nazi related over the past 70 years - but, nope.
Leslie Middleton
February 14, 2013 at 11:13PM EST Reply to CommentLove it!
Leslie Middleton
February 14, 2013 at 11:14PM EST Reply to CommentLove it! Can't wait until next week!Write a comment...
Bob7
February 15, 2013 at 1:28AM EST Reply to CommentTerrible. Did a professional writer write this or was it a twelve year old who has seen lots of these kinds of movies? The dialogue was talking no actual human being has ever done, and that would be okay if it wasn't supremely cliched. The crazy part was par for the course in these kinds of movies, but it was too suddenly introduced to actually have stakes and weight. Okay, so the world is going to end if they don't find this secret. What is the secret? They don't tell us. How did the priests make or discover this secret? They don't tell us. If the secret was so world ending, why did the clockmaker retire and not give a thought to it until two Americans showed up? Oh, yeah, the world's gonna end but I haven't been thinking about that at all in the half century I've lived. And why didn't the victim trust the FBI? Complete plot contrivance. Terrible show.
alannaofdoom The dialogue! It beggars belief! "I don't trust you." "Feeling's reciprocal." I'm legitimately wondering if a non-native English speaker wrote it. It's like cliches and idioms run through google translate several times. The conversations (especially with the clockmaker) were aiming for portentous but ended up as a string of non sequiturs. I might actually be addicted to how terrible it is.
February 16, 2013 at 12:44PM ESTOther Scott
February 15, 2013 at 1:45AM EST Reply to CommentI thought this was fantastic. And terrible. But mostly terrible.
I suspect the show realizes its terribleness. It has to, right? Anthony Edwards is overacting the crap out of this. Also, the dialogue veers back and forth from cliche to downright ridiculous so fast that I can't wait to hear what the characters say next.
And the show has an odd watchability to it. Obviously it is not really impossible to care about the characters, because they are complete caricatures. But the clocks/ new apostles mystery is so bonkers you kind of want to find where it is going. The big terrible pronouncements at the end where the Bavarian man said things like "render God irrelevant" and "pit science against religion, nation against nation" kind of make you wonder whether there was an actual plan to what they're doing or whether they are making up the conspiracy episode by episode and just trying to fit it to the most ridiculous pronouncements they can make.
Anyway, watched as a serious piece of television, this is awful. Watched as a parody of conspiracy thrillers, it is kind of brilliant. And I'm not entirely convinced that's not what they're trying to do.
(Sorry for the double negative. It was zee clocks that made my do it. Zose evil clocks.)
smreyno Reply to comment...
February 15, 2013 at 1:57AM ESTsmreyno Oops. Anyhow.
February 15, 2013 at 1:58AM ESTFantastically terrible. There's an audacity to it that I kinda admire.
I will watch this every week until it's pulled. It was fun, and I still marvel that this made it onto a major network.
I'll be really curious to see the ratings. I'm expecting it to tank, but I //really// want to see wtf they do with 13 episodes.
RileyJMU
February 15, 2013 at 8:53AM EST Reply to CommentWhen did Anthony Edwards become such a terrible actor? Anyway, I can tolerate craziness and terribleness. What I can't tolerate is that the whole entire plot point of getting Anthony Edwards involved is that his wife purchased a clock at a street fair a few hours before she was captured. Couldn't the kidnapper just go to the street fair and purchase the clock himself if he knew where it was? Did he really need to wait until the wife bought it? How did he know she bought it? WOW. That was horrible.
Other Scott My guess is that Anthony Edwards realizes he's in a terrible show. He is doing what he can to make the show enjoyable by doing a terrible job of acting.
February 15, 2013 at 10:52AM ESTThat's got to be the most logical explanation. I mean, most commercials have better acting than what Edwards was doing tonight.
And yes, I am invested enough in this show to try to come up with explanations for why it is as bad as it is.
RileyJMU
February 15, 2013 at 8:55AM EST Reply to CommentI actually think it could be an OK show if they didn't start with the 1938 conspiracy shots from the beginning. Give that to us a little bit at a time with flashbacks. That would be like if LOST gave us Jacob and the Man in Black the first scene of the first episode of LOST.
Ellen M.
February 15, 2013 at 12:39PM EST Reply to CommentOK...so I laughed a lot watching this. But it's just not quite bad enough to be good. Campy could have worked. Sadly, it is excruciatingly awful. If it had been a cartoon, it might have given Archer a run for its money.
Alan, I listened to your recent podcast with Dan F. and the discussion about how bad NBC is again. I wonder if ABC is trying to snag that designation away from them with a show like this. Or, is this another indicator that network television is increasingly no longer capable of being competitive with more nimble cable outfits in producing quality programs.
If they turn this into a graphic novel this might be a winner.
Guest
February 15, 2013 at 12:49PM EST Reply to CommentYou just gotta rock out with your clock out
ChampSkins
February 15, 2013 at 1:12PM EST Reply to CommentDidn't watch - knew I wouldn't be able to sit through it, and didn't even have the DVR capacity with Vamp Diaries on (don't judge).
I did however want to comment on the fact that Scott Michael Foster really cannot stick on anything. I might be in the minority on this site that actually watched Greek and enjoyed his character a lot... but this is three shows now that really have failed in twentysomething (or whatever his show was called that I don't feel like looking up), the River last year (which actually was decent) and now this.
I think he is pretty good and deserves better.
Justin
February 15, 2013 at 3:07PM EST Reply to CommentI am all for suspension of disbelief, but as a history teacher I found the whole thing rather offensive.
serenefire
February 15, 2013 at 9:36PM EST Reply to CommentI loved it. I'm going to watch every episode I can get. I understand that it's not intelligent or good television, but I find myself disagreeing with the general consensus that it's a terrible show. (Perhaps because I don't want to believe I like a terrible show, but I'm sure that's a completely separate issue.)
Honestly? It was everything I expected it to be. I was hoping it would be a TV version of National Treasure, which I love despite its awfulness, and it seems like it's going to scratch that itch. The last scene reminded me of that completely ridiculous episode of The X-Files where Mulder had to go to that submarine in the Arctic, likely because it's basically the same scene. And really, if we're just complaining about how ridiculous this all is, how much more ridiculous is this than X-Files?
I'm probably judging this too soon.
Also, I can't believe my first comment on this site is about THIS show.
Jacob I think this is how I feel. I thought it was stupid fun. It managed to keep more more amused than "Revolution," which just manages to bore me so much no matter how much I want to like it.
February 17, 2013 at 1:12AM ESTThough my favorite part? I could see my sister's apartment building in that initial shot of Brooklyn. I got all excited about that.
cadfile
February 17, 2013 at 9:22AM EST Reply to CommentAnother interesting concept for a movie dragged out piecemeal for a series. Kind of reminds me of the old Rimbaldi plot line in "Alias" that sucked the life out of that show and in the end we didn't care about the resolution.
I also hate it when they make a skeptic have to believe in faith and the skeptic just goes along with.
I also agree with another comment about the pacing of the pilot. The wife buys the clock and is kidnapped hours later?
And how is Edwards going to pay for his search if he isn't working on the magazine since it looked like he fired all the staff except for the two kids who don't listen to instructions from the boss.
Also what does the Hitler baby have to do with anything.
BDragonfly
February 17, 2013 at 8:06PM EST Reply to CommentI found the scene with the baby offensive. Just because it has unusual eyes it must be evil. Very in line with the idea of the Inquisition - if you have some king of disability or there is anything out of the "ordinary" (like a mole, for example), you are the Devil's spawn and you must be burned at the stake. I thought "Poor baby it is probably blind, some kind of eye disease..." and the priest was "My God!".
Bradley I randomly channel-surfed to this during the "go to a submarine in the arctic AKA The X Files did this over a decade ago with infinitely better results" scene and despite instantly realizing this is a horrid show, force-watched myself through a few minutes and even stuck through the commercials just to find out the name of the show. After that I quickly channel-surfed away to something that wasn't created in television for speshul kidz school.
February 27, 2013 at 4:45AM ESTThat being said, after reading these comments and a few other reviews, I think I might try and force myself through the entire episode, just out of morbid curiosity.
One final thought: Anthony Edwards, who's Dr. Greene was my favorite ER character, is just plain awful in this. That much is clear from the previews alone. Such a waste of talent.
Bradley I don't remember the name of the other person who said this, but it's weird to me that my first comment on this site isn't for one of my favorite shows like Justified, Game of Thrones, SOA, or Breaking Bad, but for this brain cell-killing piece of caca lol.
February 27, 2013 at 4:50AM EST