Eleventh Hour

Eleventh Hour Recaps

• 'Eleventh Hour': How the BCS is like the Emmy Awards

  First things first, the news. CBS announced earlier this week that it has ordered five additional episodes of Eleventh Hour, bringing the show to a season total of 18. The show will continue in the same Thursdays-at-10 timeslot through early April. It's an overdue but nevertheless appreciated show of support from the network for a series that is still having some growing pains but which certainly seems to be getting stronger over time as it figures out who these characters really are.

• 'Eleventh Hour's eleven million problem

  One of the most important things that Eleventh Hour really needs to accomplish every week is to make it clear that even though each episode may feature a case of science going wrong, the show nevertheless comes from a pro-science viewpoint. That's vital. If you can't accomplish that, then there's really no point to the show at all. Jacob Hood is unabashedly pro-science, and will constantly tell us of the possible benefits of even the craziest-sounding research, but he needs to be backed up by characters in each episode who come across in the same way. In short, even the bad guys need to have some semblance of good intentions.

• 'Eleventh Hour': She's got ice in her veins. And her arteries. And, well, everywhere else too.

  I'd wager to say that, as Eleventh Hour proceeds forward into its freshman season, episodes that revolve around dead bodies will generally be among my least favorite. There are so many shows on TV that deal with homicide investigations that it's hard to really mine fresh territory there, and a huge part of the appeal of Eleventh Hour is the idea that it can explore very different territory from everything else on the air. But for an episode that ultimately boils down to a homicide procedural, I really did like this one.

• 'Eleventh Hour' and the box of pox

  Like the hybrid smallpox virus at the center of this episode, this week's installment of Eleventh Hour is also a hybrid. The main storyline is culled entirely from an episode of the original British series, but there's a little bit of original character development spliced in, mixed with a dash of half the cast of Sleeper Cell.

• 'Eleventh Hour': Eat your brain? That's disgusting.

  Eleventh Hour doesn't have a special Halloween episode. It doesn't need one. This episode is far spookier and creepier on its own than anything that anybody could have come up with if trying to do something special in the Halloween spirit.

• 'Eleventh Hour': What's under the Hood?

  Over the first couple of weeks of these posts on Eleventh Hour, there have been a number of commenters discussing the relative chemistry, or lack thereof, between the series' two principal characters. To which I respond: Chemistry? This is a show about science. What does chemistry have to do with that?

• 'Eleventh Hour': Youthanasia

  Last week, the pilot episode of Eleventh Hour offered up a case of dead fetuses. This week, we're growing up a bit, with a series of dead adolescents. It's the aging process in full swing. We're slowly working our way towards an episode full of dead geriatrics. You just wait, senior citizens. You'll get yours. Oh, yes, you will. You'll get yours.

• Premierewatch: 'Eleventh Hour'

  With Eleventh Hour, CBS and the Jerry Bruckheimer television empire attempt to do for science what CSI and its ilk have done for forensics: push it from a cold, foreign subject out of the grasp of everyday Americans and turn it into a part of the public consciousness. Is it an uphill battle, a perhaps overly optimistic goal? Sure. But then, so is any scientific endeavor worth its salt.