Zero Hour S01 E01 ‘Strike’

The review of brand new Zero Hour is coming to you, as soon as I’m done with my treasure map.

Getting my honest opinion down of the show now, I’m between two of them. Is this show trying to take itself seriously and the twists involved are ridiculous on purpose? Or, is this show going to go all out bat sh*t crazy to keep us on the edge of our seats?

If I was going to be swayed, then I would say the show is going to be the latter as there were times the show was blatantly OTT on purpose to help fuel the pace of the plot. The fact that on numerous occasions, quotes along the lines of ‘the first answer might always be the right one’ over and over again has me expecting to be misled quite a bit, possibly be mistake or on purpose I probably won’t be able to tell the difference such was the chaotic feel I got for this. I wasn’t sure what to think about the ending other than imagine we were expecting to feel exactly how Hank did in the sense that like him, we’d lose our minds.

Like most pilots, I am of course expecting some flaws, because there are few pilots without their flaws, but the first half was certainly up there in terms of the downright stupid. By that point, I decided to switch off my brain and accept that this be one of those shows, and for the most part it seemed to pick itself up a little bit.

Let’s be fair though, this does strike me as one of those rating chasing shows that won’t always make sense, probably in the same that Lost to an extent, although the slightly more baffling The Event would probably make more sense. I mean there is the looming threat of cataclysm, a Nazi demon child with CRAZY EYES, history defying maps that are engraved to precision on a diamond, priests getting slaughtered and yet at times, I still don’t know what the fuck is happening.

Which goes onto my problem that the pilot has still given me no inclination to what exactly these clocks or apostles or mysterious hidden object (please for the love of god be the covenant of the ark) are. We still don’t know what this the end game of what all these clocks carried by reincarnated apostles will lead to other than a possible apocalypse, or the good guys them all and SOMETHING EVEN MORE MYSTERIOUS HAPPENS. (ooooh) Quite frankly, if the pilot is anything to go by, I can what I’ll get out of the show is something of a ‘roofie effect’, where my mind is completely raped and I will know absolutely bugger all about what I just watched.

Our protagonist, our hero, our ‘apostle’ is played in the shape of ER veteran of Anthony Edwards, as Hank Galliston a happily married skeptic, who is the editor of a magazine called Modern Skeptic Magazine. Now in case you haven’t noticed the show talking down to you yet, then allow me to demonstrate this patronisation. HE IS A SKEPTIC!

I can only naturally assume at the start that his little moment with his wife before all the shit kicks off was directed behind the empty portrait on purpose in order to signify their perfect moment together before it starts going wrong. I mean like practically seconds after it when the ominous music in the background starts playing and she spots the mysterious clock that she just can’t help but buy. Did the show mention that she just happened to run a clock shop, COINCIDENCE? Probably but then I can’t say I’m exactly shocked by that shocking revelation in comparison to other variables going on.

Of course when she is kidnapped, and the all-important clock just happens to be neglected, which of course he collects anyway via misdirection while our villain slits best friend and priest’s throat.

I must say if there was one slight little shock that I didn’t see coming,it was Michael Nyqvist from the excellent and original Girl with the Dragon tattoo franchise (more people might recongise him from MI4) which I absolutely love, and I’m glad to see in on the box again. His character being the most wanted man in the world and being the creepy demon child all along gives me somewhat the more optimistic hopes out of the show.

There are still a few kinks to be worked out. The fact that Hank’s wife Laila calls him first and not the police. The epic foreshadowing of Arron and Rachel being told to leave Brooklyn, so they go to Bavaria instead to meet one of the rosicruciates. The FBI agent who accompanies Hank, however her partner acts like a complete irrelevance just stands there and doesn’t say a word, and then fucks off without the slightest toss given about his partner disappearing, erm ok?…

To put simply I expect that much like this pilot, not a lot of sense will be made in some parts, the pace will move high octane with downright ridiculous neglected reasoning to allow it, and to probably little to no idea what the heck is going on. The Event 2.0?…

Robbie Coull- @robbiecoull89