CBS plans to air a new anti-technology television series, "Eleventh Hour"

CBS plans to air a new anti-technology television series, "Eleventh Hour," beginning in October in the United States. The show is described as following a pair of investigators that "save the world from cutting-edge experiments gone wrong." More information about the series can be found online at http://www.cbs.com/primetime/eleventh_hour/.

Just what we need to perpetuate the negative sterotypes that already exist around science and scientists. It might be too late to prevent CBS from airing it, but perhaps we can keep the ratings low.

DON'T BLOW IT
By Don Kaplan
New York Post
August 25, 2008

Just when TV net works are shopping for new shows at the budget store, CBS has made a $30-million bet on a new series that sounds like "The X-Files" but looks like "CSI."

"Eleventh Hour," which will debut in October, is being produced by Jerry Bruckheimer - the producer of all three "CSI" series, "Cold Case" and "Without a Trace," making him arguably TV's most successful producer of dramas of the last decade.

Based on a hit British series, it follows a pair of investigators, a hunky scientist and an attractive female FBI agent assigned to keep him out of trouble, as they attempt to save the world from cutting-edge experiments gone wrong - botched cloning projects, genetically modified food gone wild (that'll be the premiere episode) and out-of-control cryogenic labs.

It stars the British actor Rufus Sewell, known mostly for his villainous roles in movies like "The Illusionist" and "The Legend of Zorro."

But "Eleventh Hour" is not intended to be sci-fi, says the show's executive producer Ethan Reiff. "Every person in the country has had their life touched with the scientific developments that have come to fruition in the last few decades," he explains. The pilot episode alone cost $4 million to produce, according to reports. And the 12 episodes the network has ordered will run about $2.3 million each.

In order to get the show, CBS had to win a spirited bidding war against ABC, according to reports.

Bookmakers might say that CBS' $30-million gamble is a better-than-even-money proposition. Nearly every show Bruckheimer has delivered so far, from "CSI" to "Amazing Race," has become among the most popular on TV.

"Look at it this way," says a budget-minded producer from a competing network show, "CBS wouldn't have that money to spend in the first place if it wasn't for Bruckheimer."

"What people will see is a really cool, somewhat stylish Jerry Bruckheimer show," Reiff says. "It's not exactly going to look the same as [other Bruckheimer series]. But it will be in the same family."

At a little more than $2 million per episode, the cost of making "Eleventh Hour" is par for the course, in terms of network dramas, although the pricey pilot does cause it to stick out.

The distinction of the most expensive pilot ever falls to "Lost." Creator J. J. Abrams reportedly spent nearly $12 million on the initial episode of the ABC drama. Abrams is reported to have spent as much for the pilot of his new Fox drama "Fringe."

Like "Lost," which spent much of its budget on sets - think how expensive it is to dump a chopped up airliner on a beach in Hawaii - a good chunk of the resources for "Eleventh Hour" have been devoted to building movie-quality sets, Reiff says.

In any given episode, the characters may travel to several different locales - even though it is all filmed in LA.

"Rather than have one standing police headquarters or a legal office suite, we have to change stuff up every week," Reiff says.

"There's this ongoing struggle," he confesses, "to be sensible and not create too many different locations."

It actually looks like a pretty good show. All press is good press? Maybe, maybe not, but at least we'll have more people talking about things like cloning.

Also, I'm curious, what negative stereo types do you believe the general public has about scientist?

If the new series is like the Patrick Stewart British one it wasn't antitechnological but certainly anti-stupid. Stewart was working for the government as a watchdog to deal with scientific issues where the practioners got way out of their depth. Now if Bruckheimer has sensationalized and fiddled with the concept that is different, but the original pedigree was really quite levelheaded and serious.

The British one was pretty poor - at one point Steward was using a Gilson two-handed to take a water sample from a lake.

This isn't a new concept so I don't really see what all the fuss is about. Science gone wrong is a mainstay of Hollywood and this sounds no different.

Paul.