ShareThisCBS's "Eleventh Hour" is a less outlandish "Fringe," the Fox drama about investigators of scientific oddities. But "Hour" (10 p.m. EDT Thursday) has its own problems, beginning with the unsavory investigation plots.Thursday night's premiere involves discarded fetuses. A future episode features 11-year-olds dropping dead from heart attacks. No wonder CBS couldn't decide which one to air first; either will send some viewers fleeing.Based on a British series, "Hour" follows the cases of Dr. Jacob Hood (Rufus Sewell), a science adviser to the FBI. Special agent Rachel Young (Marley Shelton) is his minder, who also happens to be a looker. But she's also tough.When a local cop suggests a nightcap after he helps with a case, Young declares, "I said I owe you one. I never said I'd give you one."Judging by two episodes sent for review, everywhere Hood goes anyone with a science connection knows of his work. And in these same outings, the explanations for the episode's mystery are less otherworldly than some of what passes for science on "Fringe," but the denouements aren't always less preposterous. Bad guys on "Eleventh Hour" have a tendency to explicate their evil deeds much like the villains at the end of a "Scooby-Doo" cartoon."Hour" fits comfortably, if unimaginatively, among CBS's other crime procedurals, but with only two regular cast members, it seems like it will have less character development than any of the "CSI" series.(Contact TV editor Rob Owen at rowen(at)post-gazette.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
'Eleventh Hour' an unimaginative crime procedural
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