Zero it Out: ABC Cancels Zero Hour

All one can say to its credit is that ABC's Zero Hour lasted one episode longer than NBC's Do No Harm, but that is not saying much when you are pulled after only three episodes.  ABC cancelled Zero Hour not long after its premiere, which was reported to be the lowest-rated ABC premiere for a scripted show during the regular TV season ever.

I had high hopes for Zero Hour after the first episode, but by the second episode I had already lost interest and decided a third episode was not worth my time.  The story became too wacky with Edwards running around the globe followed by a multi-lingual FBI agent who never heard of the word sequestration.  We have good people in government, but the bottomless budget supporting this over-talented agent was more incredible than the Catholic Church hiding a secret from the Nazis.

Would the show have worked as a two-hour television movie?  Probably, but only because one would have felt invested (or too lazy) after an hour to change the channel.  But 13 hours?   In the end, I was not interested trying to follow the story of 12 clocks while pretending to care about the fate of Anthony Edwards' wife who we only saw for 5 minutes in the first episode.  ABC asked us to invest too much time in a complex tale that started to go off the rails.  

If you are still interested in the show, ABC will mostly likely show the remaining episodes over the summer.  I think I will pass.