| 80 |
New York Daily News David Hinckley
Sewell radiates the kind of fascination you can't buy off the rack at the TV drama store, and that alone gives Eleventh Hour a strong start. |
| 70 |
Kansas City Star Aaron Barnhart
The show is entertaining enough, but the American Hood, played by Rufus Sewell, won't remind anyone of Patrick Stewart. |
| 70 |
TV Guide Matt Roush
A bit generic, despite the creepy particulars of this series’ science-based mysteries--think a more mainstream "Fringe." |
| 70 |
Washington Post Debra Leithauser
Jerry Bruckheimer of "CSI" fame is behind this series, and it shows. The production is slick; the storylines are paced and told well; and the talent is top-notch. |
| 70 |
Los Angeles Times Robert Lloyd
While supercool science may be the hook, the real draw of Eleventh Hour is Sewell. |
| 70 |
Philadelphia Daily News Ellen Gray
The plot of tonight's pilot, which involves cloning, hews closely to the original's first, dark episode. A second, included for review, seems more like a CBS show, a murder mystery I'd like to think any of the network's three "CSIs" could've knocked off as easily. |
| 70 |
Philadelphia Inquirer Jonathan Storm
Both ABC's "Life on Mars" and CBS's Eleventh Hour have the comfortable feel of many shows that have come before them and lasted a long, long time. |
| 67 |
Newsday Verne Gay
Tonight's premiere may seem like ridiculous twaddle, and it may feel like a major downer (and kinda sloooow), too, but maybe that's just Bruckheimer playing with our heads. In fact, Hour deserves a second look (next week is definitely better). |
| 63 |
New York Post Linda Stasi
Taken from a British series (although there is enough cribbing off American shows to make it seem all too familiar), this less-than-compelling knock-off follows Hood, who like House makes house calls--or in this case, crime calls. |
| 63 |
Chicago Sun-Times Misha Davenport
Hood comes across as brilliant but aloof. Young, meanwhile, seems to be angry, but the source of her anger isn't really explored (we can only assume that babysitting a scientist, no matter how brilliant, is not the job people sign up for when they go to work for the FBI). |
| 63 |
Chicago Tribune Maureen Ryan
Eleventh Hour does what it sets out to do: It puts a talented actor (Rufus Sewell) through his crime-solving paces on rain-slicked streets, in dark warehouses and in spooky labs that look almost identical to the rain-slicked streets, dark warehouses and spooky labs on almost every other CBS drama. |
| 63 |
USA Today Robert Bianco
As it is, Hour arrives as yet another import procedural on a schedule that is already awash in both. |
| 60 |
Orlando Sentinel Hal Boedeker
Dynamic Sewell plays brilliance with offbeat flair. The second episode, about 11-year-olds dying of heart attacks, is chilling. [But] the premiere is far-fetched yet predictable. |
| 50 |
Slate Troy Patterson
Eleventh Hour is ambitiously shameless in patterning its counterintuitive crank of an ill-socialized hero on the Hugh Laurie character. We sent it down after nine minutes as yet another generic detective drama. |
| 50 |
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Rob Owen
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. |
| 50 |
PopMatters Cynthia Fuchs
Hood’s methods are unconventional, Eleventh Hour insists, but still, he’s strangely bland. |
| 50 |
The New York Times Alessandra Stanley
Pizazz is what’s missing from CBS’s new drama, Eleventh Hour, in which Rufus Sewell plays Dr. Jacob Hood. |
| 50 |
San Francisco Chronicle Tim Goodman
Not nearly as ambitious as "Life on Mars" but entertaining nonetheless. |
| 42 |
Entertainment Weekly Gillian Flynn
It's a procedural procedural. |
| 40 |
Newark Star-Ledger Alan Sepinwall
Unlike "Life on Mars," the concept seems elastic enough that the show could run for a long time, but first its American producers would need to work on storytelling basics like pacing and developing interesting characters. |
| 40 |
Miami Herald Glenn Garvin
A little old-fashioned police brutality may seem downright appealing compared to the pseudointellectual runamok of CBS' cop drama Eleventh Hour, in which British actor Rufus Sewell plays a scientist who has regrettably turned his genius to fighting crime |
| 30 |
Boston Globe Matthew Gilbert
This new CBS series is just too silly, as it tries to mix up science and crime-solving like a sloppy kid with a chemistry set. |
| 30 |
Salon Heather Havrilesky
I’d like to say that this crappy show is sure to bomb, but my faith in the intelligence of the American people is hanging in the balance right now, and since there seems to be enough dumbassery afoot to cheer on almost any half-witted scheme, I don’t want to make any assumptions. |
| 30 |
New York Magazine John Leonard
I’m tempted to suggest that Eleventh Hour will only be worth watching if it acquires a sorely needed sense of humor, but maybe I’m missing some laughter in the dark. |
| 30 |
Time James Poniewozik
Simultaneously gross and sanctimonious, this histrionic science procedural is mainly a warning against the cloning of TV concepts. |
| 30 |
Variety Brian Lowry
Unfortunately, there's not a test tube's worth of difference between this and CBS' other new drama, "The Mentalist" (that one features an advisor to the California Bureau of Investigation)--or the Eye net's procedural dramas in general. |
