I Like to Watch

He's got Bette Davis eyes! CBS's "Eleventh Hour," NBC's "My Own Worst Enemy" and ABC's "Life on Mars" bring us soulful-eyed leading men who kick ass and take names as the world falls apart!

By Heather Havrilesky

Read more: TV, Arts & Entertainment, Heather Havrilesky, I Like to Watch

Oct. 12, 2008 | Are you in the mood to watch leading men with deep, penetrating eyes thrown into extraordinary circumstances? Do you want to see these men solving mysteries, nabbing criminals or engaging in international espionage, even as the planet crumbles under their feet? If so, stay tuned for a brand-new slew of suspense-thrillers coming to a television near you.

Sadly, though, most of us are too distracted by the fact that the world is falling to pieces each day in a suspense-thriller of our own design. Where are our saviors with the expressive eyes, the ones who might lead us, Jesus-like, through this quagmire? Presumably they all moved to Hollywood to appear on TV dramas, leaving us with one honorable but absent-minded professor who won’t make any claims that he’s a miracle worker, and one angry old turtle who brags that he can  turn water into wine, flanked by a hapless backcountry sidekick pulled straight from the set of the latest quirky Alaskan dramedy.

At least the soulful-looking men on our television screens are angry and panicked and filled with dismay at the crumbling state of things. At least we can relate to their confusion and fear and bewilderment. At least, through them, we can pretend that solving crimes and blowing Russian thugs to smithereens is an option. At least there’s a soothing moral at the end, one to calm your nerves after you’ve given your last dime to the professorial non-miracle worker in the hopes that, despite his humble claims, he can stop the whole world from imploding.

Scooby diving
Not that I’m panicking or anything. No sir. I’m doing what I always do to relax: Watching CNN for breaking news, scanning the headlines on the New York Times every hour or so, and panicking.

Mind you, this is recreational panicking. Completely different from regular panic. Studies have shown that compulsive bouts of recreational panicking can actually help  you to make more efficient and effective decisions once real, non-recreational panic sets in – you know, when the apocalypse comes and you have to grab your photo album, your dog and your three cans of green chilies and point your car toward … 50 miles of suburbs, after which you’ll finally get to the desert.

Escaping from Los Angeles is basically impossible. Maybe that’s why the soulful-looking men get stuck here, on some barren set on the Warner Bros. back lot in Burbank, preventing them from leading our troubled populace to the promised land.

Rufus Sewell, star of “Eleventh Hour” (10 p.m. Thursdays on CBS) certainly has the penetrating gaze of a guy who could be a leader of men, one who could repeat lines about keeping the greed of Wall Street from harming Main Street with fresh conviction and purpose, and you wouldn’t even feel like choking the life out of him just for saying it 50 times in a row.

Sadly, though, Sewell’s Dr. Jacob Hood is too wrapped up in a battle to prevent the misuse of science by nefarious forces across the globe. Or, as the CBS Web site puts it, “Dr. Jacob Hood will stop at nothing to be sure that scientific advances are used for good, not evil!” Is this a fear-mongering show for the intelligent design crowd?

Maybe. This is CBS, after all, the Olive Garden of networks, ready to serve up big, hearty meals to hungry old people with limited imaginations. But those God-fearing old folks aren’t going to like the fact that this show breaks my first rule of suspense-thriller dramas: Don’t kill kids! Most shows try to avoid killing a kid unless they absolutely have to – say, the kid is trapped in some log cabin with a homicidal maniac, and the maniac has him strapped to a big pile of dynamite – and even then, the kid typically escapes with just a few small scratches, brushes himself off, and seems particularly well-equipped to handle any post-traumatic aftershocks.

So when you go and kill a kid in the first few minutes of your first episode? That gives us a pretty clear idea of what we’re dealing with: a show that hinges on sensationalism and flashy, attention-getting antics. (The fact that Jerry Bruckheimer’s name is associated with this one should have tipped us off, of course.) Immediately, it’s clear that “Eleventh Hour” is a program for old folks who still fear God and terrorism and science and believe in family values and are suspicious of creepy science-manipulating weirdos, so much so that they’re willing to see some small humans die just to strengthen their conviction that they’re not just being paranoid.

There’s a lot of dry ice around, even during the middle of the day. There are 11-year-old boys, pressuring each other to lick a toxic toad. There are angry parents at a meeting, yelling, “We’re not interested in science! We want to know if our kids are safe!” Yes, “Eleventh Hour” is sort of like a cross between “CSI: Miami” and “Touched by an Angel,” if you can wrap your head around that unholy duo.

In fact, the whole first episode concerns one dumb clue after another, leading down a long and winding road to a completely implausible, obnoxiously clichéd villain, “CSI: Miami”-style. There are so many deeply stupid elements involved here: overprotective mothers, homeopathic remedies, creepy teachers, bufftail bumblebees, country cops. (Spoiler alert: The pilot aired last week, but if you recorded it and still plan to watch it, skip to the next section.) It all lathers up into one big, incredibly bad Scooby-Do ending in which a shy, nerdy boy is accused of killing his classmates – and immediately confesses and transforms into a seething cartoon villain, of course.

Boy: I had to kill them. They were holding me back! They were holding the whole school back. The whole school was suffering because of those stupid kids, because of how bad our overall grades and test scores were! Even some of the teachers were leaving for other schools, somebody had to do something!

Hood: But why Sam Tewsberry?

Boy: I saw Mr. Tewsberry in the classroom. I heard him question the kids. I was certain he suspected a kid was behind the deaths. It was only a matter of time before he figured everything out. He’s a smart man … almost as smart as me!

Hood: You made your mom believe you were afraid of needles.

Boy: [Smugly.] I made her believe a lot of things.

”And I would’ve gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for one soulful-looking FBI agent who’ll stop at nothing to be sure that scientific advances are used for good, not evil!”

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. Suffice it to say that if you’re not very smart, not very educated and slightly paranoid about the existence of mad scientists, if you love “The Ghost Whisperer” but hate “Dexter,” if you think bad little boys are capable not just of stealing Daddy’s gun but also of concocting elaborate murderous schemes simply to raise the aggregate test scores at their elementary schools, then the abject buffoonery of “Eleventh Hour” is custom-made for you.

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