Last week Zero Hour gave viewers plenty to chew on — Nazi devil babies, clones, secret societies, “new” Apostles — and while it was still completely ludicrous, it seemed worth checking out just for the fun.  The pilot went, in professional lingo, “balls out.”  It essentially jumped into the fifth season of Lost, and most everyone seemed fine with it.  This week, “Face” revealed all of Zero Hour’s many, many problems without fun things like devil babies (although we did hear them crying).  Mostly, it’s just really, truly terrible writing.  I don’t know how you can ruin a premise so swollen with potential as one focusing on Nazi conspiracies, but somehow Zero Hour has managed it.  For more on my evisceration of this hour of television, hit the jump. 

There’s only thing people love more than conspiracy theories, and that is hating Nazis.  Luckily, Zero Hour has both, plus the long-buried secrets of the Christian church, ancient languages, clockmaker secrets and international terrorist organizations.  Yes parts of the episode were clunky and broad, but it’s a broadcast network pilot, what do you want?  Did you not hear?  Conspiracies!  Nazis!  Anthony Edwards!  Zero Hour comes from the mind of Paul Scheuring, who created Prison Break, and is clearly no stranger to drawing things out.  But if ABC is smart the show will not fall prey to what happened to both Lost and Prison Break, and instead deliver a tight and coherent series.  We can only hope.  I’m getting ahead of myself — hit the jump to talk about the first episode and  what we learned from it.  Put on your tinfoil hat, comrades! 

The ambitious new ABC drama series Zero Hour tells the story of Modern Skeptic Magazine publisher Hank Galliston (Anthony Edwards, in his return to TV), who has spent his career following clues, debunking myths and cracking conspiracies.  But, when his beautiful wife, Laila (Jacinda Barrett), is abducted from her antique clock shop, Hank gets pulled into one of the most compelling mysteries in human history, stretching around the world and back centuries, and finds himself racing against the clock to not only find his wife, but to save humanity.

While at the ABC portion of the TCA Press Tour, executive producers Paul Scheuring (who also created the series), Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Zack Estrin and Dan McDermott talked about the genesis of the show, wanting to deliver something big, setting up a construct that will reset every season, providing a lot of information but making sure it’s easy to follow, and making their shooting location of Montreal look like various countries, all over the world.  Check out what they had to say after the jump. 

While Adrien Brody may be spending time on another planet in Predators, his film The Experiment will not be spending any time in theaters. According to Movieweb, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment will release the Paul Scheuring (television’s Prison Break) film straight to DVD/Blu-ray on September 21^st. The drama/thriller is a remake of the 2001 German film of the same name (but, in classic German style, with Das replacing The) and also stars Forest Whitaker, Cam Gigandet (Twilight), Maggie Grace (Taken), and Clifton Collins Jr. (The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day).

For more info on the 2001 original as well as the absolutely necessary remake, hit the jump.

Oliver Hirschbiegel’s “Das Experiment”, based off the events of Dr. Philip Zimbardo’s 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment, is a perfectly watchable movie.  It’s thoughtful, intense, well-acted, and only came out eight years ago.  But it’s in German so fuck that.  Let’s remake it.  I won’t call a remake “unnecessary” but had it come out or at least been announced around the time of the Abu Gharib scandal, it may have had a stronger resonance with American audiences as opposed to now when not only has the scandal has “passed” (the Obama administration is still blocking the release of prisoner abuse photos), but our attention is primarily on domestic affairs such as the economy and health care.

At least this remake is bringing some talented actors on board.  According to Variety, Adrien Brody, Forest Whitaker, Elijah Wood, and Cam Gigandet have all signed on to star with Paul Scheuring writing and directing since he created “Prison Break” and since this movie is about a prison experiment, that’s good enough.

More after the jump.