Just after watching the first one and it is very dumb. I happened to watch an episode of Bones first and then the Eleventh Hour. The 11th Hour should be embarrassed.It is so weak. Stewart introduces himself as a Government Scientist. No mention of what kind of scientist just general sciency stuff. In a program about cloning they bring a caretaker, who was paid to dispose unsuccessful embryos, to a church and made him kneel before the statue of Jesus on the cross and ask forgiveness... and as well tell them where the bad guy is so as they can move the plot on. Now thats science at work :(There is a dumb, not good dumb, bit where Picard rages at a TV that advertises skin scream that makes you look younger, shouting "It's a lie", as his randy female assistant gets groped by the local hot bobbie next door.The end of the first episode is like a bad cartoon where the bad old lady, named after Pinnochios daddy in order to move the clunky plot along, waves at Picard from the street as she gets in a taxi. Picard is one floor up and he looks out a window wistfully going... she got away. He could like try to run down.. or maybe ring the cops... or maybe get the number of the taxi and ring it in or maybe had anything other than... I am waving and getting into a taxi now and there is nothing you can do about it until next week ending... mahhahahahah.Pity it's so stupid. At one point a grieving father is convinced by Picard that even if a replica clone son was born it would never be his son as his son had a soul. Yes that's right folks. The general scientist argues against cloning on the basis that every soul is unique and sure why else would you want to clone. Although the general scientist Picard finds cloning a bit gooey he's all up for stem cell research and goes as far as to say that calamity will befall humanity if it isn't allowed. He has a pretty strident rant about how important it is. Of course he doesn't mention a single example. That kind of sums up the show. Buzz words and tawdriness.

If I was British, I would be embarrassed by this portrayal of incompetence. A protection agent of the Special Branch unable to defend herself against a sick, unarmed and untrained assailant? The Home Office sends a single "Science Adviser" to investigate a possible Level Four biohazard, and that "Advisor" doesn't have the sense to wear even a mask and gloves? Totally unprotected London police officers working side by side with technicians in full biohazard suits? The "Advisor" and his bodyguard bearding the lair of a sociopathic doctor experimenting on human subjects without any backup? Puh-leeze! One wonders whether the producers could not afford to hire any technical advisers or if, for some arcane reason, they consciously decided to portray the principals as hopelessly incompetent. Even my wife, who has no background in either medicine or law enforcement, was rolling her eyes in disbelief. After the first episode, I was discouraged; now that I have seen two episodes, I give up.

How on earth can you have such fantastic actors in such a miserable creation? This is one of the most stylized pieces of rubbish I have seen in a long time. Not only is it poorly written, it is a product of shoddy direction and editing. The cinematography is so horribly manipulative and unoriginal and the montage jumbled beyond belief. The actual ideas behind the plots (cloning, toxic waste, climate change) are all fine to begin with but where the production/direction team takes them is a big cesspool of filth, the likes of which are seen in one episode. And this is a Scientific series? I am a physician and all I can say is that the science in this film is utter crap, almost embarrassing to watch. I really felt bad for the actors involved since they were all extraordinary.

This flashy po-faced hokum has clearly been built to milk the appeal of Sir Patrick Stewart to the bobble-hat brigade, and it's not as terrifyingly bad as some of writer Stephen Gallagher's other work. But why-oh-why-oh-why hasn't anybody flagged the significant debt to other and - in my nostalgia-loaded opinion - better series?It obviously re-treads ground covered in the equally watchable but improbable perils-of-science 1970s BBC melodrama "Doomwatch" - created by Doctor Who writers and Cybermen creators Kit Peddler and Gerry Davis."Eleventh hour" writer Stephen Gallagher is also a former Doctor Who writer. What, then, do you think inspired the format of a slightly unworldly trouble-shooting "Government Scientific Adviser" with a younger and slightly feisty but unthreatening girl "companion"?There's a certain amount to enjoy here, not least Jean Luc Picard trying to pretend he's not posh, as he flattens all his vowels and clearly has to be restrained from saying things like "Ay-up", "By 'eck", and "Ah grew oop round ear". That he's supposed to be a boffin is probably funnier, as in last week's episode which had him talking about quantum probability and Chaos theory to a Government accountant before charging off to put down a virus pandemic.That girl from "Extras" as his sidekick also gets to wave a gun and run down endless stairs in Lycra tops without the benefit of a sports bra, which may offer younger male viewers some light relief.Despite the slick presentation and casting coup, this isn't ever going to be great and memorable TV. The man who gave us budget-shy early nineties genetic engineering scare-fest "Chimera" (aka "Monkey Boy" - the clue's in the title) and international drugs corporation paranoia in "Oktober" is clearly going to carry on grinding out un-taxing soft-target science-gone-wrong potboilers. The only real social issue in the second story about a killer virus loose in England's Manchester, was the obvious question, "Well, would they really bother?"