The Eleventh Hour
The Eleventh Hour is a Canadian television drama series which aired weekly on CTV from 2002 to 2005. The show revolves around the reporters and producers at a fictional television newsmagazine series, The Eleventh Hour. Unhappy with the newsmagazine's shrinking audience, the network has brought in a new executive producer, Kennedy Marsh, to reorient the show in a more ratings-driven tabloid journalism direction. The tension between the ratings imperative and the more traditional journalistic ethics of the show's senior staff is the primary conflict that drives the show, but storylines also include the team's efforts to get the stories that will make it to air each week. The Eleventh Hour was produced by Alliance Atlantis, Canada's largest film and television production house. It aired in the U.S. on Sleuth, under the title Bury the Lead, to distinguish it from a CBS series with a similar name.
Seasons
1. Mad As Hatters
Air Date: 2002-11-26
Dennis knows he's on to a story when he learns that residents of The Latitude Lofts, a building owned and occupied by an artists' co-operative, are afflicted by fibromyalgia. But his probing is met with resistance - from the co-op members who have already sunk their savings into the building; and from his new senior producer, Kennedy Marsh, who considers the premise as dated as the ""yuppie flu"". Kennedy's criticism further incites Dennis, who is already upset that he was passed over for the senior position in favour of this young upstart - a ""virtual VJ"" - from a popular tabloid show. There's a mess of personal and professional tension when a young boss, Kennedy Marsh, is brought in to jazz up the show, do snappier stories and attract a younger audience. She used to produce a tabloid-TV program and everybody is suspicious and resentful of her. The thing is, Kennedy Marsh is a tall, blond drink of water and there is quiet, almost-sexual tension between her and the dead-serious Dennis.
2. I'm Mad As Hell
Air Date: 2002-12-03
A highly-charged story about air rage turns into a brouhaha between Kamal and Deaton as each tries to exert his own spin on the issue. Kamal and Deaton have been trapped in a plane for nearly two hours while the pilot waits for ramp attendants for the jetway. Suddenly, one of the passengers, Ross Glatt, flies into an uncontrollable rage. Flight attendant Cheryl Pittis tries to calm him, but Glatt is out of control. Then Kamal notices a passenger catching the spectacle on a handicam, and his instincts tell him this will be great news footage. Glatt - a professional cellist as it turns out - is finally overcome by a fellow passenger, and about to be sedated when the Emergency Response Team storms the plane. All this, Deaton remarks, for what turned out to be plain old-fashioned air rage. Kamal is just thankful the incident happened while they were on the ground. Otherwise, they might have had fighter jets preparing to shoot them down. In the existing climate of post-Sept. 11, the newsm
3. The Source
Air Date: 2002-12-10
""A Honduran translator disappears when she's suspected of being Dennis' source for bribery allegations against a Canadian firm and a corrupt Honduran bureaucrat.""
4. A Low, Dishonest Decade
Air Date: 2002-12-17
Isobel suspects that philanthropist and self-proclaimed draft dodger Jefferson Grant may have actually been involved in a civilian massacre in a tiny Vietnamese village.
5. Tree Hugger
Air Date: 2002-12-31
Isobel struggles to uncover the true motives behind an environmental group's fight to save a contentious piece of land.
6. A Modern Mata Hari
Air Date: 2003-01-07
The brains of a top CSIS agent are splattered all over the windshield of his car and speculation is running high on whether it was suicide or murder. Some say George Barkin was being forced into retirement so he committed suicide; others whisper that he was setting up ""business relationships"" in China; or that he was a double agent. But whatever the reason for his demise, there's bound to be a media frenzy around the incident - and The Eleventh Hour wants to be the first ones in. At the centre of all the controversy is a young woman named Lyn Sing, a Chinese citizen who's been working at the Embassy, and who is somehow linked with the now notorious CSIS officer. Maybe Sing's just a damsel in distress; maybe she was part of Barkin's espionage activities; or maybe even a suspect in his death. Megan wants an exclusive with this 'woman of the hour', but Donohue's instincts tell him that with all the news outlets clamoring for her, Sing will end up in the driver's seat, dictating her demand
7. Not Without My Reefer
Air Date: 2003-01-14
Dennis investigates the Draconian drug laws threatening the future of a marijuana fugitive.
8. The 37-Year Itch
Air Date: 2003-01-21
Isobel's investigation into a web of political corruption is spurred by her own misguided faith.
9. Don't Have a Cow
Air Date: 2003-01-28
Kamal vows to bring a corrupt grocery chain to its knees; Dennis grapples with the guilt of a missed moment.
10. Shelter
Air Date: 2003-04-18
While investigating a suspicious social worker, Dennis stumbles on evidence that a child killer may have been wrongly convicted.
11. Cell Phone Slaves
Air Date: 2003-04-25
Kamal traces an illicit supply chain from war-torn Eastern Congo to the clubby world of corporate Canada, inadvertantly getting mixed up in insider trading.
12. The RASH Troops of Error
Air Date: 2003-05-02
While investigating a school shooting, Isobel is struck by how the media's hot pursuit of the truth can destroy those in its path.
13. Hall of Mirrors
Air Date: 2003-05-09
The network falls hostage to the demands of a madman intent on delivering his rant over the airwaves. A police profiler, Det. Linus Goslings, is involved in the search for a bomber called the Toonie Bomber.
1. Cowboy
Air Date: 2004-02-15
When five women die in a mysterious blaze, Dennis goes after the head of a Russian sex slave ring; Isobel and Kamal meet a seriously disfigured boy set to receive a face transplant.
2. Stormy Petrel
Air Date: 2004-02-22
Isobel is duped by the cunning machinations of a beautiful young girl; a story about an enigmatic movie star with a dark secret deepens the rift between Dennis and Kennedy.
3. Hard Seven
Air Date: 2004-03-07
An inmate's account of a brutal gang rape drives Dennis' story on prison conditions in a dramatic new direction; Isobel gets hooked on slot machines while investigating the suicide of an addicted gambler.
4. Swimmers
Air Date: 2004-03-14
Isobel gets entangled with victims of an unethical doctor in her expose of an in-vitro clinic; Kennedy sends Dennis to Halifax to find a baby girl cloned by a bizarre cult group.
5. Wonderland
Air Date: 2004-03-21
Dennis investigates a vigilante incident; Megan loses her unerring objectivity while profiling a brain surgeon who can't save himself from brain cancer.
6. Gone Baby Gone
Air Date: 2004-03-28
When a diplomat's son is killed by a car bomb, what appears to be a terrorist attack turns out to be a personal vendetta with tragic consequences.
7. Nadir
Air Date: 2004-04-11
Dennis investigates the motives of a well-to-do housewife who returns home after vanishing without a trace five days earlier. Isobel profiles a profiler with a vicious speech impediment. A stubborn Kennedy refuses to beg Megan to come back to The Eleventh Hour.
8. Rather Be Wrong
Air Date: 2004-04-18
A racist politician sues The Eleventh Hour for defamation after Megan nails him during an interview. Dennis and Kamal harbour a military Corporal who claims her colleague was murdered by her commanding officer.
9. Georgia
Air Date: 2004-04-25
Dennis is compelled to seek clemency for a Canadian prisoner on Death Row in the U.S. Meanwhile, Isobel uncovers a shocking secret while producin a story on the new face of Pornography.
10. I'll Build Me An Island
Air Date: 2004-05-02
In an ice-storm blackout, Dennis strugles to finish a piece on an elusive U.S. gun manufacturer who wants to blow the whistle on his company's dirty business practices. Kennedy worries a romance with a coworker may have compromised Dennis' judgement.
11. Strange Bedfellows
Air Date: 2004-05-09
The Eleventh Hour is incited to produce an in-depth expose on ""modren marriage"" after an Anglican Bishop refuses to marry a gay couple, and a reality show tries to pair up a nerd with a supermodel.
12. The Revenge Specialist (1)
Air Date: 2004-05-16
Isobel's life falls apart as she digs into pornography charges against a well-loved children's television series. Eleventh hour anchor Megan Redner is determined to secure an exclusive interview with Stella Loos, a Canadian missionary who was rescued from the Taliban after armed American Special Task Force troops stormed an Afghani hospital. From all appearances, the operation was a coup for the U.S. troops, raising morale in Afghanistan. It is assumed that the American networks will be all over the story, but Stella seems to have no media handlers and the American oulets don't even seem to be in the mix. Kennedy wonders if Stella is being coy about her celebrity; that perhaps she's holding out for a book deal. So the show's lawyer, Murray Dann, draws up an offer for her through their corporate publishing arm, Rutger-Hill. In doing so, they buy the book, the movie rights and the interview.
13. The Missionary Position (2)
Air Date: 2004-05-30
Suddenly, Stella claims to have amnesia about the whole event, but when she lets it slip that she prayed in the Afghan hosital where her ""amnesia"" apparently began, Megan and story producer Dennis recognise a cover-up. Megan follows her hunch and sets off for Afghanistan to expose the cover-up while Dennis tracks down Stell's doctor, Dr. Osama Amir, who reveals the truth: the U.S. troops shot a civilian doctor in cold blood during what they knew was in fact a needless rescue mission, and now they're covering it up. Dr. Amir and Stella both saw what happened that day - and Dennis plots to get the evidence to expose the whole debacle, setting off a chain of events that threaten to destry both Dennis' journalistic integrity and his personal relationships.
1. Eden
Air Date: 2004-11-27
New Eleventh Hour producer Henry Shelley makes his debut tracking the murder of a rent boy (male prostitute). What was his relationship with a Member of Parliament? Was he killed for love or money? Kamal considers war corresponding to boost his profile.
2. In Spite of All the Damage
Air Date: 2004-12-04
A violent case of mistaken identity gives Kamal a lead on his long-missing sister, Layda. Kennedy pounces on the opportunity to take Kamal's private pain public and boost his ratings. When he and Isobel jet to Halifax armed only with a hidden camera and a fistful of dollars, Layda's trail takes them up against desperate meth addicts and into the command centre of an identity-theft ring. Meanwhile, when Megan lets Henry sweet-talk her into going undercover to bust quack plastic surgeons, she gets an unsettling proposition.
3. Megan Ice Cream
Air Date: 2004-12-11
Megan tracks a drug mule's child to a Colombian orphanage. The Columbian boy is used as a decoy to smuggle heroin into Canada. Henry fears she's getting too involved in a dangerous underworld.
4. Bedfellas
Air Date: 2004-12-18
Isobel gets romantically entangled with the police sergeant hosting her ride-along piece. When her investigation into a serial rapist runs up against the cops', she decides to hold her story one night, with disastrous consequences.
5. A Virgin Walks Into a Bar
Air Date: 2005-01-01
Kamal is accused of sexual assault while reporting on the trial of the bombers of a Winnipeg mosque. Ex-producer Tony Joel, hired to ""spin"" Kamal's PR, causes a stir at the office.
6. Zugzwang
Air Date: 2005-01-08
Megan recalls interviewing an eccentric chess champion days before his suicide. Ten years later, Kamal finds new evidence to suggest it was murder.
7. Hit Delete
Air Date: 2005-01-15
Even Isobel's new cop boyfriend can't protect her when a dangerous young man, one of her earliest interview subjects, gets out on parole.
8. Kettle Black
Air Date: 2005-01-22
Megan's conflict of interest lands the whole Eleventh Hour in hot water when she catches a domestic-goddess CEO with her hand in the corporate cookie jar. Kamal is shadowed by a sharp-eyed student reporter.
9. In Another Life
Air Date: 2005-02-05
Isobel and Kennedy clash over the story of a quiet Rosedale housewife (guest star Barbara Eve Harris) arrested for shooting a police officer in her former life as a Sixties radical.
10. The Miracle Worker
Air Date: 2005-02-19
Henry's journalistic instincts – and marriage – are strained to the limit while profiling a quadriplegic, his faith healer, and a wife who suspects abuse.
11. Special Delivery
Air Date: 2005-02-26
Henry gets a double dose of shell shock when a sniper's bullet strikes on the doorstep of the Eleventh Hour. Megan and Isobel struggle to stay objective as they investigate an attack too close to home.
12. Das Bootcamp
Air Date: 2005-03-12
Kamal and James join fellow reporters for conflict training at an army base, but when a hostile sergeant pushes their war games too far. Kamal's digging unearths a story more explosive than anything in the field. Back at the office, Kennedy and her team get confessional during a productivity workshop.
13. Bumpy Cover
Air Date: 2005-03-26
Megan gets a tip from ex-producer Dennis, in town on the book tour for his racy new thriller. While Henry scours Ottawa for Dennis's deep-throat source, a Hollywood director who's optioned the novel visits the bullpen and recognizes more than a few ""fictional"" characters.
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Rating
4.8/10
Release Date
2002-11-26
Episodes
39 (3 seasons)
Status
Ended
