Exterior Street, New York City.
A familiar looking guy walking two dogs is stopped.
"Hey Goose, you're back on TV!"
"Anthony, sorry about your new show"
"You were Doctor Green, right?!
I started watching Zero Hour and then I couldn't find it."
I live in New York City and since March I have held variations of the above conversations. As sometimes happens our show was pulled from the schedule after airing three episodes and now I get to tell these folks they can watch the remaining ten episodes of Zero Hour starting Saturday at 8/7 central on ABC.
In Zero Hour I play Hank Galliston a publisher of Modern Skeptic Magazine. Hank's wife is abducted from her antique clock shop and in the quest to save her Hank and his magazine team get pulled into a mystery stretching around the world and back centuries.
It was three months ago when the network decided to pull Zero Hour off the air. I didn't take it personally, I know its business. I was just sad for all the great actors, talented technicians and artists who but their hearts and time into telling this story. We did the work to the best of our abilities. That does not happen on every job. All we set out to do was tell this crazy story and we did it. Everything that ends up on your TV has to be built, found, cast, organized, transported, photographed, recorded, edited and scored. In eight days a big circus moves 40 foot trailers full of lights and equipment, wardrobe, hair and make-up, dressing rooms and creates a base camp many times while prepping for the next episode to start the day after you finish the last. Some days you film four pages of script, others you push for eight.
We started shooting in the heat of August in New York City trying to act cold in fake snow -- to being so cold in December that my co-star Carmen Ejogo and I could barely speak our words. One thing that I do share with the character I play on Zero Hour is that I am not a religious person, but I am not adverse to magic or wishful thinking. The real reason I am happy is that a small miracle has happened and all the great work that my friends did on this show will not be buried. For the next eight Saturdays our little (it's not little) show will get to be seen. What people may not realize is that for all of us who worked on the show we are as eager to see it as anyone. Every scene has an experience both in front of and behind the camera that means something to all of us who made it. I remember it being thrilling to work hard on the big, great sequences that will be spectacular to watch when the special effects are added and the ease of doing simple two-person scenes that make the story sing.
When you are part of the circus, whether you are in the big top or playing a one ring venue in a small town, you just want to show off your act. The business of television may tell us to pack up our tent and move on, but for the next eight weeks we will get to strut and fret our hour upon the stage.
That is all we ever wanted.
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