TV

New mystery series clocks in with a real ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ feel

TIME TRAVELER: Anthony Edwards stars as a magazine editor who is frantically searching for his wife. (
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Time is running out, although you’d never know it by the plethora of clocks everywhere on tonight’s debut of “Zero Hour,” ABC’s new series.

Think the (hint! hint!) demon love child of “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and “Rosemary’s Baby,” meets “National Treasure.”

The series seems inspired by all of them, mostly successfully.

Hank (Anthony Edwards) is the editor of Brooklyn-based Modern Skeptic magazine, which has two employees/assistant skeptics — Rachel (Addison Timlin) and Arron (Scott Michael Foster).

Hank, we learn through expository dialogue and some smooching, is happily married to super-dish Laila (Jacinta Barrett), who runs a clock shop.

Immediately after Laila buys a mysterious clock at a flea market, she gets abducted by an equally mysterious German guy.

As mystery man is breaking into her shop, Laila inexplicably calls Hank to tell him to call 911 instead of skipping the middle man and calling herself. This is either a truly dopey plot device or Laila is truly dopey herself.

Anyway, turns out that the bad guy, White Vincent (Michael Nyqvist), formerly of the French Foreign Legion and currently a mercenary/demon, has more on his mind than luscious Laila. He literally wants to clean her clock!

The clock she just bought contains a diamond which is inscribed with a map, which ties back to the Nazis. Many Nazi scenes ensue with much goose-stepping — which is always a good way to tell who the bad guys are upfront.

Apparently, the Nazis were after a secret so dangerous it could end the world and make God irrelevant. It’s such a big secret that only a few Rosicrucians and Catholic priests knew about it.

To that end, the good guys ordered a Bavarian clock maker to make 12 clocks to give to each of 12 men who are the new — oh well, never mind.

Meantime, back in Brooklyn, Hank is visited by an incredibly sculpted FBI agent, Rebecca (Carmen Ejogo), who screws up the rescue of Laila.

It’s up to Hank, his assistants and Rebecca to find the clocks, decipher the clues and save Laila and the world.

More mysteriously still, this series plays like the exact opposite of my novel, “The Sixth Station.” Minus the Nazis — and the clocks. Go figure.