Paul Scheuring, the executive producer of ABC's "Zero Hour," says the conspiracy driving the new ABC drama will "100 percent" wrap up at the end of its first season.
Premeiring Feb. 14, the show follows Anthony Edwards ("ER") as the publisher of a magazine that investigates conspiracy theories. But after his wife (Jacinda Barrett) is abducted from her antique clock shop, Edwards' character is pulled into one of the most compelling mysteries in human history. We don't know exactly what that mystery is yet, but it involves clocks and Nazis.
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Despite the massive scale of the tale, which stretches across the globe and back in time several centuries, season one's storyline won't be stretched across future seasons — a practice that Scheuring says leads to writers "flapping" their wings.
"One of the things I learned from 'Prison Break' and making a serialized show is that if you're a single conceived show, like 'Prison Break' or 'Lost,'" he said Thursday at the Television Critics Association winter press tour. "Sooner or later you start flapping your wings because a story needs to end."
So instead of trying to "stretch, stretch, stretch, stretch" the narrative, Scheuring modeled the series like "24."
"It's like the '24' model where you reset every year," he continued. "This entire Nazi conspiracy thing will be done by episode 13 this year."
But just like Jack Bauer's addiction to danger in "24," the characters in "Zero Hour" will dive into another conspiracy if they're lucky enough to return for a second season.
"We have a group of investigators, headed by Anthony, at the magazine which can then apply those skills to the next investigation," Scheuring concluded.