Yet Another CSI Eleventh Hour CBS, Thursdays, 10 p.m.

Stars: Rufus Sewell (The Illusionist, The Holiday), Marley Shelton (Grindhouse)

The premise: Based on a British miniseries, this forensic drama centers on Dr. Jacob Hood (Sewell), an eccentric biophysicist hired by the FBI to untangle hairy scientific crimes. Faced with a doomsday situation — say, a fetal cloning experiment gone awry — Hood chases leads as the clock ticks down. The government sends Special Agent Rachel Young (Shelton) to protect Hood, though she looks more likely to break a stiletto than a bad guy's arm.

They say: "Everyone's interested in scientific discoveries and how science is manipulated to make things happen that we can't explain," says executive producer Jerry Bruckheimer (CSI). Plus, there's Hood, the kind of guy who explains fertilization using a grape and a tweezer: "He's odd as hell!"

We say: Envelope-pushing imagery — there's a field littered with 19 dead fetuses — is cool. Cliché dialogue — "You can't have him back! He's dead!"; "She will die if I don't find her in time!" — is not.

Clip courtesy of CBS