Health Crisis on Jet Makes ‘Clock’ Tick

“Pandora’s Clock,” a four-hour NBC drama, poses a question that has drawn increasing attention from health-care scientists in recent years: What will happen if a passenger on an international airliner becomes ill with a deadly, easily communicable virus infection?

The two-part movie, based on the novel by John J. Nance, wastes no time getting to the point, using a series of rapid-fire opening scenes to establish the presence of a virally infected professor aboard a 747 bound from Frankfurt, Germany, to New York City.

When the passenger collapses, Flight Capt. James Holland (portrayed with stoic determination by Richard Dean Anderson) initially assumes he’s dealing with a heart attack victim. Refused landing clearance at one European airport after another, he soon grasps the real magnitude of the problem.

This segment of the film, rich with character development, is particularly compelling, in part because scriptwriter David Israel, director Eric Laneuville and director of photography Steve Shaw have combined to depict the understandable actions of generally believable people in a highly stressful situation.

As in every crisis-in-an-airliner story, there are numerous secondary relationships: friction between Holland and a “flight check” pilot; a budding romance between the captain and diplomatic aide Rachel Sherwood (played with surprisingly low-keyed intensity by the usually more effusive Jane Leeves of “Frasier”); a noisy televangelist eager to make a television date; a nervous young couple returning home after a funeral.

The production’s juxtaposition of striking camera angles, dependable acting and atmospheric music (by Don Davis) soften the predictability of some of the sidebar characterizations.

In the second half of the movie, the focus shifts to the ground, where the 747’s plight has become the center of a convoluted political tale, filled with errant terrorists, rogue CIA operations and a chase sequence reminiscent of “Three Days of the Condor.”

Here, however, the believability of the first half begins to dissipate, especially in the sometimes preposterous heroics of CIA virologist Roni Sanders (played in a bland reading by Daphne Zuniga). Fortunately, the photography, the pace of the editing and the music continue to keep the story moving toward a final epilogue that effectively brings the film to a full-circle conclusion.

* “Pandora’s Clock” airs 9-11 p.m. Sunday and Monday on NBC (Channel 4).