Zero Hour

Explicit content warning

04/02/22 • 138 min

The events of September 11, 2001 are explored from almost every possible angle: the hijackers; the flights; inside the World Trade Center and the Pentagon; the first responders who risked their lives to save others in an unprecedented emergency; how the President of the United States and top White House officials reacted to the worst attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor.
It is a story of ordinary people forced to do extraordinary things; of the best of humanity responding to the deeds of the worst; and of people making life or death decisions with incomplete and even inaccurate information. But most of all, it is fundamentally a story about how one day literally changed everything, a day whose repercussions we are still living through more than two decades later.

Previous Episode

The System Was Blinking Red

2000 - 2001
While planning 9/11 and running Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden somehow finds time to marry a new bride, and his other wives aren't happy about it. As 9/11 approaches, his family life begins to fall apart, and eventually he is forced to make a choice.
In Washington, George W. Bush is sworn in as president several months after a closely contested election. His government is filled with experienced Republican public servants, particularly on the foreign policy and national security side. What did or didn't they do about Al Qaeda during his first eight months in office?
Meanwhile, as the terrorist chatter increases in the months before the attacks, intelligence and law enforcement officials miss crucial warning signs that don't make sense until after the attacks. Two days before 9/11 and half a world away, Ahmed Shah Massoud, a war hero in the fight against the Soviets and leader of the Northern Alliance, is assassinated by two Al Qaeda operatives posing as journalists.
Less than twenty-four hours before the attacks, all nineteen hijackers are in position, wrapping up loose ends, and waiting.

Next Episode

On the Run

2001 - 2002
In the aftermath of 9/11, the United States and its allies invade Afghanistan for the beginning of a decades-long stay. Al Qaeda and the Taliban are decisively routed in a matter of weeks, but Osama bin Laden manages to give the U.S. military the slip at Tora Bora.
Meanwhile, the United States and other countries around the world begin to face new security challenges, from the outside as well as within.