Fronted by Romola Garai, Ben Whishaw and Dominic West, The Hour is a BBC show about a hard-hitting news show in the late 1950s, tonally somewhere between Mad Men and The Newsroom. Each of the its two 6-episode series feels and looks very different, with Cold War concerns represented in the first by muted colors and spy thriller elements, the second instead concentrating on gangland, vice, corruption and scandal, and looking slick and colorful in comparison (Peter Capaldi also joins the cast, so there was that to look forward to). Well-acted, directed and plotted, with an eye towards at once accurately representing the bygone era of television and commenting on today. My one complaint is that the show feels the need to also cater to the "lives and loves" of its characters, producing soapy drama that, while it does tie into the action, still takes away from the more engaging journalistic procedural and thriller elements.
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Siskoid
Fronted by Romola Garai, Ben Whishaw and Dominic West, The Hour is a BBC show about a hard-hitting news show in the late 1950s, tonally somewhere between Mad Men and The Newsroom. Each of the its two 6-episode series feels and looks very different, with Cold War concerns represented in the first by muted colors and spy thriller elements, the second instead concentrating on gangland, vice, corruption and scandal, and looking slick and colorful in comparison (Peter Capaldi also joins the cast, so there was that to look forward to). Well-acted, directed and plotted, with an eye towards at once accurately representing the bygone era of television and commenting on today. My one complaint is that the show feels the need to also cater to the "lives and loves" of its characters, producing soapy drama that, while it does tie into the action, still takes away from the more engaging journalistic procedural and thriller elements.CSSCHNEIDER
Excellent. Britain delivers yet another amazing mini-series. They do it better than anyone else.