The Hour

Now available on disk from Netflix and streaming on Amazon Prime, this smart, stylish BBC series, set in the mid-50s, really hits its stride by the end of its first season. Sumptuous Bel and geeky Freddie (Romola Garai and Ben Wishaw), escapees from the BBC newsreel floor, are the offscreen talent behind the eponymous news program; Hector (Dominic West) is the hearty, "highly corruptible" frontman. The plot lines are a little over the top at times—Mr. Kish, the palefaced spook who self-destructs when he fails to hit the target, is straight out of the old "Avengers" series (not necessarily a bad thing)—but the interplay among the main characters is beautifully portrayed. Anna Chancellor and Peter Capaldi are great together as a pair of prickly ex-lovers, and Oona Chaplin, at first mainly decorative as Hector's neglected wife, has an amazing scene in which she kicks her latest rival to the curb in the kindest, gentlest way.

The first season is built around the Suez Crisis and the Burgess-Maclean spy scandal, but the political backdrop is pretty much self-explanatory; the second season reverts to more familiar hardboiled themes—bent cops, shady nightclubs, showgirls in jeopardy and a porno racket (innocuous b&w photos in this case)—before getting back to the big stuff, high-level corruption and the nuclear threat. A "behind the scenes" clip on the second DVD focuses on the obsessively detailed production design, which, as with "Mad Men," is a big part of the show's appeal.

I didn't think The Hour was perfect, but overall for me it was very good and intriguing. The Hour does have a slightly slow start, but the pace soon picks up just in time for the tense finale, and I personally loved how ambiguous the ending was. I do also agree that some of the dialogue is rather anachronistic, however in the final episode especially it has several intense and intelligent moments. For any problems The Hour has, it does have potential to grow and there are many things to redeem it. The story is intriguing and full of twists and turns that are brought in and resolved nicely without the drama feeling rushed. The production values are wonderful, right down from the setting, to the photography, to the lighting to the fashions. The music is memorable and not over-bearing or generic like some programmes this year. The characters are interesting with like the series potential to grow. The acting is very good too, especially from Ben Whishaw and Romola Garai, but Julian Rhind-Tutt, Juliet Stevenson, Tim Piggott-Smith and especially Anna Chancellor also make a positive impression. Overall, while imperfect and leaves room for growth, I thought The Hours was very good on the whole. 9/10 Bethany Cox

Three times great may stand for the main cast of characters in this wonderful mini series by the BBC about the BBC, well done and professional as it is the house style. It brings you back to the old days of television in the mid-fifties by inviting us the watch the birth of a fictional weekly news magazine and the ups and downs of three journalists. One is a dynamic producer, trying hard to prove to herself and all others that she is worth the job, another a brilliant but difficult to work with intellectual lower class journalist, and finally a charming but eager to please and womanizing moderator. These three are not only connected through their work but simultaneously by friendship, love and hate. Together they get themselves into deep trouble and are bound to rely on each other when things get worse. The story draws us into a forgotten world of secrets, espionage and crisis, all through the eyes of the fifties! Both seasons are excellently done, rich of details and exciting facts.

I just watched the first episode of the Hour on BBC. It was better than I thought it would be.

I had heard it was supposed to be a lot like Mad Men, or at least very similar. There are a lot of similarities, and in the first episode I think they overdid it at times the fact that it is 1950 where gender roles are quite specific. Apart from that it is not that much like Mad Men at all. This is not so much a show where men are the main characters and it is their work life and how they have to use their strong character to get ahead in a difficult business.

In the Hour it seems to be more about a journalist's life at the time, no matter if you are a man or a woman. Although gender roles will play a part, it is not necessarily the core of the show like in Mad Men. It is not as glamours either.

What I really like about the Hour that there is also a mystery part to it, almost like a police show. In the beginning of the pilot we are introduced to a murder. The police are calling it a robbery, but one of the journalists finds out there are more to the story. The episode then switches between finding out the truth, at the same time as we learn about the life of journalists in the BBC, and how men and women work together to make a new, current affairs show that covers important moments in history. I'm sure historic moments will be highlighted in the show as well.

So a mixture between Mad Men and a police mystery (that doesn't necessarily get solved in every episode).

So so far, very good.

The Hour is a great series made from an interesting angle: media in post-War Britain. Since I have a media background, the story line of a BBC news show that is made under influence of the government appeals to me very much.

What I especially like about The Hour are the characters. None of them are either good or bad and their behavior and views seem very realistic. There's no crude division between good or bad which gives the overall story line a layered kind of dynamics: the overall story line as well as the personal drama interested me from the beginning to the end. How I 'grew into' the characters while watching the series reminded me of The Wire. Acting is well done by the way, which pushes the series to a very high level.

This is the first series I saw after seeing the American-made Homeland and it is such a relief to me that the British do not seem to fall for the blunt simplifications of good and bad as portrayed in American drama.

Bravo!