Reviewing BBC’s “The Hour”

         Shortly after making the wisely hermitic decision to watch more good ol’ British telly, I heard about “The Hour” and I was immediately intrigued. I admit the hook for me was the fact that it has been touted as “British Mad Men” and also that “Wire” alum Dominic West holds a starring role. Upon learning that the show is about journalists, I knew I would be tuning in. Although it took me a week after the premiere to watch it on BBC’s online player, for the most part, I was impressed with what I saw.
        “The Hour” centers on the BBC newsroom in 1956. For the time period alone, the series has been inevitably been compared to “Mad Men.” Yes, the costumes and time periods are similar, but “Mad Men” and “The Hour” are very different. “Mad Men” is a quiet character piece while “The Hour” features a faster paced thriller aspect. In fact, “The Hour” more closely resembles AMC’s short-lived series “Rubicon” which centered on an intelligence analyst who slowly works to uncover a conspiracy.

      The premise of “The Hour” features journalist Freddie Lyons (Ben Whishaw) gunning to secure a news series of his own in which he can tell the “real” stories. Lyons is fed up with the cushy superficiality of the BBC News, and decides he needs to reveal the darker, truer stories to the public. Along side Lyons is Bela Rowley (Romola Garai), a seemingly long time colleague and friend. The two banter and bicker a bit, but in the end they share the same goal. As Freddie explains his vision for the new series to a higher up at the BBC, he describes it as “the hour that people won’t want to miss,” and suggests that he be in front of the camera since Bela is already behind the scenes as the producer of the program.

       But the men running the stations have a different idea about who should be in front of the camera. They choose charismatic Hector Madden (West) as the new program’s front man. He clashes with Bela, although there seems to be some type of love triangle being put into place between Freddie, Bela, and Madden. I don’t find this particularly interesting, and is heading into the cliché love triangle formula that TV lovers know all too well.

       Additionally, Madden acts as the mouthpiece for the heavy-handed sexism that feels shoe horned into the script. The show’s writers used this to beat it over the audience’s heads that the show takes place in the 50’s. As if it isn’t obvious enough by the costumes and props, the contrived social commentary is a poor attempt to highlight how workplaces have changed in the past 55 years. It is clear that the writers are trying to contrast Freddie’s radical, forward thinking ideology to the older, more conservative Madden. There are more subtle ways for the writers to do this, and hope they figure out how in the remaining five episodes.

     The episode also introduces a parallel murder mystery/conspiracy story that is tied into Freddie’s quest by the episode’s end. Freddie’s sister alerts him that a professor has been killed and that there is more to the story than meets the eye. How she knows this information is not made clear, and it seems a bit too convenient that she is around to blurt out a bunch of information to Freddie and send him on a mission to figure out what is going on. She is nothing more than a MacGuffin, and the series gets rid of her by the end of the episode.

     For now, “The Hour” is interesting enough for me to check out the next 2 or 3 episodes. I’ll reserve a lot of my judgments until we’re a few episodes into the series; since the mystery storyline is just beginning and we’re still getting to know the characters. Even though I’ve only seen the first episode, I found myself very much enjoying Whishaw’s performance as Freddie. I think if the show can rely less on West, then the series could be worthwhile and less contrived. Overall, though, I’d say “The Hour” is worth a look for anyone interested since it has the potential to become a compelling and interesting series. So go ahead, tune in Tuesday nights at 9 on BBC 2. And for those of you in the States, the series premieres August 17th on BBC America.