The Hour, Series 2 Finale, BBC Two | reviews, news & interviews
The Hour, Series 2 Finale, BBC Two
The Hour, Series 2 Finale, BBC Two
Fifties TV news saga becomes more ridiculous by... er... the hour
When the first series of The Hour aired last year, there was a lot of excitable talk about how it was the "British Mad Men". Having sat through series two, I've concluded that in fact it's the British version of Pan Am, that bizarrely idiotic airline series where all the air hostesses were covert operatives for the CIA, and visits to exotic international locations were achieved using plywood props and big photographs of famous landmarks.
Despite its superficial attention to 1950s detail (suits, hats, frocks, cars), the more The Hour tries to feel authentic, the less convincing it becomes. Surely they could have found a way not to make the BBC's Lime Grove studios look like a derelict Odeon cinema? Writer/creator Abi Morgan has repeatedly tumbled into the elephant trap of reheating famous scandals and media sensations from the era and bolting them together into what is supposed to be the plot, with a particular obsession for Soho vice rings and the nuclear threat. Both of these implausibly collided under the roof of sleazy Soho clubland entrepreneur Raphael Cilenti (Vincent Riotta, pictured below).
Any night of the week, it seemed, you could stroll into Cilenti's El Paradis club and find the entire staff of BBC and ITV television, the Cabinet, and most of Scotland Yard's senior police officers. So irresistibly alluring were Cilenti's girls, wiggling in their basques and suspenders to a soundtrack of feeble pseudo-jazz, that wealthy and powerful men formed orderly queues to tell them all their dirtiest, darkest secrets and to be covertly photographed while having a good grope. Cilenti, rather offensively played as a greasy cartoon wop, smirks and gurns malevolently, and if any of his underlings step out of line they end up dead. Meanwhile he's been overseeing a vast racket in which NATO's nuclear strategy will bring big bucks to a company owned by his mate, a Mr Tufnell.
The idea that a primitive BBC television news programme reliant on a solitary reporter and with no outside broadcast teams would expose this seething morass of corruption in high places and bring down the government was never remotely feasible. In the wake of what we've learned about the BBC's investigative news operations in the last few weeks, it's absolutely hilarious. Peter Capaldi, playing the perpetually glum head of news Randall Brown, warned his team, apparently without irony: "It's risky so let's get our facts straight" (rather an understatement, given the sackings, lawsuits and arrests that would follow mistaken outings of assorted ministers and top coppers). The line was almost as good as the one he uttered after the death of vice girl Rosa, murdered when she threatend to expose Cilenti to The Hour: "We have rattled Mr Cilenti's cage!" Bravo, The Hour!
In this wonderland of unlikelihood, the cast inevitably faced an uphill battle. Bel Rowley (Romola Garai, pictured left), producer of The Hour, vacillated erratically between doe-eyed love interest and neurotic TV executive, never fully engaged in either. Ben Whishaw's Freddie Lyon was supposed to be a beacon of idealistic truth-telling and fact-uncovering, but while the role called for him to go snooping around like some hard-bitten gumshoe, he more nearly resembled an irritating know-it-all wonk from some nebulous think-tank.
It was typical of Morgan's anachronistic tone. Her characters are so fond of delivering lectures about immigration, racism, the evils of nuclear proliferation, journalistic integrity, corrupt politicians (Tory of course) and the outrageousness of the homosexuality laws that the script might have been pasted together from back issues of the New Statesman.
Still, just because it's the silliest show on television, that doesn't mean that series three, four and five aren't already in preparation. I just hope they don't get rid of Anna Chancellor's Lix Storm - though maybe they could find her a name that doesn't sound like it came from some bondage website - because she's the sole cast member who looks as if she's in the right place at the right time.
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Comments
I really hope the reviewer's
Completely at odds with this
The Hour has been one of the
Found myself totally immersed
I agree with Anonymous.
Review is spot on. For the
I was glad I was over in the
Totally disagree with
I thought this was much
Oh dear, the green eyed
What ridiculous and
One of the most idiotic
Whatever the technical merits
A ridiculous, pointless, and
The review wasn't
Have never read a review that
Like most dramas, it's a work
I don't know what Lime Grove
I've just finished
I've just finished binge-watching the last five, er, hours of The Hour and I'm emotionally drained. What a fantastic second series. While I I see where you're coming from with regards to Abi Morgan's moralising and monologues, Adam (as anyone who's seen Aaron Sorkin's preposterous Newsroom can attest, there seems to be too much temptation to turn down pomposity when dramatising The News), she definitely has a knack for composing characters you can't help caring about. Yes, even the slimy Hector. Peter Capaldi was an incredible addition to an already fantastic cast - as for his scenes with the luminous Anna Chancellor, all of the awards please. I'd have loved to have read your take on Oona Chapin's Marnie Madden, who over the course of two seasons seems to have developed into a well-rounded, well-written female character (so rare for a primetime drama) worthy of the Mad Men comparisons.
I'd agree that the second series' driving narrative was pretty preposterous, and yet I found myself getting swept up in it anyway (screaming at the screen on at least three separate occasions during that jaw-dropping finale). While it may have been guilty to a certain extent of that whole "we've covering a particular era, let's make sure we mention race relations and nuclear armament and homosexuality-as-vice" it wasn't half as cloying about it as something like White Heat was.
Totally cringed during any of the checks-and-balances scenes though, knowing what we do now.
I'm just relieved to read the
I must say i have to agree
I haven't read such a hatchet
I so agree!!!
A well thought review which
The review is very unfair.
This reviewer has no idea
I have to say that anyone
Yes, I completely agree. It
I love this series.It had me
Pleased to see that the
This is my first ever comment
Completely agree with the
Spot-on review, in my
Thank you for your insightful
Well most seem to disagree
This review is quite a hack
...his?
...his?
Enjoyed Series 1 and Series 2
I do think The Hour is
I'd love to know what you
Absolutely a fantastic show,
Simply put, the show's
Even though this show is one
There were some things in the
There were some things in the plot that were unbelievable and the inevitable bit of BBC political correctness crept in. However very entertaining, great acting and weren't those 1950s women sexy ? I particularly liked the way the ITV hierarchy were portrayed as a bunch of opportunistic corporate hyenas. Roll on season 3.
I've enjoyed The Hour a lot,
Rather cheap and seemingly
I'm seriously sick of people
Adam Sweeting...Writes
Thanks for an excellent
I am genuinely concerned that
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