THE HOUR is a decent 2-hour movie crammed into a 6-hour miniseries.
It's about a ground-breaking BBC news show in 1956, in which the daring, progressive news team dares to face down the government and its undercover minions! Doesn't this sound like a thousand other BBC plots: government=bad, journalists=good! Of course, the bad government is carrying on a bad war, and covering it up with evil spies! I wonder if we're supposed to draw any comparisons with more recent history. Hmm!
Some people compare this with MAD MEN, seemingly for the sole reason that it's set in the 1950s. For me, it's like a bad British remake of BROADCAST NEWS with a spy plot grafted on. By the last episode, it's easy to forget all the details of the setup, although I must say the writer did a decent job of explaining the whole plot (something the Beeb often forgets to do). The main character is an annoying little git who looks like Frank Sinatra's famous mug shot photo. The rest of the cast is more tolerable, including a tightly-wound Anton Lesser, the versatile Julian Rhind-Tutt in a semi-tough guy role (hard to take seriously with those dorky 50s glasses), and Burn Gorman, sinister as usual with his mouth like a badly-healed scar.
Having worked in broadcasting for many years, I enjoyed the behind-the-scenes aspect of the plot. The spy subplot needed LOTS of tightening, but even so the series was worth a watch.
It's about a ground-breaking BBC news show in 1956, in which the daring, progressive news team dares to face down the government and its undercover minions! Doesn't this sound like a thousand other BBC plots: government=bad, journalists=good! Of course, the bad government is carrying on a bad war, and covering it up with evil spies! I wonder if we're supposed to draw any comparisons with more recent history. Hmm!
Some people compare this with MAD MEN, seemingly for the sole reason that it's set in the 1950s. For me, it's like a bad British remake of BROADCAST NEWS with a spy plot grafted on. By the last episode, it's easy to forget all the details of the setup, although I must say the writer did a decent job of explaining the whole plot (something the Beeb often forgets to do). The main character is an annoying little git who looks like Frank Sinatra's famous mug shot photo. The rest of the cast is more tolerable, including a tightly-wound Anton Lesser, the versatile Julian Rhind-Tutt in a semi-tough guy role (hard to take seriously with those dorky 50s glasses), and Burn Gorman, sinister as usual with his mouth like a badly-healed scar.
Having worked in broadcasting for many years, I enjoyed the behind-the-scenes aspect of the plot. The spy subplot needed LOTS of tightening, but even so the series was worth a watch.