Review: BBC's The Hour

By Ian Cullen Jul 20, 2011, 4:14 GMT

Two career reporters go up for a job on the BBC’s newest current affairs show, which is called The Hour.

Synopsis: In 1956 two reporters apply to join a new current affairs show. A chance meeting involves one of them in a dark conspiracy.

To be honest, that synopsis really doesn’t do this show a great deal of justice.

"The Hour" is the newest drama to hit the BBC, and aired on BBC 2 earlier this evening.

Two career reporters go up for a job on the BBC’s newest current affairs show, which is called The Hour.

Maverick investigative journalist Freddie Lyon and Bel Rowley are friends, and it’s apparent from the start of the series that their friendship is based on mutual respect because both share the same vision of news reporting.

The only difference is Freddie is the type that cannot hold back, whereas Bel is more prepared to play the long game and try and change the system from within.

Subsequently Bel is the one that is chosen to produce The Hour, but she insists that Freddie be taken on as the Home Affairs journalist for the show.

After meeting up with an acquaintance Freddie's doing a story on, he
winds up being pulled into a much bigger conspiracy. Things take a
dramatic turn when Freddie's friend turns up at the BBC the following
day to make him aware of an academic who has been murdered, but the
story has been reported in a small newspaper article as a robbery.
Spurred on by her insistence that the BBC News is not reporting the
bigger picture Freddie proceeds to conduct an investigation of his
own.

The costumes in this series are true to the period, but it is the
recreation of Lime Grove Studios at the BBC, which is fantastic to see
and the set for The Hour is everything you’d imagine a 1950’s current
affairs program to be and a real credit to Eve Stewart, who worked on
the Oscar winning movie "The King's Speech", and was nominated for an
Oscar for her production design on that film.

The dialogue in the show is razor sharp and there is barely a moment to breath due to there being so much happening. What is especially effective is the fact that the drama of the series has the feel of real time insofar as the action and narrative drives the story, which isn’t bogged down with loads of exposition.

The actual program that they are making in The Hour is similar to Panorama here in the UK or 60 Minutes in the USA where the focus is on the journalists investigation of a set story.

If anyone in the UK missed this series and like a good conspiracy series. I highly recommend that they check their BBC i-Player and give The Hour a go. It is compelling drama at its best and really deserves to be on BBC One, and not the less watched BBC Two.