The Hour: Not before time

We’ve had The Office, we’ve had Gavin and Stacey and Alan Partridge. All absolute gems of an era within the BBC when comedy was thriving post the classic era of British television. But where are the latest gems? Humour is something that the BBC is lacking and a few re-rums of Live at the Apollo is simply not good enough. There was talk a few years ago of the BBC launching its own rival of HBO –  although this is not likely to ever be realised, especially within the current financial restrictions. However, ‘The Hour ‘has come to save the BBC’s credibility.

‘The Hour’ was simply put, brilliant. Reminiscent of AMC’s ‘Mad Men’,‘The Hour’ was just that little bit better.Both were similar in terms of covering issues from an era back in time. With ‘Mad Men’it was the advertising agency and with The Hour it was the BBC newsroom. US dramas normally contain more layers to them, at least in the past decade or so with most of HBO’s hits. BBC’s ‘Life on Mars’ for example, had very few sub-plots running through it compared to the likes of ‘The Wire’ in each episode whose social undertones ran through each and every episode. This may be partially down to the fact that American series’ tend to have a bigger team of writers who work on each individual episode. However ‘The Hour’ bucks this trend. There are more social, cultural and political threads in one episode of ‘The Hour’ than in a full season of ‘Mad Men’.

The attention to detail and historical feel of ‘The Hour’ seemed so mystical, almost haunting. It was refreshing to see something closer to home being told all over again…the BBC during the war. Oh and anything with Dominic West (The Wire) in it tends to be flawless. He could be in an episode of ‘The Tweenies’ and I’d still Sky Plus it. Man crush alert!