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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

Quite irritating actually: Ben Whishaw as eager newshound Freddie Lyon

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.

Ben Whishaw's Freddie Lyon was supposed to be a beacon of idealistic truth-telling, but he more nearly resembled a know-it-all wonk from some nebulous think-tank

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Comments

will there be a third episode?

THIS IS ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF BRITISH EXCELLENCY IN MYSTERY. I AM ANTICIPATING ANOTHER SERIES PLEASE,PLEASE. I HAVE SO MANY BRIT DVDS,EX.POIROT MIDSOMMER MURDER, SHERLOCK HOLMES, MORSE ETC. YOU ARE THE BEST. PLUS I LOVE YOUR HUMOR, I HAVE ALL OF THOSE DVDS ALSO.

Give the Caps Lock key a tap for us, eh?

I started reading this review and stopped at about word four of the frist sentence. This show is brilliant. If they don't make a third series then Britain and the BBC have lost it completely. Fabulous writing, acting, everything. Thank god, there are people out there coming up with this stuff. Freddie has to live!!!! Bring on series 3 BBC.

Both my wife and myself enjoyed both series of The Hour and look forward to a third and beyond series. Trust Freddie got over that terrible beating that the nasty Cilento and his henchmen handed out. The review provided by Mr Sweeting is superficial to the point it seems to have been written during a shortened lunch break.

A bit harsh. Freddie was a standout character. Really enjoyed this glimpse into 50s reporting. Thursday night is now empty in Australia viewing.

Yes, a very silly review though it does make a couple of valid points. Such criticisms don't detract, though, from what was a thoroughly enjoyable, well-acted and generally well-written show. I found the business of Lix's adopted child rather contrived and unnecessary but the main story was very good and brought back the seamier side of 50s London very well for those of us who remember it. To describe this as "the silliest show on television" tells us that Adam Sweeting doesn't quite get it - he's probably too young! Perhaps he's more comfortable with reality TV and talent shows.

Damn it- forced by this bizzare, facetious, arrogant review to post a response, which I very seldom do. In brief: please, please, BBC, give us Season 3. This is TV drama at its best. A huge thankyou to the team of writers, actors, camaramen, props people, all, for your commitment to excellence.

I love this show. I do not recognize the show that the reviewer is critiquing. I would love a Season 3 - and this from a viewer who LOVES Mad Men. Both of these shows are equal in enjoyment.

This was a brilliant show, actors were excellent, superb, really talented, very well characterized. Please do a third season. We loved it.

Excellent review. I know that the producers disavowed the Mad Men comparisons (which were apparently dreamt up by some over enthusiastic Beeb Press flack), but it's a shame that they didn't pay more attention to that show. Over five series, Mad Men has delivered utterly compelling, totally plausible drama without recourse to ridiculous cliche ridden murder/conspiracy plots. You'd have thought that the activities of a groundbreaking newsroom at a time of great social and political change was rich enough souce material but it seems that the (supposedly world class) writer, the producers or the commissioning executives (or all of them) either lacked faith in the original premise or were too lazy to create rounded and detailed characters who could carry the narrative without piling an hysterical class-based murder mystery on top. In any case, they produced a great big squawking turkey and the viewers (apart it seems from a few Arts Desk readers) duly stayed away or turned off in droves.

Enjoyed the first series, but missed the second as was in Australia. Having read reviews and comments desperately want a repeat of second series

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