Why is The Hour, the new BBC mini-series currently running on BBC America (and just finished up across the pond on BBC Two), so amazing? When the first trailer came out for it this summer, the best thing people seemed to say about it was that it looked derivative of great shows and that guy from The Wire was in it (and he was British). And, honestly, both of those things are true. However, that doesn’t really paint the whole brilliant picture.
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| Bel and Freddie, sorting through clues to find the story. |
On the surface, The Hour does something that many new shows are trying to accomplish this fall. Cribbing off the success of Mad Men, 50s and early 60s nostalgia has come back in a big way. However, the new slate of shows exploring this era have all added a twist. It
