Review of The Hour

The Hour (2011–2012)
2/10
Gave it a chance but
16 May 2012
Warning: Spoilers
I so wanted to like this show that I watched the whole first series... I love Madmen and wanted to give this time to develop into something similar,another richly subtle and voyeuristic view into a begone era.

What I got was someone's a 21st Century wish what they would have liked the 50's to have been. Chauvinism-lite that let's our talented and plucky girl get everything she wants accept an affair. Racism that is challenged with no apparent consequences, just do the story and problem solved. People lighting up in studio like the 50's while others go outside to have a smoke like modern second-hand pariahs.

I waited patiently for this to take off, for the conspiracy to make sense. Figuring there is some missing clue that will bring this all together. Then the climax into some hazy non-revelation.

They tried so hard to make the government the villain even when the characters or their motives make no sense. She's being targeted for recruitment by the Soviets and then suddenly she's British intelligence who kill her because she can't keep secrets. What made her so recruit- able in the first. Meanwhile the completely invisible soviet spies finally appear as the tortured intellectual souls that the left (and I assume the creators of this show) know them to be. Which would explain the revisionist of history casts Britain as the violator of international law and not Nasser whose nationalization of the canal is just delivering the needed comeuppance to the arrogant colonial superpower.

I assume this is the first and last season.
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