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lizbeeI was pretty excited for The Hour when I first heard about it. A BBC drama set in the '50s? The British answer to Mad Men? Starring Romola Garai? SIGN ME UP.
So far,suburbannoir and I have watched two episodes, and we've been disappointed.
Halfway through the second episode, I turned tosuburbannoir and said, "So if The Hour is to Mad Men as Duffy is to Amy Winehouse, then The Hour is to quality television what Sarah Blasko is to interesting music?"
We've agreed that was a bit harsh, except for the Duffy to Winehouse bit. But the sad truth is, so far The Hour is pretty mediocre.
Obviously it suffers from being in the shadow of Mad Men. Even with its shakier first season and general tendency for the first two-thirds of each season to be a bit slow, Mad Men in its infancy was a lot more subtle and better-written than The Hour. And it's very strange to be saying that the American show is of higher quality than the BBC historical drama, but there you have it. I could forgive the cheap-looking cinematography of The Hour if the scripts were better.
But they're not. There are interesting things happening, but the execution is problematic. It starts off signalling that it's set in THE PAST and THE PAST IS CHANGING TO BECOME THE FUTURE, and we know this because there's a scene early on where the characters namecheck John F Kennedy and Martin Luther King. (I was reminded of the similar scene in Mad Men's first episode, which was also criticised for being less than subtle. "The guy's a shoe-in," someone says of a presidential candidate. "Handsome, a naval hero. Nixon'll be president for sure." Compared with The Hour, that was subtlety itself.)
As if that's not bad enough, there are scenes where the characters tell each other that racism is bad, and sexism is unfair to women. In the second episode, Romola Garai's character twice delivers feminist lectures to other women. It's particularly awkward in the scene where she's telling her secretary off for making tea, while also denigrating her skills.
Actually, Garai's character is probably the biggest disappointment, because I want to like her a lot, but I feel like she's not actually as good as the scripts are telling us. She's supposed to be a talented enough producer to be running this groundbreaking news series at the age of 28. (I have wondered if she's meant to be based on Verity Lambert? And then wished there was a show like this, only good, about the early days of Doctor Who.) But at the same time, she knows very well that the Maverick Young Guy With Stupid Hair is deliberately sabotaging his Upper Middle Class Rival (and the show), but throws a tantrum instead of intervening.
The male characters are even more disappointing. Maverick Young Guy With Stupid Hair doesn't like his Upper Middle Class Rival (played by Dominic West in what's basically a straight-up mimicry of Jon Hamm, but with a British accent) because of the class issues. So they have a conversation about the class system, and how it's bad, and it ends with Maverick Young Guy With Stupid Hair saying, "I just don't like privilege."
I will say that that was funny enough thatsuburbannoir have been quoting it at each other for days. Only I don't think it was intended to be hilarious.
But there are good bits! Like the costumes, which are spiffing, and the set design is not bad at all. Sometimes it's a bit on the nose, like when you see someone's kitchen cupboard and it's full of iconic English brands of the 1950s, but there are also some very nice lamps and cups. We're really enjoying the inanimate objects.
I also like the arc involving the Suez Canal, a murdered academic-turned-spy, a woman in a refrigerator (metaphorically) and Burn Gorman photobombing the entire world.
(Okay, I didn't so much love the woman in the refrigerator, but she was really badly-written -- "Do you really believe you live in a democracy? DO YOU?" -- so I was glad she was removed, even though it involved gratuitous corpsifying.)
What I'm not loving is the way this plot is being pursued by the male characters, even though much of it should surely be handled by Anna Chancellor's character, the hard-drinking, trousers-wearing foreign editor, who is criminally underused and also the most interesting person there. And I'm pretty sure there's going to be a "twist" ending where it turns out the villains are, not the Soviets, but radicalised Arabs.
In short, I'm curious enough to see where it's going, and hopeful enough of improvement, to keep watching. But I'm not impressed so far. Be better, show. There is a Mad Men shaped hole in my life, and I had hoped you would fill it for me.
So far,
suburbannoir and I have watched two episodes, and we've been disappointed.Halfway through the second episode, I turned to
suburbannoir and said, "So if The Hour is to Mad Men as Duffy is to Amy Winehouse, then The Hour is to quality television what Sarah Blasko is to interesting music?"We've agreed that was a bit harsh, except for the Duffy to Winehouse bit. But the sad truth is, so far The Hour is pretty mediocre.
Obviously it suffers from being in the shadow of Mad Men. Even with its shakier first season and general tendency for the first two-thirds of each season to be a bit slow, Mad Men in its infancy was a lot more subtle and better-written than The Hour. And it's very strange to be saying that the American show is of higher quality than the BBC historical drama, but there you have it. I could forgive the cheap-looking cinematography of The Hour if the scripts were better.
But they're not. There are interesting things happening, but the execution is problematic. It starts off signalling that it's set in THE PAST and THE PAST IS CHANGING TO BECOME THE FUTURE, and we know this because there's a scene early on where the characters namecheck John F Kennedy and Martin Luther King. (I was reminded of the similar scene in Mad Men's first episode, which was also criticised for being less than subtle. "The guy's a shoe-in," someone says of a presidential candidate. "Handsome, a naval hero. Nixon'll be president for sure." Compared with The Hour, that was subtlety itself.)
As if that's not bad enough, there are scenes where the characters tell each other that racism is bad, and sexism is unfair to women. In the second episode, Romola Garai's character twice delivers feminist lectures to other women. It's particularly awkward in the scene where she's telling her secretary off for making tea, while also denigrating her skills.
Actually, Garai's character is probably the biggest disappointment, because I want to like her a lot, but I feel like she's not actually as good as the scripts are telling us. She's supposed to be a talented enough producer to be running this groundbreaking news series at the age of 28. (I have wondered if she's meant to be based on Verity Lambert? And then wished there was a show like this, only good, about the early days of Doctor Who.) But at the same time, she knows very well that the Maverick Young Guy With Stupid Hair is deliberately sabotaging his Upper Middle Class Rival (and the show), but throws a tantrum instead of intervening.
The male characters are even more disappointing. Maverick Young Guy With Stupid Hair doesn't like his Upper Middle Class Rival (played by Dominic West in what's basically a straight-up mimicry of Jon Hamm, but with a British accent) because of the class issues. So they have a conversation about the class system, and how it's bad, and it ends with Maverick Young Guy With Stupid Hair saying, "I just don't like privilege."
I will say that that was funny enough that
suburbannoir have been quoting it at each other for days. Only I don't think it was intended to be hilarious. But there are good bits! Like the costumes, which are spiffing, and the set design is not bad at all. Sometimes it's a bit on the nose, like when you see someone's kitchen cupboard and it's full of iconic English brands of the 1950s, but there are also some very nice lamps and cups. We're really enjoying the inanimate objects.
I also like the arc involving the Suez Canal, a murdered academic-turned-spy, a woman in a refrigerator (metaphorically) and Burn Gorman photobombing the entire world.
(Okay, I didn't so much love the woman in the refrigerator, but she was really badly-written -- "Do you really believe you live in a democracy? DO YOU?" -- so I was glad she was removed, even though it involved gratuitous corpsifying.)
What I'm not loving is the way this plot is being pursued by the male characters, even though much of it should surely be handled by Anna Chancellor's character, the hard-drinking, trousers-wearing foreign editor, who is criminally underused and also the most interesting person there. And I'm pretty sure there's going to be a "twist" ending where it turns out the villains are, not the Soviets, but radicalised Arabs.
In short, I'm curious enough to see where it's going, and hopeful enough of improvement, to keep watching. But I'm not impressed so far. Be better, show. There is a Mad Men shaped hole in my life, and I had hoped you would fill it for me.
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no subject
Date: 2011-07-31 11:55 am (UTC)Perhaps as a result of this, I'm not loving the conspiracy story. It might have worked well on its own as a more overtly genre-ish story, but combined with the naturalistic TV production strand it just feels weird and over the top.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-31 09:23 pm (UTC)And yeah, the conspiracy isn't meshing too well with the other plots yet. I think maybe it's aiming to be a 1950s State of Play, but it's just not working yet.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-01 09:35 am (UTC)Bel is indeed meant to be based on Verity Lambert. Lambert is probably turning in her grave.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-01 09:40 am (UTC)But Lambert was actually good at her job! *weeps*
no subject
Date: 2011-07-31 06:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-31 09:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-06 06:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-01 11:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-01 11:30 am (UTC)