Article first published as Idealism and Conspiracy in The Hour on Blogcritics.
The Hour has a little bit of everything. I am falling in love with its setting, its characters and its plot lines. On paper a stuffy newsroom and sepia period detail might not seem ideal for summer viewing. But there is something refreshingly
different and gripping about this very versatile new series.
The key ingredient to its seductive and exciting charm is hard to isolate. Certainly I was already predisposed to its particular portion of the past. I’ve read about the panicked political intrigue and rushed reactions of the Suez crisis. I am an aspiring writer and journalist, interested and inspired by current affairs, and therefore susceptible to characters who feel passionately about the issues of their time. Everything about the 50s as a decade seems at once British and strangely exotic, creating a fascinating cocktail of cultural change, from rationing to the Cold War, from crooners to rock ‘n roll. The costumes, the lipstick, the hair; were all part of an irresistible style.
And yet The Hour has prompted considerable criticism from some quarters, reigniting a debate about authenticity and historical accuracy. Producer Bel, played by Romola Garai, seems too weak for a successful woman in a man’s world at times during Episode 2. It’s also questionable whether the particular shade of her stunning hairdo was achievable at the time. Reporting veterans that lived TV news in the 50s have written in to national newspapers to bemoan the inaccurate methods on show. There wasn’t the sort of investigative journalism seen from Ben Whishaw’s character Freddie. Underlings were simply given assignments by editors and sent out with a camera crew.
But ultimately Whishaw is playing a character in a drama. Some of the intricacies may be wrong but The Hour works tremendously well as a story and has truly ambitious scope. On Twitter most of the praise singles out the perfect casting. Garai is as good as she usually is in costume drama, exchanging flirtatious banter with Dominic West’s Hector and friendly jibes with Whishaw’s Freddie. In Episode 1 Freddie dominated and got me hooked, whilst in Episode 2, as Hector struggled with presenting duties, he emerged as something more complicated than a connected charmer.
Aside from the overlapping relationships behind the scenes of The Hour itself, a cutting edge flagship TV news programme for the BBC, there is a conspiracy theory plot bubbling in the background. This occasionally gives the programme the flavour of a thriller to go with its period drama and romantic credentials. It centres on a couple of murders we witness in Episode 1, perpetrated by Burn Gorman’s mostly mute and hat wearing enigma. Gorman was in previous series of Torchwood, now enjoying an American financed revival. He ended up being an annoying presence in the sci-fi drama but works well here because his extraordinary eyes ooze sinister menace.
As part of the BBC’s financial restructuring, BBC 2 has become the home of original drama. We’ve already seen, as a result of this new strategy, complexly plotted series like The Shadow Line which focus strongly on conspiracy. The Shadow Line was set in the present day and the recent phone hacking scandal proves the potential for conspiracy in modern society. It isn’t necessary to delve into the past for compelling and devious plotting by powerful men in high places.
However genuine idealism is something distinctly lacking in today’s world of cynicism. In a world where we can access news and hordes of information with a few clicks, it can feel as if there is no longer any point to saying what you feel. There is no new ground to break and nothing left to discover. Strong ethical convictions are less common even in students, who should be protesting and staying up to discuss the philosophical ills of the world, rather than liking “funny” groups on Facebook. If the exposure of hacking at the News of the World reassured storytellers that shocking conspiracy could still be rife in vital
industries, it will also have confirmed the pessimism and ignorance many feel
about the workings of the world every day.
Ben Whishaw’s Freddie Lyon is the sort of idealist that doesn’t seem to exist anymore, at least openly. His fiercely held convictions, combined with his affectionate sparring with Bel, were a breath of fresh air in Episode 1 of The Hour. It’s his range of principles that allows the show to touch on themes as different as relationships, privilege, power and media content.
He has his flaws, as The Hour does. He is messy, like the plotting at times, and he is in love with a friend who will probably never see him that way. He is ignorant of his own hypocritical snobbery. He holds himself back by speaking too rashly. He is blunt, as the show can be when it telegraphs the trajectory of a scene with its moody period soundtrack. But he also cares about quality. And The Hour is quality television.
The Shadow Line – Episode 2
Last week I confessed my confusion as to what precisely constituted “event television”. The first episode of The Shadow Line offered up an answer full of lingering shots of shiny details and realistic, stylised dialogue. Opinion was split between the lovers and the haters. Some drooled over the glossy detail and ominous script, whilst others gagged over the pretentious direction and fakery of the lines. I fell somewhere between the two extremes. I welcomed a British show oozing quality and ambition, but I grimaced at some of the glaring blemishes when the script tried too hard.
All in all it was a mixed opener, which set up a myriad of competing plot lines to speculate about. Thankfully the second episode built on the strengths of the first, whilst ditching most of its failings. Last night it felt like The Shadow Line properly broke into its stride. Literally. The episode ended with a selection of the key characters running at full pelt across a park, and then through London streets.
It was a chase sequence that prompted Chiwetel Ejiofor’s character to shout “SHIT!” and “I am on foot. Typical fucking British car chase”. But it didn’t feel like a typical action sequence from British TV for the audience. And it certainly wasn’t shit. Perhaps I was finally beginning to understand this “event television” nonsense. The climax to the episode was brilliantly judged, with the chase sequence moving up through the gears of drama. It featured only one standout stunt, a relatively simple car crash, but it shunted characters from cars to parks to tube stations (Bethnal Green incidentally, one I am familiar with) with expert fluidity.
The episode finally got its hands dirty with some plot progression after all of last week’s posturing and half formed questions on beautiful lips. Essentially it was the story of the hunt for the driver. Young Andy Dixon certainly doesn’t look like your average murderer, but he witnessed the killing of drug lord Harvey Wratten and is the only clue to the puzzle either side, criminal or police, has thus far. Wratten’s nephew Jay, played by Rafe Spall, quizzes Dixon’s mother and pregnant girlfriend menacingly, whilst Ejiofor’s Gabriel interviews them for the police. A third side also emerges, in the form of a character that may or may not be called Gatehouse, played by Stephen Rea.
The characters of Jay and Gatehouse illustrate exactly why audiences are split over The Shadow Line. Both could either be interpreted as colourful villains wonderfully acted or caricatures being painfully over acted. I’m inclined to agree with a comment from “dwrmat” on The Guardian series blog with regards to Spall’s portrayal of Jay: “ Whenever he’s on-screen, I can’t make up my mind whether he’s very, very good or very, very bad, which is a little distracting.”
The same could be said of Rea’s performance, although I instinctively found his mysterious and enigmatic character intoxicating, despite some far from subtle dialogue (“What I’m about to tell you is the most important thing you’ll ever hear. Ever”). His technique of scaring the family and friends of the fugitive driver is subtle however, when compared to Jay’s. The mental nephew of the deceased half drowns a cat and threatens to kill an unborn child to extract promises of cooperation. Rea’s character intimidates via a shadowy knowingness to his words and muted manipulation of his interviewee’s fears.
The main mystery now is who is Gatehouse, and which side of the investigation does he fall under? But other strands of the plot rumble on. Christopher Eccleston’s Joseph Bede managed to appease another disgruntled drug lord who hadn’t been paid with some dazzling calculations and a promise of ten million back instead of one. He again insisted to other characters he was simply a front man, installed by recently murdered Harvey as innocent and legit cover. Last week though he seemed to be far more important than that and in charge of things, and this week he’s still making the big deals and having people report back now and then. Ejiofor’s Detective still has a bullet in his brain, his wife wants to try for babies again, and the bullet might yet kill him. Glickman, another vanished but presumably still alive drug lord, remains undiscovered. Could Gatehouse be Glickman? Or working for him? Or is he a corrupt cop or some other darker side of the law?
By focusing on developing these irresistible mysteries and zipping along at a gripping pace, the second episode of The Shadow Line upped its game and got me looking forward to next week.
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