I posted a few disappointed comments on the first series of the BBC drama The Hour last year... It was a clever idea to use the history of the BBC to comment on the darker side of our island history - but the results were disappointing. I had high hopes for the second series - and the few reviews I read suggested that The Hour had upped its game. The first episode seemed to be plagued by the very same dramatic flaws that let down the last series. Having said that - and with the American series Homeland in quality free fall - I will be glued to the rest of the new series. As a nation, we have forgotten the upsurge of racism in the late 1950s and the recrudescence of the decrepit Oswald Mosley.
The main dramatic problem with The Hour focuses around Bel Rowley (Romola Garai). Generally, the script writer Abi Morgan tends to treat female characters unfairly. Lix Storm (Anna Chancellor) is a jerry built assembly of cliches as absurd as her name. I'm assuming that Morgan intends the relationship between the new character Randall Brown (Peter Capaldi), the Head of News. However, Brown is a kind of mumbling stage villain - whose humiliation of Bel at an editorial meeting feels dramatically arbitrary. Conflict in drama doesn't work surely if it is unmotivated. Worse, Morgan simply doesn't give Bel the character resources to fight back. This has little to do with Romola Garai - but everything to do with the writing of her character. We need a lot more evidence of her talent, skills, political nous etc. - which in the previous series and this first episode of the new series was well nigh non existent - for her to work as a character. Why does Brown get the better of her every time? Why does Bel herself not react to the competition from the ITV competitor? (Admittedly a nice story touch.) Are we meant to assume that Randall is just a sexist beast? Morgan's problem is that she offers Freddie Lyon (Ben Wishaw) the lion's share of journalistic genius. She can't simply copy it over to Bel. At the end of the first episode, we find Bel moping in her flat about Freddie who has unveiled a surprise French wife. 'Just like a woman...'?
Well, we should see how The Hour develops. Since this is a BBC drama, I for one am wondering how the story will find a way to include a picturesque stately home. That's an obligatory BBC drama ingredient isn't it?
The main dramatic problem with The Hour focuses around Bel Rowley (Romola Garai). Generally, the script writer Abi Morgan tends to treat female characters unfairly. Lix Storm (Anna Chancellor) is a jerry built assembly of cliches as absurd as her name. I'm assuming that Morgan intends the relationship between the new character Randall Brown (Peter Capaldi), the Head of News. However, Brown is a kind of mumbling stage villain - whose humiliation of Bel at an editorial meeting feels dramatically arbitrary. Conflict in drama doesn't work surely if it is unmotivated. Worse, Morgan simply doesn't give Bel the character resources to fight back. This has little to do with Romola Garai - but everything to do with the writing of her character. We need a lot more evidence of her talent, skills, political nous etc. - which in the previous series and this first episode of the new series was well nigh non existent - for her to work as a character. Why does Brown get the better of her every time? Why does Bel herself not react to the competition from the ITV competitor? (Admittedly a nice story touch.) Are we meant to assume that Randall is just a sexist beast? Morgan's problem is that she offers Freddie Lyon (Ben Wishaw) the lion's share of journalistic genius. She can't simply copy it over to Bel. At the end of the first episode, we find Bel moping in her flat about Freddie who has unveiled a surprise French wife. 'Just like a woman...'?
Well, we should see how The Hour develops. Since this is a BBC drama, I for one am wondering how the story will find a way to include a picturesque stately home. That's an obligatory BBC drama ingredient isn't it?
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