The Hour: The next Mad Men?

A moody stylized period drama airing on BBC America could make Mad Men fans forget their frustrations over Don Draper's prolonged hiatus

"The Hour"
(Image credit: BBC)

Getting antsy waiting for Mad Men to return in March, 2012? While new fall series such as The Playboy Club and Pan Am will both try to siphon off fans of "highly stylized midcentury-modernist" dramas, BBC America's The Hour, which premiered Wednesday night, may be the most distracting Mad Men alternative of them all. The series — set in England's BBC newsroom in the late 1950s as it shifts from airing newsreels to investigative journalism — is drawing comparisons to AMC's Emmy-winning drama for its "moody, smoky" cinematography, its period art direction, and its blend of personal drama and media-workplace plots. Is The Hour a superior British version of Mad Men?

Bow down, Don Draper: As the best new show of the summer, says James Poniewozik at TIME, The Hour is "Mad Men plus a lot": An espionage thriller, a "searing look" at TV journalism, and a welcome return to TV for The Wire's Dominic West. Visually, all the Mad Men-esque boxes are checked, and the series' central mystery — which pops up tantalizingly near the close of the premiere — adds a "distinctively dark, noirish" dimension. The one drawback of The Hour? You wish it "lasted all day."

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