The Hour (UK)

The performances, the writing, the intelligence that goes into the script and the characters--all reasons for welcoming the start of a new season of The Hour.

This is sleek, sexy, smart, densely written and deliberately paced adult entertainment.

The Hour has never pretended to be anything other than a very classy potboiler filled with attractive people, one that puts its heroes into predicaments that wouldn't be out of place in a silent film while sneaking social and historical commentary into the margins.

It offers amusement and a tad of suspense, but little to ponder over the long run.

This is the kind of meticulously handsome period piece one would expect to find via the BBC--mostly because it would surely struggle Stateside. Judged by the most bottom-line measurement of all, The Hour is an hour well spent.

It's too early to tell whether the new season will have the intelligent plotting, tense pacing, and superb cohesion Morgan and her actors brought to the first. But it's off to a good start.

Freddie's stereotypically hard-hitting reporter's persona is soon tiring and irksome. Still, Freddie isn't so tedious as the show's "villains."