The Hour - Series 2

This series saw police corruption and organised crime take centre stage.

So in the wake of the previous series' revelations and a gap of 9 months, this series opened with the Hour facing competition from ITV's Uncovered, Freddie's absence, Hector's entrance into celebrity and a new conspiracy. With these elements it made it intriguing and compelling from the start to see how they would develop and gave new areas for development for the characters. This was also seen when their source, Rosa Maria Ramirez is murdered and Bel's guilt and Freddie's apparent indifference comes into conflict.

As with the last series, historical events are used as a background to many of the episodes. For instance, it shows the space race, the attitudes to immigration, the cold war and the corruption among police and socialites. These all help to build a continually intriguing storylines and create a tense and well pace piece of drama. Moreover, I like how Bel's emotions for Freddie have been amplified, but must be hidden in the face of Freddie's marriage to a French woman,  Camille Mettier, during this time away. In contrast, it's interesting to see how Freddie struggles with married life and his relationship Camille is tested by Bel's presence, which later leads to the ending of it.

I also like how the characters, Lix Storm and Marnie Madden, have been give more development, with Marnie carving her own career in TV and it being revealed that Lix had a daughter she gave up for adoption and is trying to find her along with new character Randall Brown. This development showed a stronger side to Marnie and a softer side to Lix, making them more in-depth characters.

The main cast, including Ben Whishaw, Romola Garai and Dominic West all gave great performances, while Anna Chancellor and Oona Chaplin gave strong performance with their character's new development. Peter Capaldi, Hannah Tointon, Lizzie Brochere, Tom Burke and Vincent Riotta are all great additions to the cast, allowing their character to make their mark and grow well throughout. This has been a great series and the cliffhanger of the last episode was so good and very tense.