The Hour has been quietly earning a loyal audience, and right now it is all available in Australia on Amazon Prime Video, and in the US on YouTube TV and AcornTV Amazon Channel. Ben Whishaw leads a cast that brings something genuine to every episode. What sets The Hour apart from the dozens of similar shows is hard to pin down in a single sentence — it is partly the writing, partly the performances, partly the way it commits to its premise without flinching. The kind of crime drama that keeps you guessing: that is the shorthand, but it undersells how well The Hour executes on it. An audience of 99 has voted with their time — and their score reflects a run without many weak episodes. The streaming access means you can form your own opinion tonight, without any barrier to entry.

The procedural format gives The Hour its backbone, but it is the characters you come back for. A behind-the-scenes drama and espionage thriller in Cold War-era England that centers on a journalist, a producer, and an anchorman for an investigative news programme. Ben Whishaw and Romola Garai lead a cast that brings real weight to the material. The series ran for 2 seasons (2011–2012), building a story that gave its audience time to invest properly. It delivers reliably on what it promises, which is more than most of its competition manages. What distinguishes the best crime dramas from the rest is whether the character work can carry episodes where the mystery takes a breath — The Hour passes that test consistently.

Crime and mystery fans will find exactly what they are after here — if The Ipcress File is in your watch history, The Hour belongs there too. It works equally well as a long binge or episode-by-episode over a few weeks. The format gives you enough momentum to keep going without demanding that you sacrifice sleep on a Tuesday. The contained run means every episode has work to do, and the writers know it. Ben Whishaw's performance is the kind that shows up on best-of lists years after the fact. If you have been looking for something to fill the gap left by a recently finished series, this is a reliable answer.