“The Hour is like watching a car you’ve always dreamt of being driven by a man who’s never sat behind a wheel” – not my words; I’m quoting one of the characters in last night’s episode, who was himself quoting a fictional newspaper critic.

Actually, I didn’t even write down the quote while watching the programme; I took it from one of the umpteen publicity pieces for The Hour that seem to be knocking about everywhere you look or listen. Very occasionally the Beeb lets a programme get in the way, which is nice.

So, this series has a marketing budget slightly bigger than the GDP of a developing country, but is it any good? Does it live up to the hype?

Two episodes in, and I’d say it does. Some critics have lazily compared it to Mad Men “because it’s, like, set quite a long time ago and people use Brylcreem and wear suits and stuff,” but, really that’s about it. One’s a glossy American series about advertising, the other is a British series based around the BBC of the 1950s – and one look at the characters’ dingy homes tells you there’s precious little glamour about. (Actually, they tried a bit too hard here: the kitchen of stroppy producer Bel Rowley’s flat is filled with 1950s products, but they look as if someone has set them out for the camera rather than the occupant.)

On the whole, though, the attention to detail is very strong – those massive TV cameras, the grotty canteen, the legal requirement to be smoking at all times – although sometimes the characters speak in clunky exposition and the occasional anachronism gets through. (Would they really have said “You partied more than you should” in the late 1950s?)

Last night, with the Suez Crisis as a backdrop, we saw The Hour, the fictional programme, get its act together. Handsome dreamboat Hector Madden, the man the critic accused of never having sat behind the wheel before, finally got his advanced driving licence and went from drippy and clueless host (“So where do you live?” he asked a spokesman on immigration in a wince-inducing interview) to positively Paxman-esque when it came to dealing with President Nasser’s spokesman. He was kicking bottom, but in a gently British sort of way. Probably while smoking a pipe.

However, I’m not sure about the conspiracy sub-plot. These are complicated, real characters who live in an impossibly exciting time of change, at the dawn of the television news age. Surely that’s enough to be getting on with? Why on earth did they feel the need to add something else?