 after the last couple of weeks, you could be forgiven for being completely sated of discussions about media ethics and what the news we're given says about us as a country. Well, tough, for you'd be a mug to miss THE HOUR, the BBC's much-touted new drama series which is all about such things and aims to show that stylish, wordy, snappy shows needn't just be the preserve of america's upmarket cable channels.  The obvious inspiration for abi Morgan's script is Mad Men, as viewers may experience a similar nostalgic swoon at the period setting. Here it's 1956 London, where men wore suits and hats, while women had to battle both sexism and uncomfortable girdles to get ahead. But I'd be surprised if she hadn't watched the underrated 1987 film Broadcast News as well, which presciently showed the dumbing down of news values. There, Holly Hunter's smart producer found herself drawn to her handsome but superficial presenter, William Hurt, to the chagrin of nerdy, ethical reporter albert Brooks; here, Romola Garai's equally capable producer (looking gorgeous in natty 1950s outfits) seems impressed by Dominic West's charming star presenter while frustrated, fiery reporter Ben Whishaw tries to uncover a story.  Yet The Hour is really coming from a different, more optimistic place, one which celebrates the virtues of journalism - which may make it a hard sell at the moment but could prove more interesting as drama. The characters aren't trying to dumb down the news, they're trying to brain it up; to create a new type of current affairs show which actually looks at what's going on in the country, rather than the staid, banal newsreel-type broadcasts read by men in dinner jackets, giving a top-down view of the world of socialites, royalty and unquestioned official pronouncements. Instead, the colleagues want to bring viewers the truth and drag the country into a more modern age.  There is, clearly, a certain irony here and it's interesting to ponder the changes since then. But even placing the big themes of the series to one side, there's a lot going on: Whishaw's Freddie getting sucked into a murder investigation, Bel (Garai) trying to fit into the male-dominated newsroom, the sexual tension between her and West's possibly phony, possibly genuine Hector and the unrequited love between her and Freddie. Not to mention the hats and frocks. In fact, there's almost too much going on, but after this first cluttered episode, it could develop into a fine, engrossing series.  In Richard Hammond's Journey To The Centre Of The Planet, the sniggering sidekick and Mexican-mocker from Top Gear unforgivably keeps referring to the world as "the Earth machine," a phrase which sounds like something from a forgotten 1950s pulp sci-fi: Flash Hammond Versus Dr Chaotica's Deadly Earth Machine! He then regales us with a curious story about seeing a donkey from his childhood bedroom window, which looked like it had fallen into a sinkhole but turned out not to have done: for the sake of this less-than-fascinating anecdote, a camera crew is sent out to the very spot where the donkey didn't sink so we can all imagine the junior Hammond's experience.  Now, things do hot up once the BBC graphics department start showing off with nifty images of Trafalgar Square being lifted up to reveal the layers underground and visualisations of magma spiralling up from under the earth. But the programme's start does sum it up, presenting the kind of big scientific ideas which would once have been the preserve of beardie academics on Open University programming, but are now allowed on TV only if there is a celebrity chummily mincing their way through a "journey" because they've "always wanted to know" what lies bene 