Dominic West in 'The Hour'

 Dominic Gerard Fe West (born 15 October 1969) is an English actor. He is best known for his role as Detective Jimmy McNulty in the HBO drama series The Wire.

 The Hour is a 2011 BBC drama series centered on a new current-affairs show being launched by the BBC in June 1956, at the time of the Hungarian Revolution and Suez Crisis. It stars Ben Whishaw, Dominic West, and Romola Garai, with a supporting cast including Tim Pigott-Smith, Juliet Stevenson, Burn Gorman, Anton Lesser, Anna Chancellor, Julian Rhind-Tutt, and Oona Chaplin. It was written by Abi Morgan (also one of the executive producers, alongside Jane Featherstone and Derek Wax).

The series premiered on BBC Two and BBC HD from 19 July 2011 each Tuesday at 9 pm. Each episode lasts 60 minutes, with Ruth Kenley-Letts as producer and Coky Giedroyc as lead director. It was commissioned by Janice Hadlow, Controller, BBC Two, and Ben Stephenson, Controller, BBC Drama Commissioning and produced by Kudos Film and Television.

 Following the airing of the final episode of the first series, it was announced that a second series had been commissioned, which is co-produced by American network BBC America. It premiered on  November 14,  2012 in the UK and on  November 28, 2012 in the United States.

On February 12,  2013, it was announced that the series was cancelled by the BBC.

Dominic West as Hector Madden, co-presenter of The Hour

In the autumn of 1956, Freddie Lyon (Ben Whishaw) is a reporter unhappy with his job producing newsreels for the BBC. Desperate to get onto television, which he feels offers greater immediacy, Freddie is unaware that his best friend Bel Rowley (Romola Garai) has been selected by their mentor Clarence Fendley (Anton Lesser) to produce a new news magazine, the titular "The Hour". Rowley selects experienced war correspondent Lix Storm (Anna Chancellor) to head the foreign desk for the program, leaving Freddie to run domestic news, a position which he considers inferior. For anchor of the program, Clarence selects the handsome and patrician Hector Madden (Dominic West). They are joined by Thomas Kish (Burn Gorman), a mysterious and taciturn translator for the BBC who helps them cover the developing Suez Crisis.

As the team struggles to put the show together, Freddie is approached by Ruth Elms, the daughter of a member of the House of Lords who had employed Freddie's mother. She asks him to look into the murder of Peter Darrall (Jamie Parker), a college professor whom she knew. Soon after, Freddie finds her dead in her hotel room, an apparent suicide.

As the Suez Crisis escalates, the production team strives to report on British involvement in the crisis, despite pressure from the administration and in particular Angus McCain (Julian Rhind-Tutt) to present a sanitized narrative for the public. Freddie becomes more and more convinced that Peter Darrall and Ruth Elms were killed for some sinister reason. He discovers a secret message that Darrall tried to pass on before he was murdered "revert to Brightstone" and finds a movie reel depicting Ruth, Darrall, and Thomas Kish on holiday together. When confronted, Kish intimates that the government is behind the murder of Darrall and Elms, but he kills himself after a struggle with Freddie before the latter can learn more. Bel begins an affair with Hector. Hector's wife, Marnie (Oona Castilla Chaplin) finds out, telling Bel that she wasn't the first woman to have been with him since they married. After Clarence tells Bel that the affair threatens to ruin her career and damage the show, she calls it off.

As the Suez Crisis flares into armed conflict, Freddie learns that Darrall had been a communist spy and had been involved in a program to recruit bright and susceptible young people, referred to as "Bright Stones" to the Soviet cause. Ruth had been one of these Bright Stones and Kish had been sent by MI6 to keep tabs on them. Freddie also discovers that he is marked as a "Bright Stone". As British troops move to seize the Suez Canal, Freddie does a live interview of Lord Elms, Ruth's father, who denounces the government. However, as the interview goes out Clarence, at the insistence of higher-ups in the government, orders it to be taken off air halfway through the show. Bel is then fired by the BBC and Freddie confronts Clarence, who tells him that he had put him on the Bright Stone list, and that he is a Communist spy. He then tells Freddie to run this information as a news story. Freddie leaves the studio with Bel, telling her that they have a story to write.