The Hack: this spectacular, sprawling story about the phone-hacking scandal is this year's Mr Bates

"Guardian journalist Nick Davies appears on the Today programme to promote his 2008 book, Flat Earth News. It is an indictment of the contemporary British press; its sloppiness and corruption. The logic of journalism has been overwhelmed by the logic of commercialism, he tells the host and a glowering Stuart Kuttner, the managing editor of the News of the World. Nowadays, says Davies, so-called reporters are simply passive processors of unchecked second-hand material."

"My first thought is: OK, this is not your common-or-garden ITV drama. No hand-holding, no pandering, no schmaltz; we're about to get a proper, grownup deep dive into the tabloid malfeasance illegal surveillance, toxic power plays that Davies began exposing in this newspaper in 2009. Bring on the machiavellian office politics, the labyrinthine narratives of your Successions, your Industrys, your Line of Dutys."

"This opening episode casts Davies (David Tennant at his chameleonic best in a frizzy grey wig and comfortingly 90s leather jacket and jeans combo) as our fourth-wall breaking guide, apparently determined to inject some zaniness into proceedings. We witness his attempts to begin his (real, brilliant) 2014 book Hack Attack, an account of the investigation that eventually helped destroy Kuttner's paper and root out some of the rot at the heart of the British establishment."

The Hack opens with Guardian journalist Nick Davies appearing on the Today programme to promote his 2008 book Flat Earth News, presenting an indictment of the British press's sloppiness and corruption. The series sets up a promise of a grown-up, deep dive into tabloid malfeasance, illegal surveillance, and the power plays that Davies exposed. David Tennant portrays Davies and breaks the fourth wall, attempting to blend serious investigation with jokey, surreal elements. The production inserts whimsical flourishes—talking tube adverts and self-aware asides—that undermine the intended gravity. The result is a promising premise that quickly loses tonal control.

Read at www.theguardian.com