The Hack TV Series: What the Phone Hacking Drama Covers

You have probably met The Hack TV Series as a David Tennant poster, or as a question about whether the phone-hacking drama is worth several evenings. It is a British true-crime series about two real cases that share a private-detective firm and a tabloid. David Tennant plays Guardian reporter Nick Davies, who works to show that hacking at the News of the World was a newsroom habit. Robert Carlyle plays Detective Chief Superintendent Dave Cook, who reopens the unsolved murder of private investigator Daniel Morgan.

Jack Thorne wrote it with Annalisa Dinnella, and Lewis Arnold directed it. ITV’s press note for the series sets those two stories side by side, with Toby Jones as Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger. Viewers who came only for Milly Dowler also meet the Morgan murder, which is where the paper and the police share a room. This page covers both histories, the cast, each episode, the reviews, and where the script stops.

Two True Stories in One Drama

The Hack TV Series is a seven-part drama set between 2002 and 2012. One half follows Davies as he tests the claim that phone hacking at Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World was the work of a single reporter. The other half follows Cook through the killing of Daniel Morgan, a private investigator with ties to that paper’s world. The plots start apart and meet late.

Phone hacking here means listening to someone else’s voicemail. Plenty of handsets in that era opened if you rang the number and typed a default PIN the owner had never changed. A private investigator or a reporter could lift the gossip, then dress the story with a photo or a quote so the paper never had to name the trick.

The official trailer is the fastest way to hear how the series wants you to hold both halves. Tennant, as Davies, opens on the outcome the reporting is chasing, and the Morgan case arrives before the minute is up.

Thorne told ITV he had assumed he already understood the scandal. The quote is worth hearing before you decide the double plot is a detour.

This is a strange and deceptive piece of our recent history. One with so many layers to it. I thought, as someone who is interested in politics, I understood everything that happened. I did not. It’s a fight for the truth that really shocked me. That is why it matters to tell this story now in an age where the truth seems more in danger than ever.

Jack Thorne, screenwriter, ITV press centre, 16 September 2025

Dinnella wrote one episode on her own and co-wrote two others with Thorne. Patrick Spence, executive producer of Mr Bates vs the Post Office, led the production at AC Chapter One with ITV Studios. Stan in Australia co-commissioned the series. During filming it was known as Mandrake. Abi Bach produced it, and the music is by Lorne Balfe and Joshua Pacey.

How Did Phone Hacking Reach the News of the World?

The paper’s first public answer was that one reporter had broken the law on his own. Royal editor Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire were the men convicted, and editor Andy Coulson resigned on the day of sentencing. The drama’s first episode is the long argument over whether that answer was ever true.

The Commons timeline of the hacking scandal, drawn up by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, is the public spine the scripts compress. Match a scene to these turns and you can see what the hour leaves out.

DATES THAT SHAPE THE SERIES

1. March 2002: Milly Dowler goes missing and is later found murdered. Rebekah Brooks is editor of the News of the World.
2. 26 January 2007: Goodman is jailed for four months and Mulcaire for six, for hacking phones belonging to three members of the royal household. Further counts against Mulcaire cover Max Clifford, Sky Andrew, Elle Macpherson, Simon Hughes and Gordon Taylor. Coulson resigns.
3. 6 March 2007: Les Hinton of News International tells the committee that Goodman acted alone.
4. 29 May 2007: The Press Complaints Commission says it has found no evidence of systematic wrongdoing at the paper.
5. 8 July 2009: The Guardian publishes Nick Davies on secret payouts tied to hacking. The News of the World denies the account.
6. 24 February 2010: The committee calls it inconceivable that nobody at the paper except Goodman knew about phone hacking.
7. 7 June 2011: Sienna Miller accepts a £100,000 settlement from the News of the World.
8. 4 July 2011: The Guardian reports that Milly Dowler’s voicemail was hacked after she disappeared.
9. 7 July 2011: James Murdoch announces the paper will close and says it made statements to Parliament without the full facts.
10. 10 July 2011: The last edition of the News of the World is printed.
11. 13 July 2011: Prime Minister David Cameron announces a judge-led public inquiry and publishes its terms of reference. News Corporation withdraws its bid for BSkyB.
12. 19 July 2011: Rupert Murdoch, James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks give evidence to the committee. Brooks had resigned as chief executive of News International four days earlier.

That July week is the explosion the finale is built to reach. Cameron’s judge-led inquiry is the Leveson Inquiry, named for the judge asked to examine the culture, practices and ethics of the press, including how papers dealt with politicians and the police. The episodes stop as that inquiry is being born, not after it has reported.

Daniel Morgan’s Unsolved Murder

Daniel Morgan was murdered with an axe in a London pub car park in March 1987. The killing was still unsolved when Cook was asked, years later, to look at it again. His brother Alastair spent decades pressing the police to keep the file alive. Phil Davis plays Alastair in the series, and the episode guides describe the case as the most investigated unsolved murder in the Met’s history.

The Home Office published the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel report on 15 June 2021. The panel’s job was to examine the murder, the handling of the case since 1987, and connections among private investigators, police officers and journalists, including at the News of the World.

Theresa May, then home secretary, announced the panel on 10 May 2013. The panel report’s call for an apology says the Metropolitan Police put the reputation of the organisation above a straight account of its failings. It says the force owes Morgan’s family, and the public, an apology.

The bridge into the hacking story runs through Southern Investigations, the firm Morgan ran with Jonathan Rees. Accounts of the panel’s findings say that firm put Cook under surveillance in 2002 at the request of the News of the World, while he was leading the murder investigation. Andrew Whipp plays Rees. Once you have that surveillance, Cook’s half of the series is no longer a separate crime show parked beside a newsroom.

The Cast and the People They Play

The ensemble is large because the scandal ran through reporters, lawyers, politicians, victims and police. These are the names that keep the two plots readable without a second screen.

Colin R. Campbell plays Bob Dowler, Milly’s father. Pip Torrens plays Stuart Kuttner, a managing editor at the paper, and Robert Bathurst plays Max Clifford. Episode 3 includes Alastair Campbell as himself. The opening episode has brief non-speaking appearances from Jonathan Ross, Gabby Logan, Konnie Huq and Harry Hill.

Lee Ingleby plays David Leigh, another Guardian journalist, and Nadia Albina plays lawyer Gill Phillips. If a face feels familiar and is not in the table, the press list runs for pages because many real people appear for a single scene.

A Guide to All Seven Episodes

ITV1 and STV played the series on Wednesday nights at 9pm, starting on 24 September 2025. The full box set was on ITVX from that morning, so the dates below are the linear broadcasts, not the only way to watch. The series record lists each episode at about 47 minutes.

Episode 2 is the hour people pause. It leaves Davies and opens in 2002 with Cook and the Morgan file. Skip it, and the court fight in episode 5 has nobody to belong to. The finale on 5 November 2025 is the week the paper closes and Murdoch is summoned to the Commons, not a quiet epilogue.

Stan lists the same seven chapters for Australia, with individual runtimes a few minutes around the 47-minute series figure. The story order does not change between the UK broadcast and the Australian stream.

Critic Scores for the Phone Hacking Drama

Critics did not split over whether the scandal happened. They split over the shape Thorne chose: two plots, Tennant speaking to camera, and stretches that leave the newsroom for something stranger. A dung beetle recurs. So do dreamlike passages. Those choices are in the show from early on, not tucked into a final twist.

• Five stars: Julia Raeside called the series “TV dynamite” and credited Thorne with keeping the strands moving.
• Four stars: Vicky Jessop called it a “welcome refresher on one of the biggest abuses of power of our time”, and Paul Hirons called it “surprising, stylish, and brilliantly mounted”.
• Three stars: Nick Hilton treated Tennant as a class act in a series trying to do too much, and wrote that it might have worked better as two separate stories.
• Two stars: Lucy Mangan argued that Tennant breaking the fourth wall, plus those dreamlike sequences and the dung beetle, undercuts any sense that the writer trusts the reporting.

Rotten Tomatoes lists a 71% score from 11 critic reviews. That middle band matches the split. A majority of the small review set thinks the weave holds, and a sharp minority thinks the style gets between you and a story that was already dramatic in the files.

WHO THE HACK IS FOR

• The news story: You want Davies, the Guardian and the week the News of the World closed.
• The murder file: You want Cook, Daniel Morgan and the private-detective firm that links a killing to a tabloid.
• One campaign: You want a single victim’s fight in the manner of Mr Bates, and the split plot is a harder fit.

The asides to camera are the other filter. Raeside’s reading fits a night when you like a drama that steps out and comments on itself. Mangan’s objection is the one to trust if you want the documents played straight. Neither review is confused about the underlying events. They disagree about the telling.

Where Can You Watch The Hack TV Series?

In the UK, the series lives on the ITVX page for the full series, after the ITV1 and STV broadcast. Stan carries it in Australia as a co-commission. Rights move, so check that page, or your local Stan or ITV listing, before you set aside an evening.

Lionsgate Play started streaming the series in India on 7 November 2025. Listings also show a follow-up, The Real Hack, in the days after the finale, if you want the case retold as documentary rather than drama. The scripted series is the one with Tennant and Carlyle. The documentary is a separate sit.

Where the True Story Outruns the Finale

The last episode puts Rupert Murdoch in front of Parliament, the committee session from the summer of 2011. The Leveson Inquiry’s final report was published on 29 November 2012, so the recommendations and the row over a new press regulator sit outside the episodes. You can follow the drama without a law degree. Do not treat the last scene as the end of the public record.

Morgan’s murder was not solved by that report, or by the series. Cook’s story on screen ends while the case is still open, which is also where it stands after the panel. Treat the unnamed source, the asides to camera and the dream images as drama, and check any load-bearing claim against the Commons timeline or the panel report.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Mr Apollo a Real Person?

Mr Apollo is the drama’s name for Nick Davies’s anonymous source, and Adrian Lester plays him. The real tipster has not been named in public, which is why the series never gives the character a legal name or a newsroom desk.

Was Daniel Morgan’s Murder Ever Solved?

Daniel Morgan’s murder has not been solved. The 2021 panel set out failings in the investigations and said the Metropolitan Police owed his family an apology, and neither that report nor the series names a killer who was then convicted.

Is The Hack the Same Show as Mr Bates?

The Hack is a different scandal from Mr Bates vs the Post Office, made by an overlapping team. Patrick Spence’s company AC Chapter One and ITV Studios worked on both, but Mr Bates is the Post Office Horizon case, while this series is phone hacking and the Morgan murder. Annalisa Dinnella wrote one episode of The Hack alone and co-wrote two more with Jack Thorne.

Where Was The Hack Filmed?

The Hack was filmed in Hemel Hempstead, Muswell Hill and Kilburn in February and March 2024. During the shoot it was known by the working title Mandrake, before ITV confirmed the broadcast title.

Can You Watch The Hack Out of Order?

The Hack is clearer in broadcast order, because episode 2 jumps back to 2002 and the Cook investigation while the hacking plot is already years ahead. The box set was on ITVX from the first night, so a binge works, but skipping the Cook episodes strips out the link between the paper and the police.

On 16 September 2025 Patrick Spence said several questions were still unanswered, and he called the drama a contribution to that conversation. Daniel Morgan’s killer has no name in the panel report, and the last episode does not invent one.