Has the Watch World Found Its Anthony Bourdain?

To emphasize the humanity of watchmaking, each of the eight episodes of Man of the Hour zeroes in on an individual maker. The first episode focuses on François-Paul Journe, whom auctioneer Aurel Bacs describes as a “Da Vinci or Einstein-esque brain” on the show. Throughout the first season, Koh will also dive deep with Rexhep Rexhepi; MB&F’s Maximilian Büsser; Denis Flageollet of De Bethune; Andrew Rosenfield and Kari Voutilainen, the men behind the new iteration of Urban Jürgensen; and several other timepiece trailblazers.

Koh serves as an amicable guide and audience stand-in throughout the show. The journalist is one of the industry’s most effusive evangelists; he speaks the way a harp makes music, fine-tuning every sentence with high-minded elegance. I’m used to seeing him introduce new watches at events for brands like Chopard and Urban Jürgensen. Now, on Man of the Hour, Koh gets to be an ambassador for the entire industry. If you’re not familiar with him, you’ll find all his hallmarks in the show’s opening minutes, which feature Koh’s beloved dog Bandit, his go-to Hawaiian camp shirts, and a love for watches teetering on the pathological.

Koh steers the show away from watchmaking lectures and towards the struggles endured by those who are now industry legends. One conversation with Journe in the opening episode revolves around how he was inspired to build a tourbillon initially because he’d badly wanted one but couldn’t afford it. “Rexhep Rexhepi is the young rockstar of watchmaking today, but when he first started his brand he didn’t sell a single watch for almost three years. Imagine the mental toll that takes,” Koh says. “Max Busser, who is a legend today, describes almost going bankrupt three times and is the very model of resilience.”