Mad Dogs

There is something about Mad Dogs which is intriguing. It is not perfect, sometimes it feels unsure if it wants to be relentlessly hopeless or gruesome or something that doesn't take itself too seriously, but the acting is good and it feels honest, without compromise. One thing is it not, however, it boring to the extent you accuse it of being, Jay Roberts.

If you take the 'opening paragraph' of Mad Dogs, you see what is presumably a flash- forward, where all of the characters are clearly up a creek without a paddle, with grazed faces and tired eyes. Men clearly at their limits, in one way or another. That's as intriguing a prologue as any to make you wonder 'how did it get to this?' surely?

If things simply 'got the point' as you are clearly gagging for, all of the suspense and impending doom would be lost, and no actions would hold any significance. The promise of something interesting is fulfilled, the characters grow more suspicious of a friend's behaviour, and in the space of 45 minutes this reaches a climax, and a pretty interesting/exciting one. If you're going to impatiently fast forward until it looks like 'something is happening' (hoping for a fist fight or a car chase?) you'll miss the growing tension between the characters, which is why things HAPPEN in the first place.

Men are not like women, you say, but be aware that not all men are you, either. I don't think not caring about 'relationships' or 'drama' is much to be proud about, if you can't stand them in stories then i hate to be the one to break it to you that you might not like stories, because it's what the best ones tend to involve. On the contrary, it makes you appear like a child fidgeting because the TV isn't flashing up pretty shapes when you demand it to. Relationships MAKE 'good stories', and far from being nonsense, they give stories SENSE and purpose beyond men hitting each other for the sake of it, in which case I'd recommend a dose of WWE instead of a TV series which will, like any good story or novel, involve characters having relationships.

Unfortunately, good stories include good characters, which is what this first episode demonstrates. I'll admit it's not always entirely successful; at times it aspires to be a Shakespearian tragedy and others like a jokey gangster flick, both work, but the fence- hopping is a little jarring.

Episode 1 was about building tension and how the characters stand with one another. In Episode 2 cracks start to show and everyone is not so strong-footed. If you can bear to sit through more TALKING (heaven forfend for such a thing daring to be in a show, such contempt for the audience, to go 5 minutes without an explosion) then you'll find things most definitely do start to happen.

Heartily concur with the review submitted by DemonSpencer. Can't wait for a new series.

The Majorcan settings were gorgeous,the acting superb and the tension palpable throughout. What a pleasure to watch a production that only relied on superb acting, good direction, clear well articulated dialogue and brilliant lighting without any (noticable) Special Effects. The characters were recognisable as fallible human beings doing their individual best to deal with a bizarre situation so that by the end, one felt one knew them, warts and all.

I am sick to death of hyped up films where the whole affair looks as if it were shot in sepia and the dialogue is almost incomprehensible, overlayed with inappropriate music and with no real narrative and where, at the end, one is left to wonder why anyone bothered to make make it in the first place. Conversely, I am equally sick of films where it only seems that the only object is to outdo the previous "car flying through the air and exploding in flames as it collides with an aircraft coming in to land on a speedboat full of criminals etc ad nauseam."

Bit slow to begin with but its worth it! It mixes funny with scary! what a story and with great actors! I hope there is a season 2!!!! It was daring and hilarious and the same time! The end of the first episode really sets the scene and as it goes on you start wondering how on earth they are going to get out of this situation! The situation builds up and up and up and you are on the edge of your seat in the last episode. God knows how season 2 will start but as long as it has the same writers i don't doubt that it will be amazing! Never seen anything like it! Wish i could erase it out of my mind and watch it all over again!! :)

Mad Dogs is a really good program in my view, it has a lot of interesting times. good acting, good script and intriguing. however it isn't all fun and games, my main gripe with mad dogs is that there is barely any of it, sure it is an hour long but 15 mins of that is ads so in reality it is 45 mins long. Also, i mean, WHAT THE HELL 4 episodes, its the smallest series i have ever seen.

The four guys have been around British TV for a while and i thought prime time sky TV might be there big break. I am a big fan of Hustle and Marc Warren was in the first 5 series, i have seen the other actors in other shows as well. Especially the well known life on mars. the plot begins with 4 sixth form friends meeting up to go to their friend in Spain who has made it and has his own villa and is major rich. The rich friend appears to be acting odd and saying he needs to attend to business even though he has recently retired. the rich friend appears to be in some dodgy stuff which turns badly for the 4.

I'm not going to reveal the ending but i found it to be quite good and it was sort of a twist i guess. many of my friend appeared to not like it as much as i did, i think that they didn't like the ending because it doesn't tell you what happens directly, although if you think about it logically it is pretty obvious what happens in the end. i did hear that this was supposed to be a film, which i would think that this would be a better film than TV series. on the whole this is probably why definitely recommend mad dogs. even if it takes a while to set the mood it is worth the wait.

My headline is a bit of an overstatement, as I don't watch much British television, but through my work as a subtitler I've subtitled quite a few British series. Usually, I find that British shows pale compared to the best American series. When it does work, I simply find American pop culture a lot more exciting. British shows most often seem a bit dull, slow, old-fashioned and depressing compared to the American equivalents. Therefore, it was a joy to find something like "Mad dogs". I subtitled both seasons (each containing only four episodes each), and I'm hoping I will get the next season too if there's a third season at some point. The show is actually exciting, thrilling and well-made. Only once or maybe twice did I find a few light plot holes or something that didn't make so much sense. The acting is good, the characters believable, and the script is great. Someone else here on IMDb said the show was funny too. I might have laughed a few times, but then I also laughed at one scene in "Schindler's list" (the scene where Schindler hires secretaries) and I wouldn't say that's a funny film. "Mad Dogs" achieves what it set out to do, which was to create a thrilling character-based series about dilemmas that we all might face under the right circumstances – a little bit like a modern noir taking place in glaring sunlight.

From here onwards, this is an update to my original review, which I wrote after having watched season 1 and 2. I then gave the show 8 out of 10. After having finished watching the entire show I was filled with a feeling of having watched one of the greatest TV shows ever! There has been some debate about how the show ended, however, but I will leave that up to the viewers and the users here on IMDb to delve into. I've grown accustomed to having to watch never-ending perpetual motion machines from Hollywood, where every episode is a single episode (usually about a police officer solving a case) with little connection to the ongoing plot line, which is dragged out forever and ever, until it's all either so watered down that you don't bother watching it anymore, or they cancel the show and you get no proper ending (or a very poor ending to a show that started out great). "Alias", "Prison Break" and "White Collar" are prime examples of this. You can't watch one single episode of "Mad Dogs" and get any meaning from it. There are no 'single episode' plot lines, only an ongoing plot line – and all the seasons are different, as the story keeps unravelling. They had most likely written an entire season before starting filming it (or maybe the entire show from start to finish), which is what made it so great: A story, not a money-making machine. Thank you :-)