MARK DAVISON

Doctor Who Series 5, Episode 13 – The Wedding of River Song: A Review

10th October 2011 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Well, here we are at the end, and as they might say on (*spits*) The X Factor, what an emotional journey it's been.

As if the labyrinthine plots (by Saturday teatime drama standards at least) weren't exhausting enough, there've also been my valiant, but ultimately doomed, attempts to get these reviews up on time. Unfortunately I couldn't even manage it for the season finale, but then I'm actually quite glad that...

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The Hour – Episode 6: A Review

25th August 2011 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

I think this whole series can be summed up with one word – actually not even a word in fact, but rather a mere sound, and that sound is 'meh'. Despite having an impeccable cast, and being handsomely filmed and designed (the anachronisms in the script have been written about in far more depth by people more knowledgable of the period than me, but the accounts of the details the...

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The Hour – Episode 5: A Review

19th August 2011 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

I suppose at least last week’s backwards step of an episode at least meant that The Hour was going somewhere – even if it was in the wrong direction – this week’s was just static. Quite literally in places as there was an awful lot of watching people watching TV (if the Mad Men comparison can be invoked again that’s something that that show did much better, possibly because the...

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The Hour, Episode 4 – A Review

15th August 2011 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Oh dear. After last week’s surprisingly gripping episode, it all took a step backwards again this time. Not that it isn't all impeccably made drama, but it feels like the impeccably made drama from about three different shows all bolted together. There were some very weird lurches in tone this week - going from Freddie essentially interrogating Tish's widow (Jessica Hynes - always a pleasure to see) to the 'comedy'...

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The Hour – Episode 3: A Review

8th August 2011 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Well that was... better. I’m still not convinced that it deserved the ‘smouldering drama’ tag that the announcer gave it this week, but at least something happened. It’s still painfully slow though – I think I would’ve enjoyed the past few episodes if each had been split in half (it’s not like they’re really relying on dramatic cliff-hangers), as I’ve found that my attention’s started to wander around the half...

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The Hour – Episode 2: A Review

1st August 2011 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

As if the temptation last week to write snarky comments based on the title wasn't hard enough to resist ('The Hour? It felt more like three'), this time there was the matter of bad reviews to avoid. Not reviews for the programme itself (which, seem to have been quite universally unimpressed - it's always slightly alarming to be on the same side as one of Peter Hitchins' Daily Mail columns,...

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The Hour – Episode 1: A Review

25th July 2011 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

It's very difficult to form an opinion of a TV show based on the first episode, even more so when you go into it with some very strong preconceptions. Which inevitably turn out to be pretty much wrong.

We were all agreed that The Hour was going to be the British Mad Men weren't we? It may have pointed out that it was set in the fifties rather than the sixties...

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Doctor Who Series 6, Episode 3 – The Curse of the Black Spot: A Review

10th May 2011 | 2 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

After struggling to keep my gushing enthusiasm for last week's episode under control, I find myself with the opposite problem this time. Not that this week's was bad, it just wasn't really much of anything.

I don't think anybody was expecting it to be anything more than a filler episode (although with the series now being split into two shorter blocks of episodes, the presence of filler seems harder to forgive)...

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Doctor Who Series 6, Episode 2 – Day of the Moon: A Review

4th May 2011 | 11 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?

I was definitely thinking that at the start of this week's episode – they'd set so much up with last week's cliffhanger and then decided to jump ahead three months later. But if there's one thing I've learnt from Steven Moffat's previous Who episodes it's not to fight his (time) loopy approach to story structure. I'm not sure if the missing three months (in...

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