MARK DAVISON

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 Crimson Petal and the White – Episode 4: A Review

4th May 2011 | 2 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Thanks for the comments on last week's blog. They may have been held up in the commenting system thanks to the bank holidays, but I enjoyed reading them. It's nice to know that I wasn't just writing the blog for my own amusement and, more importantly, that people weren't missing out on what might prove to be the best drama on TV this year.

Which has unfortunately now come to an...

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The Crimson Petal and the White – Episode 3: A Review

21st April 2011 | 4 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Now that I've accepted the fact that they're not trying to capture the wit of the book (the only amusing thing in this week's episode was William suddenly sporting a thick moustache – and actually it looked pretty good), I'm enjoying this series more and more. This week's instalment was very claustrophobic, taking place mainly in the Rackham house, and for the most part consisted of characters going up and...

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The Crimson Petal and the White Episode 2: A Review

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

That's a bit more like it! After last week's uneventful start, things started to kick off this week. Or at least in comparison to last week they did – I could still merely reduce the plot down to a handful of events and that would probably suffice. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, it makes a nice change to the other series blogs where I'm either struggling to recap...

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The Crimson Petal and the White – Episode 1: A Review

8th April 2011 | 1 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

It's been a while since I've written a TV blog, and as I need to get in a bit of practice before I tackle the upcoming series of Doctor Who, I thought that I'd have a go at covering BBC2's adaptation of Michel Faber's 2002 novel over the next four weeks. Unfortunately I've noticed that once again The Guardian's beaten me to it – I was hoping that, for once,...

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Mad Men Series 3, Episode 13 – Shut the Door, Have a Seat: A Review

15th April 2010 | 1 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Well, that’s your lot, series three has come to an end. But what an end! Despite some dips in quality during its run (compared to the first couple of series at least), the series went out with a bang.

The episode was definitely Mad Men at its most purposeful and streamlined, as instead of getting the usual relaxed mix of glacially paced subplots, everything was based around Don. And it seems...

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Mad Men, Series 3 Episode 12 – The Grown-Ups: A Review

8th April 2010 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

There’s one word that I think sums up this episode of Mad Men, and that word is boxes - a pretty mundane thing to use for an analysis but bear with me. From the many shots of the characters watching the news on television, to the off-screen coffin of President Kennedy, and even Betty and Henry Francis’ boxy looking cars when they met up at the end of the episode,...

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Mad Men, Series 3 Episode 11 – The Gypsy and the Hobo: A Review

1st April 2010 | 5 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

As the end of the season rapidly approaches, Mad Men is upping its game in the dramatic stakes. Despite being a fairly quiet, talky episode this week it felt like really not a minute of it was wasted – whereas most episodes have numerous minor plots going on in the background, this one was really only focused on three storylines, all of which provided some pretty dramatic revelations about the...

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Mad Men Series 3, Episode 10 – The Color Blue: A Review

25th March 2010 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Welcome to another episode of Paul Kinsey theatre, to borrow a line from Ken Cosgrove. It was the turn of the bigheaded, hypocritical bohemian wannabe to have his own storyline this week, and a very entertaining one it was too. Starting out with a drag featuring re-enactment of his idea for a hairspray advert in Don’s office, Kinsey’s story was one of jealousy, elation, despair and the general pitfalls of...

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