the hour

[HoneyDuke]

Not as good as mad men is it?

Not seen mad men, but this really isn't grabbing me yet.

Shaping up nicely, like the murder mystery, miss marple meets mad men.
Now I have a craving for a brandy in a cut glass tumbler, maraschino cherry optional.

Nothing can be as good as Mad Men!

I didn't think the sets and costumes had the same attention to detail as mad men either.

I haven't seen Mad Men, but I quite liked it, I think its going to be good.

I think the media shouldn't have compared it to Mad Men. It's just a sixties setting that's all. I enjoyed it for what it is but found it entirely different (except for the sexism). I love Mad Men by the way.

I think its basically trying to be a British mad men and failing miserably

It sold itself as the new Mad Men though, it wasn't all the presses fault. I was looking forward to watching it I will save it for tomorrow night.

I enjoyed it, but in no way thought of Mad Men. I agree, the attention to period detail just wasn't there. It could have been any era; the clothes, hair, make-up, cultural references weren't strong enough IMO.

The period detail in mad men and the crimson petals and the white was spot on, that's why the hour was so disappointing.

I heard the producer and writer being interviewed, they were not happy about it being compared to Mad Men and said it was different.

I really enjoyed it to be honest and didn't think it was like Mad Men.

I'd really like to enjoy this, but it's so slow ....

It was a bit better this week. The lack of attention to period detail still grated though.

I started watching but fell asleep! . Will catch up on sky planner later.

I'm not liking this at all and am really disappointed. The period detail doesn't ring true for me, and the script is poor. I like Romola Garai generally but am not enjoying her here, and Ben Whishaw (or the writers) can't seem to reconcile the different aspects of his character. Is he a chippy, class-resentful, petulant manchild, or a maverick, infuriating but brilliant young journalist? I'm not saying he can't be both, but at the moment he's not convincing me as either. And I'm tired of being told how 'charming' Dominic West's character is but never actually being shown him being charming. For a real-life public-school posh boy, he seems to be having trouble portraying one convincingly. I'd like to see more of the internal stresses and politics of setting up and running a ground-breaking news programme, and to be shown more clearly exactly why it's so ground-breaking. It all comes back to the script I think; we're forever being told things but never actually shown them. It's not coming to life at all. Very poor.

yes LadyClarice I agree; i didn't like the trailers much so watched last night's thinking it may have settled down but as you say there was no continuity. Romola's character looked and behaved as if she was from the 70s not 5Os sitting on the desk for a meeting indeed!! (her make up was esp. bad as was her hair which would have been sprayed to within an inch of it's life).

Also (this is a personal grudge) why do T.V. writers or directors think that going home and having a large whiskey is the thing that every stressed out businesswoman does? It happened with Maxine Peake's lawyer character (I've forgotten the name of the series.

Yes, the stiff-drink thing is such a cliche isn't it? I'm not sure it's just women though; it seems to be what every stressed working person on telly does. To the point where I sometimes feel as if I'm letting the side down because I've never come home from work needing a whisky .

Even the smoking is unconvincing. Don Draper knows how to smoke.

Yes, you're right. In fact everyone in Mad Men is a good smoker. I don't smoke and don't have any desire to normally, but the sheer stylishness of the puffing in MM used to make me feel like lighting up!

I missed this week's episode - is it repeated anywhere (apart from iplayer)?

You can get it on player on da net

notime you haven't missed much sadly.

ppeatfruit speaks the truth!

Speaking of 'period detail' - I don't notice sets and costumes so much, but I did think there was a lot of very 'modern' sounding dialogue. Annoyingly I can think of examples right now, but there were some phrases used when I thought 'people didn't say that 10 years ago, never mind in the 50s!'.

Oh and I thought the 'debutante' character from the first episode looked very '80s in terms of her hair/makeup/clothes! So it really was all over the place in terms of era!