Mad Dogs

The only thing I knew about this show was that it starred Romany Malco and Billy Zane and it was about some guys in Belize.

After seeing the pilot...I was blown away. The quality of the show is excellent! Drama, Comedy, Sex, Mystery, Intrigue and more!

• It is well filmed - The sound is great - The actors on spot on! Nothing seems fake, it all seems very real.

The story is easy to follow yet mysterious and intriguing. You want to know more and more as it progresses.

This pilot gives you that feeling you had when you first watched a show and were instantly hooked after one episode. We all have shows like that, this is one of them.

WATCH THE PILOT and I guarantee you that your jaw will drop and you will say, WHAT just happened?!?

I reviewed the US version of Mad Dogs after seeing the first, pilot episode, and what I wrote then still more or less stands and this is it. But I have added a few more comments at the end after watching another six to qualify that.

I'm rather baffled why the U.S. has a compulsion to remake films and, as here, series and doesn't just present its audiences with the original. The remakes are often quite good, but why remake them? But anyhow...

I've seen all three seasons of the original Brit version of Mad Dogs and I can't recommend it highly enough for often very funny sly humour, suspense, intrigue and sheer entertainment. And I'm happy to report that this remake is almost as good - at least in the first few episodes - most probably because the Brit creator, Cris Cole, is again at the helm. That is a relief after seeing so many films (from all around the world) which eventually let you down. As I say the humour, very British humour I have to say, does travel well, and might have you laughing out loud on occasion, but it is far more than just a black comedy. The first episode starts off slowly and quietly, then 42 minutes in . . . I can recommend this. The casting is excellent, the dialogue natural and the story quite bizarre. Don't hesitate, please, treat yourselves.

POSTSCRIPT: For the US market, the producers have tinkered a little - well, tinkered quite a lot - syncopating the original plots and expanding the story, introducing new characters and, it has to be said, in the process they created something of a different animal. Whereas in the original British version the humour - very black and often unobtrusive - was a continual thread throughout (until the two- episode finale which was something of a letdown) and formed the series backbone, for the US the humour is more or less abandoned as a central trope and the series becomes more of an action piece. There's nothing wrong with that, but it does lose a little of its edge as a result. But then it is intended for a different market and culture.

Another difference is that despite the utterly bizarre plot twists and very silly situations the four characters find themselves in, in the original version it all somehow holds together well - it's as though they are caught in a one-way system and there's no turning back. Conversely the new version increasingly doesn't quite hold together: there are several points where the four could all have disentangled themselves quite well by a word here and there, and that they didn't has more to do with making a TV series than anything else.

The twists don't grow out of the situations the four find themselves in - and their very stupid decisions - but from the necessity to keep the story going and interesting. That's rather a shame, as it loses something rather neat. It also becomes as it goes on, plotwise, something of a mess - folk get around Belize with an ease and at a speed which is only possible on TV. But such quibbles won't, I'm sure, disturb your average US viewer. The Brit version, though didn't take the easy way out and just kept it all going, following its own logic, which was some achievement. The final episodes here see everything tied up a little too neatly which is a shame and out of keeping with the original wackiness. Sad to say the US version doesn't quite convince

However, despite those drawbacks your average viewer should enjoy this, but I must stress that for a real treat and a rather tighter piece of work you should seek out the British version which doesn't quite cut corners so easily.

Yes, cringe you will. A lot. Think 'Weekend at Bernie's' only darker, much darker! But it's a small price to pay for this roller coaster fun ride, a remake of Cris Cole's show from 2011 with the same name.

Only this time around we're in Puerto Rico (not Mallorca) and by that I mean 'Belize' of course. Regardless, the setting is gorgeous. A welcome escape into a perfect world that unravels into madness a short while into the pilot. Thanks to a solid cast, perfectly mismatched to never solve a single situation with good common sense, you'll follow their downhill adventure - which will make you either yell at the screen in frustration, or laugh out loud - depending on how you watch a show like this: as drama with a sense of humor, or pure comedy.

The predecessor of this show is still going strong at the time of this little review, so we can safely assume that there is enough madness in the book to keep this brilliant set of characters busy for a few more seasons.

Better than expected with interesting and unpredictable story lines - another strong show in Amazon's line-up.

I expected the show to be side cracking funny but what I saw was 5 super talented actors who were still funny at times but were able to keep it interesting in this dark comedy. I love all the actors and wish them success when this series is picked up!! It was both funny and serious at times. I felt like all the actors that had done comedy was able to switch into different characters for this show. The setting for the show was perfect, the plot making us think they were just going to have a lot of fun and then Billy Zane flipped the script was awesome and I never expected it to turn out the way it did. This was a great start to a even greater series!!!

A lot of the reviews seem to be based on the pilot episode. I'll agree, it was pretty freaking great, with an excellent hook! Then, the show took a turn for the worse. While the production value stayed consistently excellent, the writing turned out lack luster. It almost ended up turning you against the protagonists for being such idiots and making not just stupid, but completely unrealistic choices. It also contradicted itself in many ways and asked for way too much 'suspension of disbelief' throughout. The most frustrating part is that it started out soo well, bringing back memories of the first season of Breaking Bad ("what would normal people do in THAT kind of situation?!") - and ended up feeling more like Gilligan's Island. I almost want to give a one star rating to counteract all the 10 star praise that was given for just the first episode or two, but I'll give it a 6 for the 'meh' it earned.