Mad Dogs: the Finale

Series four, episode one
Call us naive (or maybe just inattentive), but we were under the impression that we’d already seen the finale of this enjoyably berserk buddy drama. After all, series three seemed to leave Baxter, Woody, Quinn and Rick pretty much in the clear and back where they started. But no: creator Cris Cole has been unable to resist returning for one last job.

The lads are back home, but skint and with itchy feet. So when an intriguing proposition involving Alvo’s Majorcan villa comes to light, they can’t resist getting involved. Sadly, the impression given by the opening part of this finale is of a pudding being thoroughly over-egged. Very little going on tonight has any foundation in plausibility and, while that isn’t necessarily a problem, there’s only so cartoonish a show can become before we simply shrug our shoulders at whatever unfolds.

A shame because, at its best, ‘Mad Dogs’ had a Nuts-magazine-does-Kafka vibe that slipped down very easily indeed.