7 Oct '10

“[It] misses out on a fifth star only because we so miss Margaret…Her successor Karren Brady made some acute observations…but she doesn’t wither my googies in the same way Mountford did. Otherwise, the show is in good nick.”  
Andrew Billen, The Times

“Any fears of the BBC messing with a winning recipe were quickly laid to rest.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

“The cliches are back…It’s all reassuringly business as usual. Karren Brady showed rather more signs of life – not difficult in comparison with Nick or the human hatchet, Margaret Mountford, whom she has replaced – though you’d be hard pressed to call her wholly sentient.”
John Crace, The Guardian

“Wood’s detail-obsessed i is the life-force twinkling at the centre. We are in need of Wood’s festishisation of primary sources…in order to make the most of hindsight and gain some comfort from what could otherwise be as dry as a piece of old, knackered bark.  Something of a warm and fuzzy jaunt for history nerds.”
Rob Sharp, The Independent

“I was left to reflect on how the generally appalling attitude to women in the workplace in the early 1960s is now mirrored in the unceremonious dismissal of female Mad Men actors.”
Tim Dowling, The Guardian

“However many times you see it, nothing can make you immune to the disturbing footage taken by Allied forces as they entered the Nazi concentration camps.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express