Review from Tim Dowling of `The Guardian` "Compelling".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2010/sep/23/seven-days-tv-review
Seven days is an old fashion style docu- soap. Seven Days, the pioneering new
reality TV series, treats Notting Hill not as a community, but as a constituency made up of distinct tribes, with a broad range of class and ethnicity, but little or no interaction; proximate lives running in parallel. Which is to say, they get it about right.
The series is, however, interactive in another sense: viewers can visit the website and offer advice to the characters, who may or may not act on it the following week. So really, the whole experiment hadn't even begun by the end of last night's episode. It was just an introduction to some of the characters you'll be manipulating.
Hannah is Jan's daughter and business partner, taking on more responsibility as her father's health worsens. Moktah is a Muslim law student who lives with his mum and works at John Lewis. Laura and Sam, aspiring models, are roommates who make each other cry a lot. Javan is an aspiring musician, Malcolm a property developer with dreadlocks and a very odd house. All their friends, family, colleagues, clients and employees feature (wittingly, it would seem) as supporting cast members.
The term "reality television" is applied to a lot of programming, from The X Factor to Pineapple Dance Studios, but Seven Days represents a return to the genre's roots: it's an old-fashioned docusoap. Its participants are not contestants, which is not to say they don't have an agenda of some sort. They haven't been taken out of their comfort zones; they've been deliberately left in them. If not much happens, at least we don't know where it's heading. You can't say that about The Apprentice.
This review is a positive review of seven days, this is made clear when Tim Dowling uses the word "compelling" to describe this docu - soap.
We can see how the characters react to the audiences feedback on the show.
Review of seven days from John Walsh of `The Independant`.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/seven-days-channel-4-wednesdaybrgareth-malones-extraordinary-school-for-boys-bbc2-thursday-2089636.html
John Walsh describes the show in a negative light. He comes across that he thinks the show is a waste of time, he doesnt so much as suggest that he dislikes the show, jus that he clearly dislikes the characters
`In the course of an hour in which we saw little, and learnt less, about this district of west London, we got to know the characters' movements over the past week, without getting to know them. There was Hannah, a hard-faced interior designer, her mum Jan and her ex-boyfriend Dougal, who seems to live in a pub. Hannah and Jan giggled about the news of George Michael's prison sentence, as if to remind viewers how up-to-date the filming was. Laura and Sam spent their time finding French maid outfits to wear at their friend Karen's shoe-fashion evening. Unfortunately Laura told Karen (or was it the other way round?) that she thought her hair should be more glam, and Karen (or Sam) ended up crying in the loo`.
