Season #: 2, 1
Metascore
80

Generally favorable reviews - based on 12 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 11 out of 12
  2. Negative: 0 out of 12
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Critic Reviews

  1. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Gillian Flynn
    91
    The sheer number of plotlines can be overwhelming, but the images--flowers dropped on the side of the road, a dusty van sliding away--are relentlessly riveting. And the series only gets better from here. [5 Oct 2007, p.66]
  2. This mini holds you in its thrall from beginning to end, and the twists along the way are seemingly endless. A riveting ride, indeed.
  3. This BBC-produced series has some of the best writing and acting you're likely to see this season.
  4. 80
    The ensemble cast, including David Oyelowo, Edward Woodward ("The Equalizer") and Janet McTeer, is first rate. A winner.
  5. The strength of the series lies not in the whodunit elements--it isn't hard to work out who's behind it, even if it isn't immediately apparent why--but in its eye for local details and small human gestures.
  6. While the acting's first rate, it's the mystery that drives Five Days.
  7. Five Days, made by the BBC and HBO, is riveting because it weaves the most familiar milestones of a major homicide investigation--the news conferences, police interrogations and family meltdowns--into a less predictable and intricately layered narrative that averts clichés without diluting the suspense.
  8. With a calculation of word and image that’s almost elegant, Five Days gives us sociology and anthropology instead of shock and awe.
  9. 80
    I watched with an escalating sense of dread, but still was unprepared for the powerful twists along the way.
  10. 80
    What's unusually gripping about Five Days is that its tension isn’t derived from depicting the majority of its cast as shifty-eyed suspects, but rather as floundering, flawed human beings unsure of how to move on with their lives.
  11. 70
    Written by Gwyneth Hughes, the script perhaps reaches too far and falls short. The whole is somehow less than the sum of its parts. And yet Five Days rewards with enough gripping moments to make it worth investigating.
  12. 60
    By the end of night one, however, the show grows intriguing, and the second and third episodes are more engrossing. Then episode four begins to drag, and the fifth hour feels like filler until the inevitable reveal, which, alas, isn't equal to the build-up.
User Score
7.2

Generally favorable reviews- based on 11 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 11
  2. Negative: 2 out of 11
  1. [Anonymous]
    Oct 30, 2007
    10
    Planned to cancel my free month of HBO last week, but had to keep it on for one more week to see the finale!
  2. CharlesW.
    Oct 29, 2007
    10
    brilliantly acted and photographed Gripping not like Bourne Ultimatum, but in story-telling and character
  3. MattN.
    Oct 15, 2007
    10
    This is an excellent show. Very suspenseful and mysterious