There is something about Mad Dogs which is intriguing. It is not perfect, sometimes it feels unsure if it wants to be relentlessly hopeless or gruesome or something that doesn't take itself too seriously, but the acting is good and it feels honest, without compromise. One thing is it not, however, it boring to the extent you accuse it of being, Jay Roberts.
If you take the 'opening paragraph' of Mad Dogs, you see what is presumably a flash- forward, where all of the characters are clearly up a creek without a paddle, with grazed faces and tired eyes. Men clearly at their limits, in one way or another. That's as intriguing a prologue as any to make you wonder 'how did it get to this?' surely?
If things simply 'got the point' as you are clearly gagging for, all of the suspense and impending doom would be lost, and no actions would hold any significance. The promise of something interesting is fulfilled, the characters grow more suspicious of a friend's behaviour, and in the space of 45 minutes this reaches a climax, and a pretty interesting/exciting one. If you're going to impatiently fast forward until it looks like 'something is happening' (hoping for a fist fight or a car chase?) you'll miss the growing tension between the characters, which is why things HAPPEN in the first place.
Men are not like women, you say, but be aware that not all men are you, either. I don't think not caring about 'relationships' or 'drama' is much to be proud about, if you can't stand them in stories then i hate to be the one to break it to you that you might not like stories, because it's what the best ones tend to involve. On the contrary, it makes you appear like a child fidgeting because the TV isn't flashing up pretty shapes when you demand it to. Relationships MAKE 'good stories', and far from being nonsense, they give stories SENSE and purpose beyond men hitting each other for the sake of it, in which case I'd recommend a dose of WWE instead of a TV series which will, like any good story or novel, involve characters having relationships.
Unfortunately, good stories include good characters, which is what this first episode demonstrates. I'll admit it's not always entirely successful; at times it aspires to be a Shakespearian tragedy and others like a jokey gangster flick, both work, but the fence- hopping is a little jarring.
Episode 1 was about building tension and how the characters stand with one another. In Episode 2 cracks start to show and everyone is not so strong-footed. If you can bear to sit through more TALKING (heaven forfend for such a thing daring to be in a show, such contempt for the audience, to go 5 minutes without an explosion) then you'll find things most definitely do start to happen.
