“It appeared as if it had been put together by random means, possibly even a group of small children…a very, very peculiar idea for a TV show.” Read on for the verdict on last night’s TV.

ALL ROADS LEAD HOME, BBC2

“You should definitely be planning to do something else at 8pm next Wednesday… But it wasn’t the bogus job description that did for this show. Nor was it the three celebs..It was the fact that the format was unspeakably boring… Perkins asked: “What’s the worst thing that could happen to us?” Mangan replied: “We could all die a horrible death.” Wrong. The worst thing was they might live to make the second episode.” 
John Crace, The Guardian

“Some television programmes just make you shake your head violently, as if you’ve got a bee stuck in your ear…for example, a three-part series about natural navigation. Frankly, it was bad enough just reading the billing in the Radio Times. It gets worse once you start watching, with a slightly dizzying speed.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

“[It] appeared as if it had been put together by random means, possibly even a group of small children. It is in short a very, very peculiar idea for a TV show. Peculiar because of the people in it, peculiar because of what they’re doing and peculiar because there’s just so blooming much of it…Three hours of Sue Perkins with a rucksack telling us which way is south-west? Get lost.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

ALONE IN THE WILD, DISCOVERY

“Arare celebrity-in-the-wilderness show that made you worry for the star’s wellbeing…What we really observed was a big name go slightly delirious with fear and hunger. Happily for him, he had not come to “find” himself but, as he put it, “to see some animals”. For the rest of us, the show was pretty pointless, being educative of neither survival techniques nor the inner Flintoff, should there be one.”
Andrew Billen, The Times  

“I dare say the producers had been hoping for some Bear Gryll’s blokey drink-your-own-piss, butcher-your-own-zebra stuff from Flintoff, but..he sensibly chose to exist on the emergency rations with which he’d been sent out into the bush and passed the time smoking cigars and reading a book.”
John Crace, The Guardian

FRESH MEAT, C4

“Cut the self-conscious filth from some comedies and there wouldn’t be a lot left. Cut it from Fresh Meat and you’d be left with the best stuff.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

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