TV critics' verdict on programmes - including the start of Polar Bear Week with Nigel Marven on Five - broadcast on 17 December 2007

Polar Bear Week with Nigel Marven, Five
“It was a marvellous bit of television - made all the better for its simplicity and lack of adornments.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

Polar Bear Week with Nigel Marven, Five
“This is wildlife programming for human beings with gnat-like attention spans, and that suits me just fine. It’s also fun and accessible - exactly what Five should be up to.”
Helen Rumbelow, The Times

Polar Bear Week with Nigel Marven, Five
“I really like Nigel Marven, he of Polar Bear Adventures With Nigel Marven. I admire his lack of cynicism, his relentless energy, his puppyish enthusiasm. Every one of Nigel's utterances is followed by an exclamation mark!
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

Polar Bear Week with Nigel Marven, Five
“I can’t recommend the rest of Polar Bear Week highly enough.”
Brian Viner, The Independent

Polar Bear Week with Nigel Marven, Five
“Nigel didn’t take long to settle into his usual blend of wild enthusiasm and slightly anoraky scientific fact.”
James Walton, Daily Telegraph

Live at the Apollo, BBC1
“Live at the Apollo has a curiously old-fashioned feel to it."
Helen Rumbelow, The Times

London Calling: Inside the BBC World Service, BBC2
“In showcasing its own lack of bias in this, BBC-approved-and-broadcast TV programme, the BBC looked guilty of the very thing it claimed to be most free of.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

Make Me a Muslim, C4
“The teaching of the prophet Muhammad? The Koran? Nah! Don't be worrying about any of that. Islam - it's basically a few rules, stuff you can't do. And that's it, a major world religion in a nutshell, job done, sorted by reality TV.
Either that, or this show's a disgrace...”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

Olympic Dreams, BBC2
“Olympic Dreams takes the daytime-TV habit of endlessly recapping to astonishing new heights. Every few minutes we hear exactly the same words being used to describe exactly the same clips.”
James Walton, Daily Telegraph

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