Apocalypse; Saturday Night Live UK; The Great Celebrity Pottery Throw Down

“A researcher at Anthropic has claimed that AI has a higher than 10 per cent chance of killing all humans within the next decade. Cheers! This makes Channel 4’s new reality show, Apocalypse, quite timely. It could be a handy guide for anyone who manages to dodge wipe-out and find themselves among the few people left roaming the Earth. It’s a “radical experiment” in which a bunch of strangers must survive for 28 days in an abandoned town. But if you end up with anyone like this lot, a motley band of content creators, abrasive Australians and whiners, death by robot might feel preferable.”
Anita Singh, Telegraph

“The stupidity that dominates the opening episodes is deeply boring. You can only scream for so long before you give up, especially as you know they are not in any true danger of starving to death. Things get more interesting by the third episode (only three were available for review) as a group’s engineer starts cobbling helpful machines together from the junkyard, someone finds a hunting rifle and Nigerian-born politician Celia turns out to be God’s forthright gift to television (“Men think with their dicks. Women think with their brains. So do not ever think men are making the best decisions.”) But, fundamentally, the venality and impenetrable individualism that mean no one is willing to concede to an expert, prioritise sensibly or follow orders, and which thus hamper every endeavour, is depressing. I fear for the future – of programming mostly but, sure, humanity too.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

““Live from London, it’s Saturday night!” they cried, and the knowing whoops from the studio audience showed that we have got our heads around this classic American show being done by Brits. The only worry was whether the novelty had worn off and this Sky 1 success story would be plagued by difficult second-album syndrome. The first series wasn’t bad. Not as dazzling as many said it was, but not the disaster many predicted. And the next? A charitable voice would say that all comedy is hit and miss, but the first few sketches of the opening episode barely scratched the dartboard.”
Ben Dowell, The Times

“SNL sketches are always spotty, and this season opener is more miss than hit. There’s a good gag at the heart of Gregor J Dupont (Fouracres, again), a thespian who dresses up as a baby to prepare expectant parents, yet the delivery rips off Brian Butterfield, Peter Serafinowicz’s business guru, and the tone feels cadged from Ollie and Archimedes, a pair of verbose British tots who appeared on Very Important People. Ania Magliano and Paddy Young (who should be incorporated into more of the main sketches, in my opinion) return to Weekend Update, and the material continues to be enjoyably edgy. Magliano muses that Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland is really more of an “old classic for Germany”, while Young observes that Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu might’ve thought that “Burnham was just something you do to refugee camps”. While the gags in this section are largely quite sharp, the delivery is a tad stumbling.”
Nick Hilton, Independent

“Liza Tarbuck arrived for her new gig as host of The Great Celebrity Pottery Throw Down (Channel 4) bearing gifts. For the programme’s long-time judges, Rich Miller and Keith Brymer Jones, she brought two bags of Kaolin clay. I had no idea what that was, so I looked it up. Apparently, as well as making fine porcelain, it’s also great in face masks for sensitive skin. Kaolin clay, in other words, is an emollient, and as such is the perfect emblem for The Great Celebrity Pottery Throw Down itself. Here is a balm for viewers of a sensitive disposition, viewers who are a little tired of everyone getting shot on Vigil. Here is a TV show so nice they should show it before PMQs. It’s so nice you could in fact cuddle up to your TV and use that as a relaxing face mask.”
Benji Wilson, Telegraph