Saturday Night Live UK; The Hunt: Prey vs Predator; Celebrity Sabotage

“British sketch comedy had been in a slump in recent years and Sky did well to hire members of the highly regarded sketch troupe Sheeps to oversee their SNL, which also featured two brilliantly searing performances by indie band Wet Leg. It was never going to be perfect and Fey’s reassuring presence will be missed (future guest hosts include Jamie Dornan and Riz Ahmed). But the schadenfreude on social media, which predicted a transatlantic SNL would crash and burn proved wide of the mark. Was it a crime against comedy – as the original Saturday Night Live often is nowadays? No – and by any reasonable measure it was off to a flying start.”
Ed Power, Telegraph

“Judging a show like SNL off its opening episode is foolish. The chemistry between the cast needs time to settle, and the reaction on TikTok and Instagram will likely inform which sketches have legs (the Head Wound Harrys and David S Pumpkins, so to speak), and which end up in the writers’ room bin. What SNL UK’s opening episode does demonstrate is a willingness to push the envelope, to risk bad taste. Borrowing a beloved American format might feel a bit stale, but there are notes of new ingredients that could offer something fresh.”
Nick Hilton, The Independent

“I really wanted this show to be good. In the build-up to the arrival of this American cultural juggernaut, we have seen many industry types and commentators express doubt that the format would translate. There has been a rather unseemly tone to some of this chatter. “British people tend to root for the failure of others”, as Irish national treasure Nicola Coughlan pops out of the audience to explain to the host Tina Fey — an America SNL veteran — early in this first episode. Not me. A functioning UK SNL would provide a proper, badly needed pipeline for new comic talent. This show’s success could only ever be a good thing. That day might come, and there are small signs in this first outing that it might. I do not want to condemn this whole endeavour outright. But the spark is not there yet.”
Charlotte Ivers, The Times

“It could have been a lot, lot worse. And it could have been a lot better. But it is likely to become so as the team and the audience settle in over the coming weeks and we might see some recurring characters and start to build a rhythm and rapport with the show. And honestly – it felt refreshing to see an ambition/piece of madness like retooling a legacy US brand for this septic isle even being attempted. It did not fail. And in the coming weeks, let’s hope, it can build towards real success.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“The Hunt: Prey vs Predator features a bunch of contestants stalking each other through a forest in a glorified game of tag. It’s being touted as television’s answer to The Hunger Games, but you’ll find more dramatic tension in The Very Hungry Caterpillar. An hour-long episode feels as if it lasts several weeks, even though they try to sex it up by having a 70-year-old former model telling us, apropos of nothing, about her adventures with younger men.”
Anita Singh, Telegraph

“The prey and the predators (remind you of faithfuls and traitors?) run around a forest wearing blue or red bibs, the predators trying to catch the prey, who try to hide in the shrubbery. They form alliances, persuade people to trust them or stab them in the back, and then the prey vote to “cull” (ie “banish”) a predator at the end of each episode. Which sounds very familiar, doesn’t it? The contestants are even addressed as “players”, just like Claudia Winkleman does in The Traitors, by a disembodied female voice. But it really is boring to watch. It is an overcomplicated game of tag, or hide and seek stretched out over nine episodes. It takes me back to the playground at primary school.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“Unlike many recent tries (foremost among them Destination X, which was The Traitors on a bus), The Hunt has the potential to go some of the distance, if not perhaps the whole way. Presumably aware of the fact that most people’s least favourite part of The Traitors is the missions, it doesn’t let the challenges arrest the momentum of the show or get in the way of the personal stuff. The rules are well worked out, but not overcomplicated, and they keep the narrative twisting nicely. Also, there is a good spread of ages and backgrounds to the manageably sized cast without any of it feeling like a box-ticking exercise. The first two episodes left me feeling pleased, incensed, smug, indignant, baffled by people’s stupidity and soothed by their sweetness. All, in short, is as it should be in a reality competition.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“The format of Celebrity Sabotage is hopelessly overworked, with new presenters and guest stars each week, and a show-within-a-show set-up to ensure that players are even more confused than viewers.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail