WE’VE come a long way baby since Clive James introduced UK viewers to the Japanese game show Endurance. How we chortled at desperate contestants being showered in insects, buried alive and other trials, all in the name of light entertainment. Crazy foreigners.
Today, we have progressed to I'm a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! (STV, nightly), which essentially does the same job but costs a lot more.
The show is confined to Welsh castle barracks again due to the pandemic, which means cold and damp are added to a long list of other crosses to bear. This week was all about settling in and, in the best traditions of the show, choosing which contestant to bully by making them do every trial. Deplorable, sure, but Ant and Dec were on good form, with Dec doing the best impersonation by far of Boris “forgive me” Johnson’s Peppa Pig speech meltdown.
Two of the oldies, Daveeed Ginola (French, football legend) and Richard “I’m Marmite” Madeley, are living testament to the powers of good male grooming over 50. We’ll see how long that lasts. In the battle for the middle aged crush vote, Daveeed took his top off. Earlier he bested Richard in a battle to light the fire. Consider antlers locked.
Series finales are arriving thick and fast as everyone heads out of Dodge before the Christmas schedules begin. Shetland (BBC1, Wednesday, spoilers ahead) closed with several doof-doof moments, the most interesting of which, as is often true with this crime drama, concerning Tosh. She made the breakthroughs in the case of the shot solicitor and is more than ready for promotion. Perhaps the pickle Jimmy has landed himself in will help with that. This series was not vintage Shetland, but it has set the next one up to be ace.
It was time to do the washing up, too, on The Great British Bake Off, won by Guiseppe, who had been taught to bake by his father. Guiseppe’s mango and passion fruit panna cotta was so good it left Paul Hollywood speechless. A container load has been ordered for the next series.
Womanhood (BBC2, Friday) took six women of various ages, put them together for a week, and had them explore subjects including cosmetic surgery, coercive control, and sex work. In short, it was the kind of programme that had “haud me back” written all over it. Could anything, bar competitive porridge making, be worthier, and on a Friday night when Gogglebox was on?
Oh, she of little faith. The six, led by Kirsty Wark, included Strictly judge Shirley Ballas, businesswoman Jacqueline Gold, and the blogger/influencer Chidera Eggerue, turned out to be a hoot and a half. There were poignant moments besides as some of the topics came too close to home, and disagreements, too.
What shone through, however, was how much they were enjoying each other’s company. I loved Wark’s description of her designer fashion-loving self as “an absolute tag hag”, the younger women’s confidence, and the older women’s shock at how social media, with its pressure to look good, was turning the clock back on feminism.
Womanhood had its own issues, however. The viewpoints were predictable and the Saturday night on the town chat with working class women about cosmetic procedures was a toe curler. Still, everyone came at the week with the right attitude and parted pals. For heaven’s sake, no one tell the patriarchy.
What a right royal fuss was made in advance of The Princes and the Press (BBC2, Monday). The palace was said to be annoyed that it had not been given the usual preview of a royal documentary. TV reviewers were in the same boat (only our vessel was a swan pedalo).
This led everyone to think that the presenter, Amol Rajan, had landed a scoop. But there was nothing we had not read before about tension between the royal houses and with the media. It was simply expressed more openly, which seems to have got Buckingham Palace’s back up. Part one was a disappointment, but not for Amol who got lots of lovely publicity from it. We’ll see what part two brings next Monday.
Or we will if I can tear myself away from the new season of Selling Sunset (Netflix). This reality show set among the glamazon estate agents who punt multimillion dollar homes in Los Angeles is utterly ridiculous and seriously addictive. Nothing happens but women talking, endlessly talking, about who said what to whom and how dare she, punctuated by lots of interior design porn as we tour the houses for sale.
I stumbled on the first series a couple of weeks ago. When I eventually surfaced, two weeks and several series later, I had a raging thirst for an infinity pool and a chihuahua. You don’t get that with Location, Location, Location.
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