C4 was once the bastion of ambitious telly. Now it’s predominantly the home of a lot of lifestyle rubbish and real-life shows – and for every work of comedy genius like Peep Show or imported success story like Desperate Housewives there’s always a few dozen bilge-fests like the bizarre Noel Edmonds vehicle Deal Or No Deal.
But just when I thought rock bottom had been reached the channel finds a way to dig through the stone floor and plummet to new depths…
Going Cold Turkey was essentially Big Brother with three heroin addicts and it was sold as a challenging piece of real-life TV following our trio as they came off the drug with the help of ‘experts’ and the support of their loved ones.
To say it was pure voyeurism would be to insult anyone who spends more than 12 hours a day watching hardcore porn surrounded by an armchair full of crusty Kleenex. It was much worse than that – it was genuinely horrible stuff and to then have it presented by Krishnan Guru-Murthy, the most insincere man on telly, was purely adding insult to injury on the poor addicted saps who were probably told what they were doing was ground-breaking telly. It wasn’t. It was an attempt to grab headlines in the most tabloid way possible.
C4 used to commission Cutting Edge for God’s sake! How the mighty have fallen…
Thank god then for the return of The Apprentice on BBC2 last week. At least here’s a bunch of people who know the score and realise how they will be humiliated and embarrassed thanks to cunning editing as they all strive like starving dogs for the bone that is a career with Alan Sugar.
So far… nice bloke team leader Ben got the boot last week and posh woman leader Nargis got the boot last night. Potential series highlights could revolve around smug and slimy Syed, a man so oily he could supply the world motor industry for several years, and bonkers Jo, a loose cannon who struggles to keep her emotions in check but is usually right. And the token northerner is a bloke called Paul who looks like the type of slightly gone-to-seed and portly thirtysomething you see trying to chat up teenage girls in nightclubs in Rotherham.
So thank god for Alan Sugar – and I never thought I’d say that!
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