“[It] collapsed, soufflé-style.” Read on for the full verdict on last night’s TV.

Virgin Cooks

Virgin Cooks, BBC3
“There’s not enough variety or originality here for an hour of television, and there are three more to come… Is food really as interesting as the schedules suggest?”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

Virgin Cooks, BBC3
“If I hadn’t already sat through a dozen series claiming to have done exactly the same, with noble, society-improving motives behind them but just promoting the personality of a particular chef, then I might have been a little bit partial to this four-part series.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

Virgin Cooks, BBC3
“It was definitely the family that shone here (for them, four stars) rather than the concept (would have been three).”
Alex Hardy, The Times

Virgin Cooks, BBC3
“[It] collapsed, soufflé-style, by trying to combine several genres already approaching their sell-by dates (it was equal parts Hell’s Kitchen, MasterChef and Jamie’s Ministry of Food).”
Simon Usborne, The Independent

Virgin Cooks, BBC3
“Remember Can’t Cook Won’t Cook? So do the people who make Virgin Cooks, I suspect, BBC3’s latest attempt to put a youth spin on everything, even cookery programmes.”
Andrea Mullaney, The Scotsman

Desperate Romantics, BBC2
“The preposterous nipple count and much of the scripting clung on to that Carry On feel… but it’s also gloriously pacy, glossy – and just dark enough to get away with it.”
Alex Hardy, The Times

Deadliest Warrior, Bravo
“Probably the most entertaining, as well as the most worrying, show of the evening… You have weapons enthusiasts and battle re-enacters and weirdos like that.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

EastEnders, BBC1
“What does EastEnders delight in those episodes where all the characters appear to have been sucked into oblivion, leaving only two of them to slug out 20 years’ worth of resentment in a locked-up launderette?”
Matt Baylis

Three Minute Wonder, Channel 4
“Beautifully shot with a spare but hypnotic soundtrack, Martin Hampton’s film [Microsoft Babies] delivered more in three minutes than many could manage in an hour.”
Simon Usborne, The Independent

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