“Chris and his reptiles actually live in Strood, which was over the Thames estuary in Kent last time I looked.” Read on for the verdict on last night’s TV.

Essex Jungle, Channel 5

“Essex Jungle is ahead of the game – a four-part series on Channel 5, which explores what it claims is the region’s distinctive passion for exotic pets (apparently, 30,000 exotic animals are imported into Essex every year, most of them intentionally). Iain Newby is the star here, a kind of Crocodile Chelmsford who wanders around in a leather safari jacket and a hat with teeth on it.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

“Chris and his reptiles, the stars of the show, actually live in Strood, which was over the Thames estuary in Kent last time I looked. But Kent doesn’t have the same appeal (The Only Way is Kent – who’d watch that?), so they’ve been generous with county borders. Essex sells.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

“The sort [of owner] that makes this show so intriguing and watchable, is like retired prison warder Chris, who still lives in his boyhood home and has converted much of into a mini-zoo for his crocodiles and iguanas, or grandma Jackie Lewis, whose bearded dragons were in a gay relationship until one died.”
Matt Baylis, The Express

The Crimson Petal and the White, BBC2

“What makes it compelling though, apart from its gloomy sense of style, is the sense that none of the characters have been reduced to mere bits of narrative clockwork.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

If Walls Could Talk the History of the Home, BBC4

“Dr Lucy Worsley, who’s chief curator of Historic Royal Palaces, is brilliant. Or wather, she’s chief cuwator of Histowic Woyal Palaces, and she’s bwilliant. I know it’s wrong to mock people for the way they speak, but I’m not mocking, I’m celebrating. Dr Lucy’s little issue with Rs suits her posh, no-nonsense, jolly hockey sticks personality like a silk glove.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

Petworth House – The Big Spring Clean, BBC4

“I’m not sure Andrew’s history through dusting has the same appeal as Dr Lucy’s hygiene journey. One-nil to her, I’d say.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

Vacation, Vacation, Vacation, Channel 4

“Perhaps if I was getting some extra-secret wisdom, not available to the unwashed masses online and available only by tuning in to watch this pair of unbearably smug estate agents having a string of paid holidays, then I might think Phil and Kirstie’s show had a reason to exist.”
Matt Baylis, The Express

Justified, 5USA

“With series-one loose ends to tie, and a new bad family to introduce to replace the mainly dead Crowders, the episode shifted its would-be central paedophile plot to the margins.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

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