“Oliver was on fine form here, showing us genuinely interesting things.” Read on for the verdict last night’s TV.

JAMIE COOKS SUMMER, CHANNEL 4

“Despite the faint whiff of parody – the artfully erected campsites, the happy families bonding, and the fact that Jamie Cooks Autumn might be a better idea at this stage of the year – Oliver was on fine form here, showing us genuinely interesting things.”
Alice-Azania Jarvis, The Independent

“In Jamie Cooks Summer he had taken off his social-responsibility hat and had a “Sod it” day. He was almost rolling around with glee as he and his chef pal Gennaro Contaldo went “Huckleberry Finn” and spit-roasted some chicken.”
Alex Hardy, The Times

THE PET DETECTIVES, CHANNEL 4

“The Pet Detectives are retired policemen who try to solve crimes against animals. Apparently there’s now more money in stealing pets than there is in flat-screen TVs. Those idiot looters were wasting their time in Currys and The Carphone Warehouse. Pets at Home, that’s where the real money was. It’s surprisingly entertaining, though, as television.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

HORIZON: THE NINE MONTHS THAT MADE YOU, BBC2

“David Barker’s theory sounds pretty hokey when you first hear about it… less a scientific prescription, more a kind of fortune-teller’s ruse. The debate is less one of nature versus nurture, but of who was nurtured when. If Barker is right his work represents, as several interviewees noted, a paradigm shift. Either way, it made for top-notch head-scratching from Horizon.”
Alice-Azania Jarvis, The Independent

“This news series of the landmark science strand is zig-zagging between the white heat of discovery and the cold, dead dustbowl of the blackboard. Last week we had a coma-inducing hour about big telescopes. This week it was something genuinely shocking on a subject we all care about, namely, ourselves.”
Matt Baylis, The Express

NEW TRICKS, BBC1

“The story bulged with bitter-sweet references to lost youth and lingering regrets as Det Supt Pullman was forced to liaise with a former colleague. What direction had her life taken, Pullman wondered, looking round at her sagging, tea-drinking team of retired detectives. She was misguided, of course, and that’s one of the things that makes this show so successful and so unique.  It rates age over beauty.”
Matt Baylis, The Express

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