23 June '11

“Every shift is a long haul through other people’s folly and vice, particularly when, as in last night’s episode, two stab victims arrive simultaneously and their respective gang brethren have to be dissuaded from notching up more cases in the waiting room. Helmand doesn’t look that far away sometimes.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

“It isn’t just another “Look at the freaks! See how they bleed!” programme, a kind of Big Brother with sutures: rather, like One Born Every Minute, its appeal is the Shylock Universal that it insists on, that we’re all fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means.”
Zoe Williams, The Guardian

“There cannot be any TV programme so skilled as this one is at bringing an audience down then filling it with hope again dozens of times in an hour.”
Matt Baylis, The Express

“There was a heart-lifting shot of a Chinook landing in an Afghan compound, bright purple smoke swirling into the vortex created by its blades. It was a strangely lovely thing to look at – if you could detach it from its context – but unfortunately it was the only thing to make you smile in an hour-long account of the gap between Western fantasies and Afghan reality.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

“A bird’s-eye view on the Afghan conflict was no less depressing than a close-up but it proved easier to get a grip on it.”
Matt Baylis, The Express

“It was a crisp and devastating hour, but what good does the programme do us now when David Cameron is committed to pulling everyone out next year in any case?”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“Announcing that she knew nothing about France, had never been there and didn’t speak the language, Susan thrust herself forward as project manager, and rapidly confirmed that she hadn’t just been modestly self-deprecating when downplaying her skill-set: “Do the French love their children?” she asked, as her team pondered whether to try and flog a collapsible child’s car seat.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

“It was the televisual equivalent of a Victorian portrait: a kid in bloomers, standing by a kitten with a broken paw, struggling bravely against gorgeous, fat tears. So of course I cuss it, but really I loved it.”
Zoe Williams, The Guardian