TV Critics: Cracking China; Hair; Inside the Ku Klux Klan; Rookies

“Whether you find him engaging or irksome as a presenter, LLB is terribly compelling as a subject. His face hides nothing: boredom, confusion, sadness, despair. He’s a tragic hero awaiting a tragedy. Unfortunately things seem to be going rather well for him in China.”
Tim Dowling, The Guardian

“It was a show so arrogantly, blindly self-promoting, it felt like the TV version of that article Samantha Brick wrote about her own beauty. LLB fancied himself as a Branson, a Lagerfeld, a Dyson. He came across as more of a David Dickinson, with brighter tailoring and far worse manners.”
Alex Hardy, The Times

“People with a healthy sense of self-mockery are always a joy to watch – this would have made an interesting double bill with Dave’s David Hasselhoff mockumentary, Hoff the Record. You pity the poor foreigners who’ll have to live with the stuff, of course, but if it means more OTT LLB on the TV, this can only be good for Britain.”
Ellen E Jones, The Independent

“Posh, egotistical and rude, he could so easily have come across as boorish and unlikeable but didn’t, because he was actually witty. Despite his tacky trinkets not being to everyone’s taste, I imagine many viewers were relieved that Laurence appeared to do so well.”
Claudia Connell, Daily Mail

“He is a relentless extrovert, and the producer he kept deriding must have turned private somersaults of joy. The side was slightly let down by Samantha Bond’s arch voice-over, stitched together as a tired series of synthetic disasters waiting to happen. It was simply impossible to give a fig.”
Jasper Rees, The Telegraph

“I don’t think I’m entirely sure what this show was. Could it be a clever sort of mash-up, whereby some scenes were set up and others were the real deal? I don’t know. It’s got me guessing and of course, watching, so I suppose it works.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

“The hairdressing puns came thick and fast, but as far as I’m concerned this show should have been snipped from the schedules and left to die along with BBC3.”
Claudia Connell, Daily Mail

“There is of course something indelibly comic about the Klan, and this film was not shy about playing it up. But the viewer was left in no doubt that these people are dangerous: they’re armed to the teeth, motivated by twisted logic and chillingly indifferent to evils perpetrated by fellow racists.”
Tim Dowling, The Guardian

“This was a touching fly-on-the-wall film about nervous new bobbies learning the ropes. A whole series following Dee and Becky out on patrol would be just the ticket, preferably somewhere more lively than Lincoln.”
Jasper Rees, The Telegraph