“Moffat and Gatiss have nothing to fear – there’s no threat here.” Read on for the verdict on last night’s TV.

Elementary

Elementary, Sky Living

“Almost certainly the second best modern-day Sherlock Holmes to currently grace the small screen. In almost certainly the second best modern-day Sherlock Holmes show… Basically it’s any number of American cop shows, just with a couple of characters plucked from the past and the other side of the Atlantic dropped in.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

“Without the precedent of Sherlock and Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman’s excellent double act, they might have got away with it. Elementary isn’t terrible, unless you are actually a Conan Doyle purist and can’t bear any kind of tinkering with the object of your devotion. But it’s also pretty ordinary… Moffat and Gatiss have nothing to fear – there’s no threat here.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

“Elementary does its best to renew the spirit of the original and is a decent attempt, but the real comparison is not with Sherlock, which is in a class of its own, but with House, and it is not as good as either.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces, Channel 4

“It is essentially Grand Designs on a hundredth of the budget. The designs, that is, not the programme… It’s neat, modest and perfectly formed.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

“I can’t review George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces because I know George Clarke a bit. It would be (a) wrong if I liked it, and (b) wrong if I didn’t. So let’s just say it’s (a) and leave it at that.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

“If you are tempted to purchase a dilapidated coach or caravan, be advised the final product will not look like this, not unless you are a time-served craftsman of some sort. If you are you probably don’t need a show on Channel 4 to tell you what to do with your skillset. This is the ‘fraud’ of programmes of this sort and all those others telling you how to live ‘off-grid’ or never set foot in another supermarket.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

Tool Academy, E4

“It’s awful and excruciating and no one comes out well. And this year it’s in Spain; there’s a badly behaving Brits Abroad element to it, so it’s even better, I mean worse.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

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