TV Critics: Silent Witness; Restoration Home; World’s Worst Holiday Horrors; My Kitchen Rules; Benidorm; Ghost Adventures

“I’ve come to enjoy Silent Witness as much for its many sins as despite them. But this season something has changed. All three stories so far have started with promising set-ups, only to tail off so badly as to make the second episode completely unwatchable. Exactly the same thing happened last night. All good series come to an end eventually and it can’t be long before a BBC commissioning editor calls time on this one.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

“It seemed a shame that, having honed in on a little-themed, little-written-about Turkish community, the best the show could do was come up with three unadmirable figures. Surely it’s time someone told a different story.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

“Why does anyone bother watching the first broadcast of a Restoration Home series, when, a mere nine months later, BBC2 shows Restoration Home: One Year On, featuring all the best DIY disasters of the original, plus revealing how the house ultimately turned out?”
Ellen E Jones, The Independent

“It wasn’t the mis-selling of the title that got to me so much as the total disingenuity of the programme’s attitude to money. I can understand people not wanting to have their finances picked over on TV. But to ignore the financial realities makes it look like anyone who shares the presenters’ exquisite good taste can get their hands on an extra few £100K with no problem.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

“C5 last night offered the promisingly titled World’s Worst Holiday Horrors. This show featured some astonishing footage – it was all strung together with the minimum of imagination, but the pictures were amazing.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“I have found a cooking series I love enough to series-link. There is a scruffiness to the show and a sweetness. Much more importantly, it may be the first cookery show to treat the whole exercise as comedy not drama.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“Stereotyped characters, over-acting, ridiculous plots and seaside-postcard humour all make it seem like something from a bygone era. Benidorm grows more grotesque and preposterous with each passing year.”
Terry Ramsey, The Telegraph

“Sometimes you want entertainment that would place no undue strain on the cognitive functions of a cauliflower. That’s what the Really channel is for. Ghost Adventures was the perfect example. This was zombie TV, viewing that could stun you into a vegetative state.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail