TV Critics: That's So Last Century; Meet the Psychopaths; Capital; Tripped

“I am no fan of celebrity clip shows, but having this lot — Vic Reeves, James Corden, etc — show these gadgets to their children was fun. Unfortunately, the sequences all lasted too long. The slow-loading Spectrum computer would have made pacier viewing.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“Amusing as it was to see Vic Reeves’s daughter call a cassette tape a record, and Dom Joly’s son try and take a selfie with an archaic Nikon, most of us do remember when chemists dobbed customers in for their naughty snaps and people re-recorded TV shows over old episodes of Top of the Pops on VHS. You’d have to be under-16 not to recognise any of the gadgets on the show.”
Daisy Wyatt, The Independent

“The funniest verdicts came from the children of the celebs, who were both thrilled and aghast to see the technology their parents had used, back in the days when computers saved files to floppy discs and dinosaurs roamed the earth.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“On a checklist of Channel 5 documentary clichés, Meet the Psychopaths scored highly: doomy music; choppy editing; unlabelled dramatic reconstructions; hardman narration (by Steven Mackintosh). Take out those tropes, however, and you had an excellent part one to this series.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“In this case the pulsating soundtrack and scaremongering case studies didn’t seem so out of place, making the first episode of this three-part series a slick shock-doc. The story of psycho-killer Joanna Dennehy was the most horrific. Her lack of remorse was astounding.”
Daisy Wyatt, The Independent

“Channel 5 and psychopaths seem to have formed an unbreakable combination, like turkey and cranberry or Christmas telly and repeats. This was broken up by a sequence in which a man who suspected he might be a psychopath went and had himself thoroughly tested. It wasn’t clear how this was meant to help the bloke.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

“The last time Toby Jones worked with Peter Bowker, they made Marvellous, one of the most beautiful and accomplished pieces of TV drama in a decade. Capital feels strained and effortful in comparison. Every ingredient was right – but the source material lay too flat on the page for TV adaptation.”
Julia Raeside, The Guardian

“With a fizzle like a firework on a wet night, Capital dribbled to a soggy ending. It started with such a brilliant display, but by the finish we were left staring at the proverbial damp squib.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail