TV Critics: Why Am I Still Single?; Horizon; Dates; Mad Men; The Apprentice

“It was a bold televisual experiment: bold because no one had ever done it before and bold because it required an astonishing amount of honesty and resilience on the part of the two volunteers… I wouldn’t be surprised if this format turned into a regular show. I’d watch it, too.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

“For all its faults and lack of any genuine surprise, Why Am I Still Single? turned out to be rather good – mainly because once Naomi and Lex stopped hamming it up for the cameras they were both quite vulnerable and set about the project with more seriousness and integrity than the producers can have expected. I couldn’t help but like them, and thanks to them Channel 4 might have found itself a new series.”
John Crace, The Guardian

“Why Am I Still Single? was not as bad as it sounds and veered between making us laugh at and allowing us to empathise with Lex and Naomi. There were some surprisingly tender moments as we saw Lex’s ex reading his teenage love letters and Naomi’s mum revealing poignant truths about her daughter’s childhood. Sadly, there was also a fair dollop of pop psychology.”
Sarah Royce-Greensill, The Telegraph

“These were hardly cases to fox Freud, but there might be a series in it. There are 16 million single people in Britain, most asking why.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“The idea is that two unwilling singletons swap lives, poking through each other’s dirty laundry to try and work out why nothing’s quite clicked yet. Quite why they’re regarded as better qualified for such an analysis than someone who has actually pulled the trick off, I’m not sure… I’m not sure that either of them learnt a lot from the experience.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

“Perversely, for a medium that normally thrives on the visual, this black hole felt most alive in the pieces to camera in which the scientists and astronomers were allowed to speak enthusiastically about their observations without any distractions… Maybe it’s time for a rethink about the scientist’s role in the science documentary.”
John Crace, The Guardian

“C4’s mix-and-match drama series continues to impress… The writing and performances are as sharp as each other and once again it honoured the truth that there aren’t a lot of neat endings in life.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

“This penultimate season of Mad Men has meandered, sometimes apparently aimlessly, but last night’s episode reached such a powerful cataract that I would have settled for it as the series’ finale not just the season’s.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“There’s nothing like a food task to get The Apprentice really, really cooking. It is quite amazing how matters relating to taste buds so unfailingly expose the extremes of idiocy, conceit and insensitivity that – happily for us – afflict so many candidates. So when this week’s task began at the (ha-ha) Gherkin with Lord Sugar inviting the seven remaining hopefuls to dream up a recipe and branding for a new ready-meal range – hilarity was all but guaranteed.”
Gerard O’Donovan, The Telegraph