Inside the Factory; Ted; Sue Perkins: Lost in Alaska

“[Gregg] Wallace, in a red hairnet, followed the production of mint Aero bars, and truly you would have thought he’d been given the moon on a stick. At one point he was so exuberant that he suggested dipping his head into melted chocolate for no reason whatsoever. His enraptured face put me in mind of a man peering through the slots at a peep show. It’s just an Aero, Gregg. Calm down.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“There was a genuinely good question at the heart of this one: how do they get the bubbles into an Aero? Weirdly, or perhaps because the BBC is worried about advertising rules, they stopped referring to the bar’s actual name at the beginning of the episode and instead made endless references to a “bubbly bar” with a “minty middle”. But we learned that liquid CO2 is pumped into the mint mixture at high pressure, and then changes into a gas, which forms bubbles. “I’ve got a suspicion there shouldn’t be this much science involved in making a bar of chocolate!” said Wallace, whose every utterance on this programme comes with an exclamation mark.”
Anita Singh, Telegraph

“The chocolate factory trip will be his last on the show, though here, too, there are different interpretations. Gregg says he needs to spend more time helping his wife Anne-Marie with their son. Here’s hoping this doesn’t mean the end of the show, which can deliver entertaining peeps into manufacturing processes, when it isn’t getting too bogged down with numbers. There must be another loud and bouncy Cockney presenter to fill Gregg’s boots. What’s Bradley Walsh doing these days, is he busy?”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“This is a prequel that nobody asked for, set in 1993 when John has reached his teenage years. Ted sets the scene in an introductory voice-over, saying that he was once a media sensation but “like every phenomenon, eventually nobody gives a s–t”. Which is exactly how you should feel about this series.”
Anita Singh, Telegraph

“[Seth] MacFarlane is not one for allowing his characters much growth or learning – although he does let in a few odd moments of schmaltz which just weaken the whole thing further. Along with the underbaked writing, it just adds to the suspicion that fear of criticism is at last occasionally getting the better of him – so we go round in puerile circles, with ever-diminishing satisfaction. A great disappointment.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“The programme is, at times intensely, about Perkins as much as it is about Alaska. We spent quite a while watching her car being towed out of a ditch after she drove into it while admiring a Russian Orthodox church. Partridge would be proud.”
Anita Singh, Telegraph