MasterChef; B&B By the Sea; Ross Kemp: Deep Sea Treasure Hunter

“MasterChef is solid, reliable fare, even if some of these contestants seemed to overcomplicate perfectly good dishes. Matthew seems the favourite so far, producing what Torode said was the best ackee and saltfish he had tasted, which is a massive compliment. Though I’d have knocked a point off for him doing that sauce smear on the plate that chefs like so much but looks to me exactly like a pigeon dropping.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“Every contestant should have been evicted on the grounds of entirely ignoring the brief, but that aside, this was MasterChef as it always is: reliable, comfort television that can be served again and again with few complaints.”
Benji Wilson, The Telegraph

“As ever, minimalism is the aim. The perfect MasterChef dish is a single grain of brown rice, air-fried and glazed in juice from an oyster, served with a shaving of truffle and an osprey’s feather. MasterChef is the epitome of everything I can’t abide about fine dining: you pay a fortune for a plateful of peculiar flavours and go home hungry.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“It was a sweet little half-hour show in which a different celebrity visits a Victorian villa with a view on Northern Ireland’s spectacular coast to acquire new skills.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“This neat half-hour format sends a different celeb each day to this Victorian villa on the Antrim coast. Leisurely camera sweeps across the landscape captured that holiday feeling when you wake up and take in a glorious view.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“Ross Kemp: Deep Sea Treasure Hunter is essentially submarine Detectorists, despite Kemp’s puppyish overcompensations. I’m not saying the underwater photography is woeful, but to my eyes, the debris Kemp dredges up – a piece of pottery – could have been anything. Henry VIII’s codpiece, nuclear waste, a vintage ring pull from a 1973 can of Lilt.”
Stuart Jeffries, The Guardian