Silent Witness; Brits Down Under; Streets of Gold: Mumbai

“I do sometimes worry for the mental health of the Silent Witness writers. It’s basically a gig in which you must dream up the most twisted, macabre way for someone to die, then double it. However, I will say this. The twist at the end of last night’s episode was a belter.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“As usual, the lead characters peered at some bodies and exchanged some perfunctory dialogue. But the plot was sufficiently intriguing to make me come back for more. And that’s why this show is still hanging in there.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph

“You don’t watch Silent Witness for its sparkling dialogue or its psychologically compelling characterisation. But more often than not it delivers with its no-nonsense storytelling. There were one or two iffy moments… But this was a minor contrivance that didn’t detract from a yarn that rattled along plausibly enough.”
Gerard Gilbert, The i

“The episode was lifted by star turns from John Hannah as a retired pathologist and murder suspect, and Josette Simon as a detective trying to solve a case that has haunted her for 20 years, as every TV copper facing retirement always does.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“It’s early days, but so far, this is nice, gentle reality TV, a show that is too warm to dwell on any of the friction, and the eye-rolling at the limits of Gen Z quickly exhausts itself. Most of the twentysomethings are diligent and keen to experience something new, even if they’ve never done farm work or manual labour before.”
Rebecca Nicholson, The Guardian

“I expected Brits Down Under, a reality show in which a group of British backpackers live on a farm in the Australian outback where they do physical labour in return for accommodation and pay, to contrive to show us how ‘snowflakey’ the young ’uns are these days. And so it proved within a few minutes. It is certainly a concern that humans are gradually losing their physical skills, but not all young people are like this. It sometimes felt like a set-up to prove a point.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“Not everyone here is terrible, but the producers have chosen to focus on the whinging Poms because they’ve recognised that the show itself is deathly boring.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph

“This three-part series, which reveals what life is like for the residents of India’s boomtown, is careful to give no hint of offence. The cameras follow various tycoons, self-proclaimed celebrities among Mumbai’s one-percenters, touring their mansions and hanging out at their PR events. There was no hint of any darkness behind the sheen and glitter, and definitely no awkward questions.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail