FLOWERS, C4, 10pm
CHANNEL 4 are broadcasting this new sitcom every night this week. I don’t like that approach. It’s like a cowardly version of “bingeing”. Netflix and boxsets allow you to binge in the proper sense: watching episodes without any breaks, conversation or daylight. That’s how you properly binge-watch. Having a new episode each day must be terrestrial TV’s version, but no – either bombard us so we can wallow like pigs, or drip-feed us an episode once a week, lending it some nice anticipation.
So does this new series merit the special treatment of a daily outing? On paper it should: it has an impressive cast (Olivia Colman and Julian Barratt are the stars) and it’s a dark comedy about an eccentric family. The father has bungled his suicide and the mother is frantically cheerful, her manic persona hiding unhappiness and sexual frustration. Their household also contains two weird and warring adult children, a senile granny, and a boyish Japanese assistant.
Tonight, the family are thrown together to celebrate mum and dad’s anniversary but the dark comedy never quite darkens enough and seems zany rather than black and clever.
WILD AUSTRALIA WITH RAY MEARS, STV, 8pm
THERE was no need to use “wild” in the title of this new series. Does anyone think of Australia as a land of manicured lawns, placid fields, timid flowers and mild, inoffensive animals?
No way. In Australia the climate is forever trying to roast, dehydrate, bewilder and confuse you. The plants might prickle, poison and burn if you’re foolish enough to brush against them and, as for the animals, they’re surely plotting ways to hurt, maim and actively humiliate you. Wild Australia indeed! But Ray Mears, the celebrity bushman, is tough enough to navigate his way through.
“It feels amazing to be alive in a wild place like this,” he enthuses. In this new series he’ll explore six of Australia’s most dramatic places and the creature who live there, taking in The Great Barrier Reef, rainforests, wetlands and hot red deserts.
Tonight he begins in the stunning blue waters around the Barrier Reef and enjoys whale-watching and a spot of swimming with a manta ray.
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