River Cottage, Thursday 8pm, Channel 4

Posted by Jane Murphy

Say what you like about Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall - but he does pack a lot into each episode of River Cottage. Last night’s series opener saw him visit Gloucestershire’s premiere perry-maker, forage for mushrooms in the woods, cook a campfire lunch for a bunch of tree-planters, free-dive for scallops and squeeze in the obligatory jolly little scene in which he heads off to the abattoir with one of his livestock.

But the strange thing is he never seems to be rushing to squeeze all this in. On the contrary, there are times when the programme almost starts to drag. Yesterday, for example, there was a scene in which we watched him munch his way through a slice of straight-from-the-oven pear cake for what seemed like five minutes. Ah, life is much more laid-back and leisurely down on the farm…

Hugh’s visit to perry-meister Dave Casper certainly did its job because by the end of the segment, I was gagging for a glass of perry simply because they’d made it look so tasty and inviting. To clarify, this is proper perry, made with fresh West Country pears - not to be confused with its dysfunctional relative, processed pear cider (the mere mention of which actually made Hugh gob on the ground).

However, the highlight of the show for me was Hugh’s free-diving lesson, in which he learnt to hold his breath underwater for more than three minutes (don’t try this at home, kids). He then dived down into the sea at Weymouth and produced handfuls of perfect-looking scallops, which looked almost too good to be true. It later transpired they’d been “planted” there by professional divers John and Bryn, just to ensure Hugh would have something nice to cook for their tea. Now, that’s just cheating.

In saying all this, I’m trying to banish from my mind the image of Hugh throwing a two-foot long ox tongue into his offal stew shortly after sending his two-year-old steer to slaughter. I mean, really. Couldn’t he just have baked another nice cake instead?

So what did you think of last night‘s River Cottage? Have your say here.

Picture: Channel 4

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Wonderland: I Won University Challenge, Thursday 9.45pm, BBC Two

Posted by Tom Murphy

One of the lovely silly things about British TV is how much we love University Challenge. From the film Starter for 10 to this year's outbreak of Trimblemania, “Britain's poshest pub quiz” (as one of the participants in this documentary calls it) still exerts a hold, even after 47 years.

This programme tracked down 10 of the 156 winning team members, from Francis Lambert (New College Oxford, 1964) to Susannah Darby (Christ Church Oxford, 2008), to find out how the experience had changed their lives. The quick answer: not very much at all.

While the 10 people interviewed had a wild variety of life stories, not many of them had much to do with winning University Challenge. In fact, any random group of high-performing students would probably have thrown up a similar range of experiences.

The Schoolboy Who Sailed the World, Thursday 9pm, Channel 4

Posted by Will Parkhouse

If you watch The X Factor, you’ll probably be under the impression that it’s the dream of most teenagers to win The X Factor. And that if you don’t help them fulfil this dream by phoning in your vote, they’ll cry and make you feel bad.

Not so 16-year-old schoolboy Mike Perham. Tonight's documentary begins with him staring out the classroom window imagining himself becoming the youngest person ever to sail alone non-stop around the world. Fewer than 200 people have succeeded in this – that’s people full stop, not under-18s – and apparently it’s quite a long way, so his dream is more than a little ambitious.

From the evidence of the programme, it isn’t be unfair to suggest that father Peter, also a sailor, is about as enthusiastic about the challenge as Mike: “It’s not just my dream, the trip – it’s mine and my dad’s,” says the youngster, which certainly sets off the Orange Towers Pushy Parent alarm bells.

Naked Britain, Monday 9pm, Sky1

Posted by Tom Murphy

Naked wobbly bits: love them or hate them, you can't ignore them. Well, actually you can most of the time. But Sky has decided that now is the right time for telegenic biologist Dr Jack Lewis (above right) to investigate the question the nation has been asking: “Do all these tits and bums really shock us?”

However, even with some earnest contributions from psychologists and other experts, calling Naked Britain an investigation is probably overcooking it a bit. Both of last night's half-hour episodes struggled to uncover any real controversy as they hared through various flimsily linked aspects of nudity in modern Britain.

The Event: How Racist are You?, Thursday 10pm, Channel 4

Posted by Tom Murphy

 

In the late 1960s, a US primary school teacher named Jane Elliott was horrified by the racial segregation and injustice she saw taking place around her. So, she devised a controversial experiment that she hoped would demonstrate to her all-white class how poisonous and destructive racism was.

Forty years on, Channel 4 brought Jane Elliott to the UK to re-enact her "blue eye/brown eye" experiment, to see if she could lay bare the degree of racism at the heart of our society. However, what worked with eight-year-olds in a remote part of the American Mid-West didn't have quite the same effect on a group of adults from multicultural 21st-century Britain.

Katie: My Beautiful Face, Thursday 9pm, Channel 4

Posted by Will Parkhouse

"This is me as a TV presenter on a shopping channel," said Katie Piper at the start of last night's Channel 4 documentary, pointing to an image of herself on a telly screen. "This is me modelling – I was in the national newspapers... This is me and my friends in Chinawhite - we used to go out abut four or five nights a week clubbing." And then: "This is me on CCTV - he's a complete stranger and he threw acid in my face."

It was a shocking introduction to the programme, even if you already knew what was coming. But as each detail emerged, the horrendous nature of the 25-year-old's ordeal gradually sunk in. And that "ordeal" included not just the incident itself, but what went before, what followed and what still continues for Katie.

Who Made Me Fat?, Wednesday 9pm, BBC Three

Posted by Will Parkhouse

Michael Moore's got a lot to answer for – and we're not talking about the fact that he's largely responsible for eating all the pies. No, the US film-maker's love of standing outside fat cats' offices with a megaphone and a group of bedraggled recruits has apparently not been forgotten.

Last night's Who Made Me Fat? contained several examples of the genre – although each seemed to end with presenter Becca Wilcox and her gang being moved along by security, opening the door for the 21^st-century documentary's favourite segue phrase: "But I wasn't going to give up that easily…"

Around the World In 80 Days, Tuesday 9pm, BBC One

Posted by Liberty Jones

          
This new series sees six pairs of celebrities race against the clock in an ambitious global relay to raise money for Children In Need, re-enacting the epic odysseys of Phileas Fogg and Michael Palin for a 21st century audience. It’s a fun idea – and a very worthy cause – but we were disappointed by this opener, which saw comedians Frank Skinner and Lee Mack travel from London to Istanbul.

The show made for a perfectly pleasant diversion while we were doing the ironing, but Skinner and Mack were sorely lacking in the charisma department. The pair were so busy getting on and off public transport (in the spirit of Fogg and Palin, flying is banned) they scarcely had time to meet any of the locals.

When they did, the encounters were less than riveting. We found ourselves glazing over as they played billiards with a member of the Serbian royal family, while Skinner’s observation that the blankets on the Eurostar were “a bit coarse” was similarly yawnsome.

There were a few lighthearted moments on the 2,500-mile trek. We were intrigued to discover that Skinner owns a pair of personalised pyjamas, printed with photos of himself meeting various celebrities. “I can’t really wear them,” he told Mack. “When you pick up a young woman and take her home, you can’t say, ‘I’m just going to slip into something more egocentric’.”

Later, the pair shopped for gifts for their significant others in a Turkish market. One stall holder offered them a potent local herb. “If you drink it you can make love five times a night,” he explained. "Five times?" Skinner replied with a straight face. “Is it a sedative?”

For the most part, however, the laughs were few and far between, as the sheer unrelenting pace of the journey took its toll on the participants. Next week, Apprentice stars Nick Hewer and Saira Khan accept the baton. Let’s hope they can pick up the pace – in every sense of the word.

Picture: BBC

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Life, Monday 9pm, BBC One

Posted by Jane Murphy

Well, what can I say? Serving as a timely reminder to the growing army of Beeb-baiters that not all of our licence fee money goes towards lining the pockets of Jonathan Ross and various loose-lipped ballroom dancers, last night’s Life was a prime example of funds well spent.

It took three years of painstaking research and filming across the globe to come up with the footage for this fabulous natural history programme. Its aim? To show the extraordinary survival strategies employed by some of the planet’s 30 million animals and plants.

Highlights from the opening episode? A trio of cheetahs in Kenya collaborating to bring down an ostrich twice their size (although that ostrich does deserve a posthumous medal for putting up a sterling fight); brown-tufted capuchin monkeys in Brazil perfecting the complex art of nut-smashing (not as painful as it sounds); and the Antarctic penguins forced to teach themselves to swim while trying to avoid the jaws of hungry seals.

Naturally, the 10-part series is narrated by Sir David Attenborough - whose familiar, comforting tone somehow reminds me of the equally homely voiceover on the Mr Kipling cake ads. This is the ultimate in escapist TV - an eye-opening, entertaining, educational programme that takes you on a whistle-stop tour around some of the natural wonders of the world.

Plus there was an added bonus. I’m sure I’m not alone in having spent much of the first 45 minutes of the programme wondering how they’d managed to get such amazing footage. At one point, I even suspected it was all done with CGI trickery. But the final 10-minute film diary - showing the camera crew in the Antarctic - gave an incredible insight into how much hard work, talent and patience had gone into the making of Life.

What did you think of last night’s Life? Tell us here.

Picture: BBC

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Alex: A Passion for Life, Thursday 9pm, Channel 4

Posted by Will Parkhouse

For most of us, "taking care of yourself" means, maybe limiting yourself to just the one chocolate bar a day and doing the odd bit of exercise. For Alex Stobbs, it means eating 10 Twixes and 8 packets of crisps every day. I know, great, right?

Well, not really. Just 19, Alex has cystic fibrosis, an incurable lung-destroying disease, which means he has to spend every day pouring calories down his throat as well as platefuls of pills – and this is just to stay alive. Determined to make the most of every moment, he lives life at double speed, which means he tends to burn off calories faster than anyone else and… Oh, you get the idea.