Something wasn’t right here. I was watching Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins (Channel 4, Sunday) and the deal was the same as ever: a gaggle of reality TV faces, athletes, actors and assorted coat-tail travellers are shipped to the middle of nowhere to be put through hell by ex-special forces soldiers while the viewers sit cosy at home, snickering.
Only this time one of the “slebs” was bothering me. It was Rachel Johnson, journalist and brother of you know who, and it was not for the reasons you might think.
Johnson talks a good game about being a tough old bird. Sent to a boys’ prep school when she was 10 don’t you know, and then there’s being a Johnson. “I’m a member of the most unpopular family in the country, so whatever happens I can survive,” she said.
Things got darker from there. When the instructors called her in for one of their heart-to-heart chats about why she wanted to do the show she said: “I have been a punchbag for a very long time.”
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Whatever you think about her brother, or her, nothing merits the public bullying she seems to have been through, including strangers coming up to her in Sainsbury’s and calling her family “c****”. Was a reality TV SAS course really the best place to deal with this?
The same could be asked of the chap from The Only Way is Essex who was afraid of everything. Maybe I’m getting soft, although I cheered, along with everyone else watching, when John Barrowman quit halfway through the first episode.
There was more who dares wins style derring-do on Into the Jungle with Ed Stafford (Channel 4, Tuesday), only this time the people under pressure were six “ordinary dads” and their children.
In each case there was something in the relationship that the dad and son/daughter wanted to fix. One dad was over-protective, another was old-fashioned, that sort of thing. Where else to tackle what ailed them than Belize, home to explorer and expedition leader Ed Stafford.
Ed started by sending the dads on a two-hour hike through the jungle followed by a 25 feet dive off a cliff into deep waters. Ed was not messing around.
We were introduced to each duo through the time-honoured method of interviews at home on the sofa. But the jungle was where raw emotions came to the surface. When the going got tough tears were spilled, and not just by the children.
This was a heart-in-the-mouth, watch-through-the-fingers, experience at times but it produced some exhilarating moments. The children had never seen their dads like this, and the dads had never imagined themselves in this situation. I did wonder what would have happened if it had been mums rather than dads feeling the fear but doing stuff anyway (albeit with a safety team standing by). Terrific television and a worthy successor to Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams.
Apples Never Fall (BBC1, Saturday) is the latest glossy streaming drama to arrive on the BBC. Hailing from the novel by Liane Moriarty, it is set firmly in the world associated with the best-selling author of Big Little Lies.
In Moriarty country the sun always shines, the homes are fabulous, and women waft around in cashmere that will never see the inside of a washing machine. Everything is perfect - until the day something wicked this way comes.
Apples Never Fall opens with central character Joy Delaney (Annette Bening no less), cycling through her West Palm Beach neighbourhood. Having recently sold their successful tennis academy, Joy and her husband Stan (Sam Neill) are free to do what they said they always wanted - spend more time with their four children, all now adults.
But what is this? The bike has been knocked over, there is blood on the frame, and Joy is nowhere to be seen.
“I can feel it. Something bad has happened to her,” says one of the Delaney sprogs, clearly familiar with the Moriarty way. Texts and calls to mum are not being returned, but dad insists there’s no mystery and nothing to worry about.
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From there we look back and forth from past to present like people watching a tennis game. Of course the place is hoaching with secrets and lies, but working out what’s what is part of the fun, even if you have trouble swallowing the initial set-up. Would anyone be so welcoming of a stranger? And no matter how shiny Apples looks it is no White Lotus. But hey, it’s free (save for the licence fee).
It’s been eight years, can you believe, since The Good Place brought the good thing that is Kirsten Bell to most people’s attention. Nothing has quite matched that since, but the romantic comedy Nobody Wants This (Netflix) looks like a contender. Bell plays Joanne, who makes podcasts (I know, but bear with) about her disastrous love life.
Then she meets a rabbi at a party (I know, again, but bear with) and the pair fall for each other, hard, despite what their families and friends think. It’s sharp, funny, and Bell’s character is kick-ass enough to make it through an SAS course any day.
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