IT'S a sad state of affairs when you can point to American TV and say: that's the sort of public service documentaries we should be doing.
While the BBC seems to think trawling council lists for eateries with a bad environmental health track record and then doing some undercover filming in there constitutes riveting TV, niche satellite channel FX is serving up something completely different.
To Catch A Predator (FX, 10pm, Wednesdays) is incredibly simple: Researchers pretend to be teenage girls on internet chat rooms, and wait until perverts start talking to them. The researchers, making it clear they are 14 or 15 years old, then invite the perverts over, claiming their parents will be away. Before they are invited over, the perverts have already made it clear what their intentions are.
Said pervert arrives at the house, where the researcher, who is in her 20s but could pass for 15, invites them in and then disappears for a minute. Once she disappears, an anchor from NBC walks in, with a camera crew. And this is where it becomes riveting.
It's their reactions. Depending on how stupid they are, the perverts either run outside (where armed police force them to the ground) or they stay and try and deny it to Chris Hanson, the NBC anchor. At which point, Chris starts reciting some of the conversations they have had with the researcher/teenage girl online. Conversations which are, quite frankly, disgusting.
In any given show, they'll catch maybe a dozen blokes, all of who turn up to the same house one by one during the course of a day Amazingly, some of those men admit to having watched the series - but still thought they could get away with it.
There are those who claim it is entrapment, those who claim it turns a very dangerous crime into entertainment. Those in the latter camp are right to a degree. It is entertainment. But the entertainment isn't the crime, it's watching those who want to commit a revolting act get instant justice, and realise that they as predator have suddenly turned prey. Common decency is fighting back. And that's before they actually go before the court - as the majority of them do.
In his Express column at the weekend, presenter Richard Madeley argues it should be made in this country. He's quite right. It should. Perhaps instead of the likes of Rogue Restaurants (Thursday, BBC 1, 8pm). The latter is a naff, presenter-led programme which seems to go to great lengths to find restaurants with poor hygiene and revel in the fact that such places exist. But then again, the council knew these places were problematic - that's why Rogue Restaurants is going after them. The crime here is the fact the councils aren't checking up on these establishments, but Rogue Restaurants wouldn't want to bite the hand that feeds it, no matter how rotten, would it?
I make it USA 1, UK 0 in the shows-that-make-a-difference stakes. How sad.
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