Sexy Beasts is BBC Threes magnificent apotheosis and its dizzying plummet into the abyss. So ingeniously banal in conception, and so overwhelmingly mediocre in execution, it can only be interpreted as an act of seppuku committed by a legion of gak-crazed commissioning editors. Its also the only time Satan has been incarnated as a socially inept Geordie bodybuilder, which is exactly how the channel had to die. It consists of two ideas smooshed together and pursued with autistic determination. That first idea barely constitutes sentient thought- its a dating show, right? The second is just witless- but theyre wearing make-up, yeah? Which would be passable TV if the make-up werent rubbish. But it is. It makes Guy Pearces old man mask in Prometheus look like the definition of verisimilitude. On a show like this, where its the central conceit, it ruins the implied tension. Were supposed to believe that one of these nomarks might be John Merricks inbred cousin, but the prosthetics conform so closely to their faces you can tell they have to memorise a phone books worth of numbers before a night out. BBC Three clearly applied the gimmick because simply filming hotties on dates has already been done by Channel Four. It could still have been funny and surprising, but the unconvincing make-up- not to mention a rote structure- makes it predictable and tedious. Admittedly, the two episodes broadcast were only pilots, but with the channel now marking time, why bother diverting resources to a series?