10 Shows That Prove BBC Three's Cancellation Is Actually A Good Thing

2. Sexy Beasts (2014)

Sexy Beasts is BBC Three€™s 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. It€™s 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- €˜it€™s a dating show, right?€™ The second is just witless- €˜but they€™re wearing make-up, yeah?€™ Which would be passable TV if the make-up weren€™t rubbish. But it is. It makes Guy Pearce€™s old man mask in Prometheus look like the definition of verisimilitude. On a show like this, where it€™s the central conceit, it ruins the implied tension. We€™re supposed to believe that one of these nomarks might be John Merrick€™s inbred cousin, but the prosthetics conform so closely to their faces you can tell they have to memorise a phone book€™s 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?