Speed with Guy Martin, Channel 4, Monday at 7.30pm
Great television isn’t much different to the rest of life - it works best with integrity.
Guy Martin is back for a third series of Speed, the programme where the mad northerner takes on challenges to break speed records in every kind of vehicle imaginable.
In a 90-minute long series opener, he was in Nevada competing against supercars on a closed highway.
The Nevada Open Road Challenge takes place on a 90-mile stretch of the state’s motorway, closed for a single day.
Because there are no barriers, even spectators aren’t allowed.
Most competitors drive the beautiful desert road in Porsches and Lamborghinis, Martin did it in his work Transit van, albeit with a little bit of help from some expert mechanics.
Most of the show was taken up with the mechanics as his battered van is kitted out with a turbocharged engine, a wing at the back, aerodynamic skirting and plenty of reinforcing in case he crashed.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a TV challenge unless the team ran out of time, meaning the sixth-gear didn’t work properly.
As it turned out, second gear wasn’t great either, but as Martin spent most of the course travelling above 150mph, second wasn’t essential.
The team even won the prize for the best looking car.
However, the fact that - as per tradition - it’s judged by the prostitutes at the local brothel left Martin a bit embarrassed.
“Bloody hell, I didn’t know what to say when the girls came over to look at the van.”
But Martin is the real thing. He’s not a professional television presenter who can fake interest in anything.
Martin is a real speed freak, who almost killed himself riding our own North-West 200 and who works as a truck mechanic between making television programmes.
Doing the race in the van may have been a decision made with a TV show in mind, but Martin was genuine in his desire to do it.
“Bringing a van over to America to race would be mint,” he says, before adding repeatedly: “I love that van.”
As it turns out, his Transit van of three years had been crashed and written off, with Martin buying it back off the insurance company for £900 before its conversion to a speed machine.
Watch it on 4OD, you’ll love it. If you’re a true petrol head there’s also the full 36-minute dash cam view of the race.
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Strictly Come Dancing, BBC 1, Sunday at 8pm
X-Factor, UTV, Saturday at 8.25pm and Sunday at 8pm
Strictly looks set to finally kill off X-Factor in the annual autumn battle between the two biggest stations.
The dance fest has become so used to winning the ratings war, it has the confidence of a champion.
The season opening party was as glitzy as one of the sequin dance dresses and there was also a celebration of judge Len's contribution to the show after the announcement that it would be his last season.
Over on UTV, X-Factor is so stale that the line up has regressed about five years.
Simon and Louis are doing their best with copious amounts of botox and fillers, but there's no hiding the 2010 feel.
The figures didn't lie. Strictly got 10.3 million viewers. X-Factor recovered from a disastrous 6.8 million in week one, to 8.2 million last Saturday.
X-Factor's contract is up for renewal next year and it may be the beginning of the end for Simon Cowell's show.
For the BBC it will bring fresh questions as to why a public sector broadcaster spends so much on such fluff.
