SAS: Who Dares Wins (Channel 4, Sundays) is literally the only programme left on terrestrial TV that I can bear to watch any more. And I’m only slightly exaggerating. Where else, anywhere from the BBC to Channel 4, would you see a woman being punched in the face and made to cry by an ex-SAS soldier for your amusement and delectation? Where else would the competition not be rigged in one way or another so as to ensure that the appropriate race and gender mix made it through to the end?
Yes, of course it was shocking a few weeks back watching midwife Louise Gabbitas, 29, get thumped several times in the head by a bloke. Especially when we viewers knew that he was in fact undercover ex-special forces and had been sent to spy on her.
But this rigour and integrity is what makes this series so watchable and so worthwhile. The idea is that 25 ordinary (but superfit) members of the public are put through a simulacrum of the SAS recruitment process: repeated immersion in freezing sea; stomach-lurching crawls along ropes over yawning chasms; sleep deprivation; endless shouting and punishments for the smallest infractions. Clearly it wouldn’t be nearly so worthwhile making it through to the end if it wasn’t decided on merit.
Gabbitas herself certainly thinks so. As she told a paper: ‘From the start we were made aware that we would be treated as the equal of the men and that there would be no changes, allowances or exceptions for any of us.’
Currently we’re in the midst of the interrogation phase and it’s so brutal (four hours in a stress position with recordings of crying babies in your headphones) it makes The Krypton Factor look like Love Island.
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