Five Guys a Week: What the Must Watch reviewers think

Tuesday 10 March 2020, 16:29

Every week, the Must Watch podcasters review the biggest TV and streaming shows.

This week, Hayley Campbell and Scott Bryan share their thoughts on Five Guys a Week.

The Channel 4 dating show sees a single woman welcome five men into her home at the same time, to answer the question “how do you know if someone is right for you until you’ve lived with them?”

Have you watched it? What did you think? Leave your comments below...

Listen to the latest episode of the Must Watch podcast on BBC Sounds.

Subscribe here, and never miss an episode.

(Photo: Channel 4)

Hayley says: “It’s like watching a nature documentary where desperate lions in horrible shirts are trying to win the female”

“I loved listening to everyone explaining why they were single. It’s illuminating and brilliant. You sit there and think ‘I don’t think THAT’s why you’re single’. And then they say ‘I know what women want, and it’s pineapple-scented cologne’ and you say ‘No. It isn’t’.

“This show is like watching a nature documentary where desperate lions in horrible tight shirts are trying to win the female. This guy, a singer-songwriter, goes ‘I know how to win this situation, I’m going to get out the acoustic guitar’ and everyone knows the guy at the party who gets out the acoustic guitar is the worst man in the world. I wanted to call the police and save this woman.

“The thing that made this different from other dating shows, is that I really liked seeing everybody’s horrifying realisations about their sad lives when they’re smashed up against everybody else’s lives. They’re comparing their money, muscles, wardrobes and everybody leaves feeling awful about themselves. There’s this existential horror that doesn’t exist in other TV shows.

“It’s not a Must Watch for me, but it’s closer than other dating shows.”

(Photo: Channel 4)

Scott says: "It hailed back to the hedonistic days of Wife Swap"

"As the episode starts, you have Amy from Hertfordshire, she was married and now is single, and her mother says to her ‘I don’t think you should be participating in this reality show, where five men come over and try to woo you’ and she’s a bit like ‘no, this is fine’. And then they all turn up and it’s got that vibe of a Come Dine with Me episode where they all go into a taxi around the block once and give reviews. You can tell part way through that she really wants some of those people to leave, and they can’t.

"For me, the bit where they go clubbing together has the feeling and the atmosphere of every single nightclub experience that everyone has had at some time or another, where they fancy somebody, but that person is making out with someone else on the dance floor and there’s this bitter, rawness in your soul. It’s something that is so awkward and horrible about the whole thing.

"I’m going to say it is a Must Watch for me. It feels so much in the spirit of Channel 4 doing absurd social experiments in the late nineties. It hailed back to the hedonistic days of Wife Swap, which were sometimes bad, but this was funny and it gave a fresh perspective. But I never want to do this in real life."