Sex in Court
(E4. Thursday. 10PM)

“If no-one’s interested in your life, then you obviously don’t have one”. Well, according to Paris Hilton, anyway. And it’s a philosophy seemingly shared by the participants E4’s Sex In Court – a rabble of shameless oddities who agree to have their sex lives scrutinised and debated in front of a mass television audience.

But what Paris and the Court participants don’t realise is that there’s a glaring difference between your life and your sex life. And that interest in the latter proves very little about the former.

So what has happened so far on Sex In Court? Well, you may be surprised to read that there has yet to be any real sex in court. Although, E4 have come pretty close – the jury (and the leering audience) have been treated to a rather steamy home video. If television has ever come closer to showing unsimulated sex in a court, then I’ve been rather fortunate in its avoidance.

But the video wasn’t shown just to titillate the audience. Oh no. It was a crucial piece of evidence. You see, Joanne had brought her boyfriend Ashley before the court, complaining that he’d secretly filmed one of their sex sessions, and had shown the footage to his mates.

So both parties were thoroughly cross examined (Well, not quite – Joanne claimed to be ‘devastated and humiliated’ that Ashley’s friends had been shown the footage, yet she had no qualms about letting the E4 audience see it), the jury (twelve ordinary people, we’re told. I have my doubts) returned a verdict, and the judge passed an appropriate sentence.

Taste issues aside, Sex In Court is a nasty little specimen. For a start, it’s victim to rather dire editing. During their deliberation the jury constantly refer to things said but (thanks to terrible editing) not shown. Call me old fashioned, but before I pass judgment on someone, I’d like to see all the evidence.

Which is exactly why I'll wait until the end of the series before I pass verdict on Sex In Court. After all, it would be a tad unfair to write the programme off as pure and unmitigated tasteless filth... wouldn't it?

Balls of Steel
(Channel 4. Friday. 10PM (Sadly finished)

Some people accuse Balls of Steel of promoting anti-social behaviour – which is hardly the sharpest observation. Strip away the fast-foot hurling, public ridiculing and happy slapping from Balls of Steel and there really isn’t much left. To say that Balls of Steel promotes anti-social behaviour is like saying The God Channel promotes Christianity.

But it’s not just anti-social behaviour which is portrayed as hilarious and wholesome fun. There’s homophobia too (A regular sketch involves propositioning the public with the riotously funny catchphrase ‘Fancy a bum?’) and the mocking of the physically disabled (Another involves a female contestant pretending to have an outrageous limp to test the reaction of the menfolk).

The Guardian’s Sam Wollaston calls this ‘the televisual equivalent of a kebab’ – again, not the most acute analysis. You can work that much out from the programme’s time slot: 10PM on Friday, on Channel 4 – the home of lowest-common-denominator post-pub idiocy.

But let’s extend Wollaston’s metaphor a bit. Sometimes you’re KFC drunk – it’s 11PM and you’re drunk enough to show a reckless disregard for the titans of capitalism, and buy a KFC. Other times you’re kebab drunk – it’s 2AM and you’re drunk enough to show a reckless disregard for the fundamentals of food hygiene, so you go for a kebab.

Imagine Charlotte Church is Channel 4’s KFC (Not hard to imagine – she’s greasy, heavily manufactured and devoid of any goodness whatsoever). Then Balls of Steel is Channel 4’s kebab – it’s what they screen when they can’t even get Charlotte Church or Alan Carr. The phrase ‘bottom of the barrel’ was invented for moments like this.

So what delightful jokes does Balls of Steel offer? Well there’s Neg – a man whose obnoxious behaviour proves he’s perfectly suited to his caveman sounding moniker. His idea of a good time (And Balls of Steel’s idea of a ruddy good laugh) consists of leaping on the back of a member of the public, and riding them how a cowboy would a horse.

Then there’s Thalia Zucchi – former member (alongside such fountains of talents as Darren from Hollyoaks) of little remembered nineties’ pop band allSTARS*, a band whose delightful television show STARStreet ironed out the path for Miami 7 and the Spiceworld movie. Her slot is dedicated to testing the tempers on unsuspecting females.

And then there are Mike ‘Pancho’ Locke and Dainton Pritchard performing a regurgitated version of their Dirty Sanchez routine. They’re still hammering nails between their toes and rubbing raw onions in their eyes like YouTube was never invented.

The Real Hustle (BBC3, Thursday, 10.30PM)

BBC Three thrives on being edgy. Just look at its programme names. They’re deliberately engineered to shock the flippant Freeview channel hopper – to lure you into taking a second look.

There are the ballsy ones – sometimes they’re so assertive that they sound more like a fag-breathed cider-spitting invitation to a pub brawl than a reputable documentary (Fuck Off, I’m Ginger. April 3rd. 10 PM).

Other programmes choose to style their names like a demented homage to those gasp-inducing taboo-mocking talk-show taglines (Help! My Dog Is As Fat Me. April 9th. 8.30PM) – it’s as if The Jeremy Kyle Show were a macabre creation of Will Self.

And it’s not just window dressing – some of the content is genuinely shocking. Take The Real Hustle – BBC Three’s smarmy and tasteless crimewave of a programme which has just returned for a third series.

It’s a sadistic piece of work which follows three dastardly hustlers as they take to the streets and con the British public, before mocking them for their own stupidity. It’s the sort of thing that only the BBC, unblemished by phone-in swindles or premium rate guessing games, could get away with.

They’ve got the full spectrum of crooks onboard – all that’s missing is the archetypal Nigerian fraudster. There’s Alex; ‘the confidence trickster’ – think a cross between notorious conman Charles Ponzi and a Top Shop Mannequin.

Then there’s Paul; ‘the scam artist’ – he’s like a soulless phone-shop salesman who’s crossed over to the darkside. And finally, Jess; ‘the sexy swindler’ – a British glamour model whose CV is rich with names like Playboy and Nuts. She’s there to lure in the 18-30 demographic, while the other two induce the paranoia which will root them to their seats.

Despite the programme’s success (it’s just been snapped up by a top American network – a glowing certificate of success if ever there were one), it’s brimming with flaws. And the show has faced a blogosphere backlash with sharp-eyed spoilsports arguing that the show’s scams are faked.

And they may be right. How else can you explain the use of multiple camera angles and startlingly clear footage?

Other scams are suspicious for different reasons. Take the ‘proposition bet’ segment, in which Jessica heads to a trendy bar, sips at a chemical corporate lager before proceeding to con free drinks out of the punters by inducing them into proposition bets.

It sounds impressive, but that’s before you see the hair-gelled leering primates that Jess approaches. They’re the sort of hormone-saturated specimens who spend three pounds on a Kelly Brook wallpaper for their mobile phone. She could probably just ask them for the drinks and they’d happily oblige.

So what has kept the show afloat for three series? My guess is it’s that same perverted fascination with crime which propels criminals' confessions into the top slots of the book charts.

Or it could just be Britain’s growing paranoia. That horrible feeling that everyone’s out to get you – or at the very least steal your identity and credit card details. The sort of state of fear which keeps people like John Reid in power. Either way, it doesn’t look good.