Many of you must be committed fans of Eating With My Ex. BBC Three has made the series a cornerstone of the channel’s return to terrestrial television, after five years in online-only exile. For those of you who haven’t seen it, the programme involves old flames being reunited for a meal. Over food and drink of varying appeal, they pick over the bones of their relationships, wondering where it all went wrong. Sometimes there is still a vibe. Sometimes they have reached an inert détente. Sometimes there is only bitterness and recrimination. You can guess which of these makes for better television.
It is perfectly snackable, as voyeuristic low-intensity formats go, but it’s not obviously the kind of unmissable television for which you would bring a channel back from the dead. Later this year, BBC Three will be leaning on Conversations With Friends, the adaptation of Sally Rooney’s first book by the same production team who brought her second novel, Normal People, to such horny life in 2020. In the meantime, viewers can look forward to The Fast and the Farmerish, a kind of Jeremy Clarkson ultra-tribute that combines Top Gear and Clarkson’s Farm into a single programme in which teams of young people race tractors.
