Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins review: It looks like these 'snowflake' stars can't deal with the impending apocalypse
Watching the new series of Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins (Channel 4, Sun/Mon, 9pm) you can't help wondering who would be doing the firing first – the 'celebs' or their agents.
Maybe they thought SAS stood for 'spas and saunas', but from the first couple of episodes it's clear either the agents hadn't done their research, or their clients had overestimated their own capabilities.
Yes, the show – “a condensed version of special forces training” – is supposed to be tough, but even by its own standards, losing four participants within the first two days looks, to paraphrase Lady Bracknell, less like misfortune and more like carelessness.
Judging by the filmed inserts of the celebs talking ahead of the course, I'm putting most of my money on the responsibility lying firmly in their hands.
Former S Club 7 pop singer Hannah Spearritt claims “I quite like a bit of pain”, before telling us “I don't think I'll quit on the first day”.
Louis Spence, former dancer and perpetual reality show contestant is just as adamant about his own abilities.
“I'm a survivor,” he tells us, “the worst way for me to leave the course would be for me to choose to leave.”
Of course, he chooses to leave.
Two further stars – Strictly Come Dancing's Tasha Ghouri and Love Island's Chloe Burrows – leave in the second episode.
This rate of attrition makes you think they don't make reality show contestants like they used to – after all Georgia Harrison, another Love Island graduate, passed last year's course and previous series have seen Strictly pros, DJs and TOWIE stars all make it through.
But maybe the stakes are higher this time around.
The burly shouty men who run the course are very fond of telling us how scary the world is these days, with barely a moment passing without one or other of them reminding us of the impending apocalypse.
“The world is a dangerous place,” says one. “As a country we need to be ready.”
Another glares down the camera while telling us “the realism of war and conflict is on our doorstep”.
Not satisfied with scaring the bejeezus out of us, he goes on: “We may all be called to the battlefield, called to defend.”
With such Cassandras running things, it's no wonder that some of the celebs take the nihilist's way out and decide to embrace our collective doom. As the late, great Tom Lehrer sang, “we'll all go together when we go”.
This year's crop of pretend squaddies, however, does seem set up to fail as they are seemingly evenly split between people famous for being famous on the celebrity will eat itself reality show circuit – Burrows. Spence, Rebecca Loos – and professional sportspeople and hard-nuts, such as ex-footballer Troy Deeney and boxer Conor Benn.
Sitting uneasily in the middle are those like drag artist Bimini, singer Lucy Spraggan and Michaela McCollum – who's sole claim to fame is being convicted of smuggling drugs in Peru.
It's these people in the middle who are most interesting – what is it that drives them to survive? Why don't they quit like their fellow pampered stars? What keeps them there without the discipline of professional sport?
The mini-interrogations they have with the team in charge should provide some clues, although so far we have yet to see any from those caught between the two ends of the celebrity SAS spectrum.
However, they have provided clues to the psyches of some of the other participants, and because of that, these quieter moments are far more interesting and engaging than seeing our stars dangling off a rope or jumping into the sea.
Deeney, for example, carries the scars of an abusive father and a jail sentence early in his football career.
In a moment of personal reflection, he says: “I'm tired... I'm hoping this course will break me down so I can rebuild and be truly happy with myself.”
If only the other stars had been as honest with their agents – and themselves.