Remote Control - Saturday 05 September 2013

Stacey serves up television hangover
Stacey DooleyStacey Dooley
Stacey Dooley

Once it was must view shock TV but the send a camera crew to the hot spots of the Med and watch the kids go wild genre has run its course.

So it was particularly disappointing to see the BBC send rising star Stacey Dooley to Europe’s latest sunshine resort on a mission to film boozed up Brits letting their hair down.

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Since first hitting the screens as a precocious 21-year-old she has forged a career as an investigative reporter who is not afraid of stepping into the frontline.

But there is a world of difference between fronting up sex traffickers, child soldiers and drug dealers and joining a bunch of 18-30s on a bar crawl.

Booze, Bar Crawls and Bulgaria (BBC Three, Mon) saw Dooley take to the strip in the Black Sea resort of Sunny Beach to witness what happens when sun and cheap alcohol mix in a heady holiday cocktail.

As depressing as some of the scenes were - youngsters vomiting in doorways, couples have drunken sex in public - there was little to learn here.

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And you suspected Dooley knew it as she half heartedly tried to get one young reveller to explain why he urinated off a balcony the previous evening.

Even her mission to buy the ‘freely available’ drugs failed to throw up any great revelations.

The one area she did discover and seized upon was the plethora of private medical centres and the bills they charged for patching up injured holidaymakers.

But there’s little sympathy for someone hit with a £250 bill for a couple of self-inflicted stitches.

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The great skill Dooley has is the ability to gain access where others don’t and to quiz the right people but this is wasted when the toughest call she gets is to express disappointment at the local mayor for not wanting to condemn the people who fuel his economy.

While not condoning the behaviour of some holidaymakers in Sunny Beach she ended up appearing a joyless soul among her contemporaries which is a waste for someone whose earlier series demonstrate clearly has a talent for investigative television.Mike Hill

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