Game shows on TV used to mean making a bit of a fool of yourself to win a cuddly toy or a chequebook-and-pen. Not any more.
In what could be the most tasteless, unethical format ever devised, Channel 4 has found a way to turn the human trafficking crisis into reality TV.
Go Back To Where You Came From takes four knuckle-dragging publicity seekers and a pair of brainwashed Leftie virtue signallers, dumps them in distant war zones, and challenges them to make their way back to the UK via the people-smuggling routes — culminating in a Channel crossing in an inflatable dinghy.
But first, they get a tour of the world's worst hellholes, with three sent to a refugee camp in Somalia and the others sleeping rough in a bombed-out apartment block in Syria.
A team of former special forces soldiers are on hand to keep them from being shot, kidnapped or blown up.
The six are confronted with children scavenging for food, traumatised gang rape victims, and streets awash with sewage.
If, like me, you imagined that Ofcom, the broadcasting watchdog, must have rules about the exploitation of desperate refugees for crass entertainment — well, apparently not.
The six Brits are encouraged to gawp, bicker, snivel and, of course, swear at everything they see, giving viewers licence to do exactly the same.
In what could be the most tasteless, unethical format ever devised, Channel 4 has found a way to turn the human trafficking crisis into reality TV .
The four anti-migrant participants are a haulage boss with tattoos up his neck, a chef called Dave with mince for brains (pictured), an arrogant Welsh lesbian who labels all migrants 'rapists' and 'paedophiles', and an entitled 'social media manager' called Chloe
The six are confronted with children scavenging for food, traumatised gang rape victims, and streets awash with sewage
How it is possible to make television so shallow out of suffering so intense, I'm at a loss to understand.
The producers achieve it by supercharging the worst elements of other Ch4 shows: the life-on-the-run concept from Hunted, the macho posturing of SAS: Who Dares Wins, and the voyeurism of Benefits Street.
But this four-part series is far worse than the sum of its parts. Channel 4 is making capital from illegal immigration, every bit as much as race-baiting thugs like Tommy Robinson.
The four anti-migrant participants are a haulage boss with tattoos up his neck, a chef called Dave with mince for brains, an arrogant Welsh lesbian who labels all migrants 'rapists' and 'paedophiles', and an entitled 'social media manager' called Chloe.
The other two, who want Britain to back unlimited immigration, spout endless Socialist Worker catchphrases. Bushra went on a rant about Boris Johnson's description of women in burkhas as 'letter boxes'.
'It's humour and laughter like that that needs to be taken away,' she fumed.
Posh hippy Mathilda became tearful with frustration when she couldn't make her travelling companions understand that the UK must share all the nice things we have with the world, so everybody else can have nice things too.
If you could ignore the Witless Six, the show had interesting moments, particularly in Mogadishu, where African tourists try to enjoy the spectacular city coastline while ignoring the pockmarks left by bullets on the beachfront buildings.
But the absence of any intelligent discussion about the social and economic effects of uncontrolled mass immigration in Britain made the show valueless.
