Series watch

Don't Try This At Home

World, 9pm

This is a real-life action series that gets my palms sweaty. Fronted by popular British TV presenter Davina McCall (above with co-presenter Kate Thornton), Don't Try This At Home invites and challenges the public to do some extremely scary stunts. So, in the past, participants have been asked to plunge off a cliff for 1,000 metres with only a bungee cord attached - or drive a sports car under an articulated lorry while both are doing 50km/h.

There is genuine tension before and during each feat, and because the participants are given every opportunity to back out, you feel no one is being forced into it. The show apparently has a decent budget, which is more than can be said of some other British-produced 'game shows'.

Tonight is the beginning of Don't Try This At Home's latest series, featuring segments including the Super Challenge, the usual Saturday Challenge (which is when the programme is aired in the UK) where a member of the audience secretly writes McCall to set up a spouse, a relative or a friend for a challenge (like touching a box of wriggling snakes) and the heart-stopping Challenge of a Lifetime.

The latter could take place anywhere in the world. One contestant had to drive a car across a 10-metre-high ravine on two rails just wide enough to accommodate the wheels. The tension created is riveting, even though the contestant is in the studio watching the footage. What makes this particular challenge the more gripping is that if a challenger backs out, McCall has to attempt it herself.

For armchair action fans, it is great viewing: inoffensive, genuinely exciting and extremely watchable. And McCall, an A-list celebrity who also fronts the reality TV phenomenon Big Brother, is likable.