Drop The Celebrity (ITV1, Saturday) Fortysomething (ITV1, Sunday)

Reality TV has a lot to answer for - it makes the man on the street think he can be a star and gives has-been celebrities a chance to rekindle their moment of fame.

There is a reason some stars stopping burning brightly and those who have had their five minutes in the spotlight shouldn't be given a chance to rekindle it.

But that's exactly what Drop the Celebrity does.

Six total has-beens (and a few who were never even that famous in the first place) are taken up in a plane with presenter Mark Durden-Smith.

As if that wasn't punishment enough, they then all had to explain why they thought they were the biggest celebrity to avoid being literally thrown off the show.

Once they had listened to the excuses, a jury on the ground had to run over a pictures of the celebrities and stop on the one they wanted to keep.

The one with the least votes was then shown the plane door and pushed from 12,000ft.

Among the famous faces on this pilot show were Cheryl Baker, Bobby Davro and Linda Lusardi, who all dragged up success stories from the distant past to justify their seats on the plane.

The other three contestants had even less reason to call themselves celebrities - journalist Garry Bushell, It Girl Lady Victoria Hervey and Ricardo - the long-haired hairdresser from reality TV show The Salon.

Those three would have found it difficult to justify their place on the planet, never mind in a plane.

Ricardo was the first to go - if only he'd learnt his reality TV lesson the first time round he could have saved himself the humiliation of landing flat on his back and being interviewed by Jenny Falconer whilst wrapped in a parachute.

One by one, the so-called famous people were flung from the plane and left to nurse their broken pride as they realised no-one knew or cared who they were.

But for one of the unfortunates it was an even more traumatic experience.

Cheryl Baker who made her name at the Eurovision Song Concert decided to ignore the expert's advice and try and land on her feet - not wise when you are plummeting to earth.

The result was a broken ankle and no doubt a wish she had never got involved in the whole sorry exercise.

GP Paul Slippery, in Fortysomething, would probably like to throw his family out of the Drop The Celebrity plane.

Reaching 40, he runs headfirst into a mid-life crisis and feels alienated from his growing sons and his wife.

This was the first in a six part comedy drama directed by and starring Hugh Laurie.

It's easy to believe Hugh's frantic 40-year-old character but do we really need to revisit the stereotype of a middle-aged man unable to find his way around a kitchen or being forced to listen to his teenage children having sex?

Hopefully later episodes will ditch the clichs and try a bit harder to really get into the mind of a man on the edge of middle-age.

Published: 30/06/2003