Signal for war on the home front - Wife Swap (C4), Red Cap (BBC1)

THERE was little doubt that Wife Swap wasn't going to be all sweetness and light. Anyone with a modicum of sense could predict that switching wives for two weeks was fraught with problems.

The experiment - the first of eight swaps in the series - only encompasses household and childcare duties. The temporary wife is not expected to perform in the bedroom.

From the word go, you knew the producers had stacked the cards in favour of confrontational TV. Dee said that if her new partner was black (which Lance was) she'd have a problem as a non-believer in mixed marriages. Lance worried that his new spouse would be fat and didn't keep the house clean (which described Dee). Harmony did not seem likely, and we weren't disappointed.

The illuminating fortnight they spent together exposed attitudes and prejudices you hoped no longer existed but were confirmed by the bad behaviour of both couples and, even more alarmingly, their children. My conclusion was that they were all as bad as one another. Lance and Sonia, who has two children, have been a couple for five months. Lance declared that "my lady's job is to make sure we are all comfortable". Dave, on the other hand, knew his place and that Dee wore the trousers in their 18-year-old marriage.

The narrator told us that the swapping couples hoped it would help them reflect on how they do things. I'm just surprised murder wasn't committed considering the blazing rows and tantrums that ensued.

For the first week, Dee and Sonia had to follow the usual household pattern in the house they were visiting. During the second week, they could change things.

What didn't suit Dee was cooking or cleaning. She and Dave lived on ready meals and sometimes she'd cook a Sunday dinner. Dave also did the cleaning. So you can imagine Lance's disgusted reaction when he found washing up piled in the sink, and Dee taking the wrapper off a ready meal before slumping in the chair.

Dee didn't warm to Lance's weed-smoking and revoked his decision to ground his children. "He thinks he's god and he's a pain in the arse," she noted.

Round at Dee's, Sonia wasn't having problems with temporary husband Dave but one of his and Dee's teenage children, Mary. "Between my mum and that bitch in there, I'd rather have my mum," declared Mary aggressively. Her attitude became so abusive that even non-assertive Dave lost his rag, calling her rude, arrogant and hasty.

Wife Swap certainly wasn't a game of happy families but, as TV, it was engrossing.

All the conflict made army life in Red Cap look like a vicarage tea party. Tamzin Outhwaite, the actress formerly known as Mel in EastEnders, and the Special Investigations Branch were enlisted after one soldier was shot by a drug-fuelled colleague and another had his throat cut outside a nightclub.

After being demoted at the end of the pilot episode, Outhwaite's Jo McDonagh was re-instated, simply, it appeared, as an excuse for a gratuitous shot of her in her undies as she changed uniforms. That was the most interesting thing that happened as a lot of familiar performers - including someone from Teachers, someone from Playing The Field and Douglas Hodge - followed the clues and came up with the wrong answers.

Of course it was McDonagh who proved what a bright girl she was by solving the puzzle, thus proving that she could swap places with the men any time.