Aisle diet

9:33am Tuesday 26th June 2007

Three Fat Brides, One Thin Dress (C4, 8pm); Sensitive Skin (BBC2, 10pm)

EVERY woman, it seems, wants to lose weight. And they're not short of options - you can't move for weight loss "plans". There's Weight Watchers. Slimming World. Slim Fast. There's probably Weight World, Slimming Watchers, and Slim Fast While You Weight Watch World, too.

So, with so many options, why do fat women still go on Gillian McKeith's shows?

Fat woman: "I want to lose weight."

Husband: "You could, you know, move more and eat less."

Fat woman: "No way. I fancy being humiliated on national television instead."

And so, three fat women appear, like cows to the slaughter, on Three Fat Brides, One Thin Dress. The women have eight weeks to lose weight and fit in the wedding dress of their dreams. Unfortunately, two of them would need eight months, at least, to get trim.

The other would need eight years.

Lisa Eight Years, from Essex, has a takeaway habit that costs £2,000 a year. She is a born-again Christian and is yet to consummate her relationship with fiance Gary.

"Lisa is worried what Gary might think on their wedding night," the narrator tells us. Probably something like: "Did I keep the Argos receipt for that wedding ring?"

In one scene, Gillian throws three months worth of takeaway into a car and makes Lisa sit in the passenger seat, for some reason. She earnestly tells Lisa she will die unless she cuts back on the korma. Lisa doesn't enjoy being told of her impending death - funny that - and starts crying.

"What's wrong?" asks Gillian, clearly baffled. Telling her she was heading for a grave might just have unnerved her, Gillian love.

Katrina, from Cardiff, is worried about walking down the aisle with a flabby back. She's wrong to worry, of course. It's the fat belly and double chin she should be bothered about.

Katrina's bad habit is wine: specifically, three bottles every Saturday night. She also has a sweet tooth. Six weeks into her healthy eating plan, Detective Inspector McKeith discovers Katrina has enjoyed a sneaky trifle.

"It was a low fat one," poor Kat whimpers.

"Low fat food can KILL you!" Gillian booms, before throwing the trifle onto Fat Kat's wedding dress. Which is, handily, in a coffin. Honestly, Kat love, try a slimming club next time.

Jackie, from Glasgow, has a butter habit. Not quite as decadent as wine, you might think, but Gillian isn't happy. She gives Jackie a wedding present: a pair of eyes, recently cut from an unfortunate beast.

"If you don't stop eating butter, you will go BLIND," declares Gillian.

The show concludes with a grand weighing session. As with all these things, the girls look exactly the same as they did at the beginning, except with new clothes and posh haircuts.

Lisa Eight Years, who was six stone overweight, has lost two stone. "The donners are a goner," the narrator says, "and Lisa looks a stunner."

I'm not sure which is worse: the lie, or the rhyme.

It's all a bit less nasty on Sensitive Skin, an exquisite comedy back for a second series starring Joanna Lumley. You can tell it's good, because it doesn't have a laughing track. If you have to be told to laugh, it isn't funny.

PLEASE LAUGH NOW.

Lumley's complex character is recently widowed, but has resolved to pursue happiness again. Tonight, she's chatted up by a sanitation worker - who says sorting sewage makes him feel like "Ming the Merciless" - and tries to avoid an old flame.

The programme, written by Hugo Blick, begins with Lumley wistfully walking through an empty house, searching through an empty fridge. The Three Fat Brides must have been round.