Is this nasty little peep show the seediest Channel 4 series ever?

You get to a certain age, probably about 23, and the temptations of a torrid night’s passion begin to wane. Boy George famously admitted as much when he told an interviewer that rather than sex he’d prefer a nice cup of tea.

George was being too coy. There are many people out there who would settle for just watching a teacup being washed up, and pay for the privilege.

Naturally the internet has found ways to make money out of these people. The internet has evolved into a device for extracting cash from everybody, and the more sad and lonely you are, the more rapacious it becomes. Angel and Daygon in Sex Diaries:

Webcam Couples (C4) started off performing DIY porn for web viewers but discovered their customers were so desperate for companionship and human contact that the X-rated element wasn’t required.

Daygon, a Californian with the shifty eyes and twitchy mouth of a foraging rodent, just pointed the laptop camera at his wife while she washed up and vacuumed in their decrepit motorhome, which they shared with five dogs, a parakeet and a tortoise.

Their paying customers were content to look on while the couple played cards, with one hand open to the camera to give lurkers the impression that they were joining in the game.

‘It’s almost like being part of their family,’ enthused one middle-aged woman. ‘They’re my friends.’ She had never met the couple, and she had to buy their ‘friendship’ by the minute.

Channel 4 insists on screening these seedy investigations into modern sexual mores. In recent months they have poked around in the murky world of swingers and ‘doggers’, but this new series promises to be more depressing than ever.

The broadcaster justifies these nasty little programmes by pretending that these are new behaviours. They’re not, of course — prostitutes have always made money out of pathetic men who just want to talk.

The saddest story involved 39-yearold security guard Glenn, who met his wife Ari, 23, at a zombie fan convention. They were married within weeks, and divorced within months: in between, they broadcast free ‘sex shows’ over the internet.

It wasn’t Glenn’s idea, but he was willing to do anything his wife wanted. In the end, that meant living on his own in a leaky caravan outside his dad’s house.

one couple in Birmingham, ‘Moses’ and ‘ Kitty’, wearing cardboard masks in the forlorn hope they would not be recognised by C4 viewers, were desperate for every penny they could make.

At least film-maker Charlie Russell spared us the unsavoury close-ups. The camera kept panning away to feet and furniture, perhaps because he was doubled over with nausea.

Whenever we glimpsed him in mirrors, Charlie certainly looked miserable about the assignment, all mournful beard and hangdog eyes. His shoulders drooped as though someone had emptied a bucket of cold water over him.

His voice sounded as doleful as he looked. The poor man may

Doc Martin never be able to look at a nylon negligee, or do the washing-up for that matter, without weeping.

on the another channel, Dr Martin Ellingham (Martin Clunes) looked as glum as a pollock on a fishmonger’s slab, too, but it was hard to tell whether he was unhappy, because he always looks like that.

He was trying for a reconciliation with his wife Louisa (Caroline Catz) in Doc Martin (ITV), which meant doing the homework his therapist set for them: embracing three times a day and making one positive statement.

Hugs were hard enough. The compliments were physically painful.

Inevitably one of the villagers was stricken by a rare medical syndrome which the Doc diagnosed instantly — this time, Kawasaki Disease, which sounds like a case for a specialist from Harley Davidson Street.

The subplot had Bert ( Ian McNeice) brewing hooch in his camper van, like a Cornish version of Breaking Bad.

Maybe he’d make more money if he charged people to watch him over the internet. But Bert, for Gawd’s sake, keep your clothes on.