User Reviews

This is not real. Google the company name and come up with nothing apart from a folk music website. The main donor, 'Gillian' is obviously an actor and not a good one. But she's 'poor' and being paid for her flesh to be grown in a vat and eaten by more of the 'poor', so all is good? Soylent Green without the secrecy.

Gregg does his normal over the top super excited self that he'd also put into the origins of a table leg.

I kind of get what this programme intends to say 'if we want to keep eating meat this is an option'. Cannibalism is cost effective. Especially for the poor that are caught in the cost of living crisis.

The 'tenderest' meat comes from children in a shocking addition at the end of the show. A hard watch.

The press have gone mad over it, they obviously haven't seen it and have made an editorial/political decision just based on the idea. Although some seem to think it really is real. Daily Mail, how dumb do you feel now that you've seen it?

At first I gave this 4 stars, sick TV, but now after realising the message? A solid 7.

Is this our future?

If this had been about eating meat and how meat is produced then this would have been fantastic.

It was about housing and living which was a wasted message.

This absolutely should have been a meat producing production and as a meat eater I would have been intrigued, the vegan group would have hoisted this program onto its shoulders and heralded a champion, the meat eaters would have see the funny side or paused for thought.

I've finding it funny that it's caused controversy or that people believe it's real?!!!

Greg Wallace was fantastic and should be applauded.

Everyone involved played their role perfectly.

If you eat veal or an meat then this program is interesting to watch.

Now, where's my steak.

Soylent Green meets Black Mirror.

So the reason that some people may have been upset by this show is that Channel 4 in the UK promo'd it by appearing to be a serious documentary style look at an alternative to meat, which of course it's not.

Gregg Wallace is known for being the face of Masterchef UK and many travel and food documentaries so his presence here gave the air of legitimacy but it's clear from the outset that this is attempting to be some sort of Brasseye/Black Mirror satire but it's just not very amusing. The appearance of Michel Roux Jr in the promos also gave this show the sense of legitimacy.

If Channel 4 had programmed this at a time when it wasn't renowned for scheduling food and lifestyle shows there might have been less of a fuss but if it had been scheduled at a time renowned for comedy scheduling it may have lost some of its impact but also viewers might have been in on the joke (such as it was).

A curio. Not very amusing, an interesting idea but as has been said in other reviews it missed the target by quite some distance.

I have a very busy life, often working till late and unfortunately, I don't have much time for television these days. I saw the 'documentary' advertised on Channel Four and remembered reading an interesting article about growing meat and even limbs in New Scientist Magazine many years ago, so I made time to watch it 'live'.

From the moment they said it was human meat at the very beginning, I was suspicious about whether it was real or a spoof, because if you were to encourage people to develop a taste for human meat, that would surely lead to people committing murder for free meat. I checked the description again to make sure and there was no mention of comedy or spoof... And it was CHANNEL 4, a channel known for genuine and award winning documentaries, not some dodgy YouTube Channel or Facebook group... so I gave it the benefit of the doubt and carried on watching.

And with every passing minute the programme got more and more ridiculous and my doubts grew bigger: The name and bio of every donor printed on the label, the most unconvincing Doctor that I have ever seen as she looked as she was about to burst out laughing any minute, the illegal way in which people were being pushed into selling chunks of their flesh so that they could pay their rent by the 'laughing Doctor' and the fact that that it was obvious they were leading to the 'Big Reveal' that the tender meat came from Children... Scientifically it was nonsense as well, as although I haven't had time to research more recent developments, I remember reading an article in New Scientist Magazine many years ago which stated that only a wafer thin (maybe only a few microns) slice with a very small surface area that would fit in a petri dish was needed in order to grow the meat, not huge chunks as shown in the programme... And then more cells could be extracted from the grown meat to start the process again, so you wouldn't need to keep cutting slices or CHUNKS, as shown in the programme. There were also many medical benefits not dealt with in this programme.

I could tell it was gibberish, but I couldn't understand what it was about- I googled the trailer shown on Channel 4 and it was definitely advertised as a genuine documentary... It wasn't the First of April, and again, it was on Channel Four... So what the hell was this rubbish? I had already cancelled other things in order to watch it, so I am ashamed to say I did watch till the end, purely to see how far they would go and to see if they would mention it was a spoof, which they did not. But there was no need, as the ending was so utterly ridiculous that no-one by this point could possibly believe it was real.

I was so annoyed at being conned into wasting my time watching this nonsense that I almost left a review there and then; the only reason I did not do so is because I felt that would be wasting even more of my time on this rubbish. But I saw Gregg Wallace on TV yesterday and he said he didn't understand why people are so angry at him and the documentary, and brushed it off as people simply not understanding 'satire'. Well Gregg, here are the reasons for my anger: 1) I don't have much time to watch television and you wasted my time by falsely advertising it as something it was not. If I watch a film or programme and I don't like it, I normally know that at least the intent was to make it as advertised, and they either failed or I just have a different taste, and so be it. But this was deliberately advertised as something Channel 4 knew it was not, in order to get more viewers. That is unforgiveable.

2) Through idiotic programme making, you and the programme makers are deliberately trying to put people off something that could potentially be very good; not only stopping the endless slaughter of innocent animals but the technology can also be used to harvest organs and limbs for medical reasons. For example, in the New Scientist article they stated that burn or acid attack victims can potentially have their own skin grown and replaced, amputees could grow legs or arms, and people needing a liver transplant wouldn't have to wait for a suitable donor to die. And all this would be done by growing the organs, skin and limbs from their own cells, which would mean that the body would not reject them.

3) The programme seemed to focus quite a lot on protesting about Brexit. But in doing so, it is actually doing the same thing the programme makers are protesting about - selling a lie.

4) I understand satire and parody, but why waste half an hour on this nonsense. If it had been a two - five minute 'sketch' it would have been more palatable (excuse the pun!).