ONE moment in week two of C4’s survival show signalled it was back to its best.

The male islanders had spotted something in the Pacific Ocean shallows: “Stingray! Get it, Chris! Get it.”

And get it Chris did, spearing the creature with deadly accuracy and hauling his catch triumphantly out of the sea.

“Oh, no, it’s a bag.”

A shining example of the kind of abject uselessness that’s made The Island With Bear Grylls TV’s best reality show.

Though, owing to a format change, I had doubts it would reach the heights of last year when the men and women had separate islands and the females spent the first week literally walking round in circles, ending up on the same beach they’d tried to leave three times.

It was glorious. But this time they dumped both sexes on the same island to survive for a month and told neither of the other’s presence.

I needn’t have worried. The casting of the eight men and eight women is magnificent.

There’s self-confessed “stroppy old cow” Erika, the Twickenham streaker, who went bananas on Monday and dragged a huge log back to the sea in a row over firewood.

We have Tilly who confessed to an Alan Sugar fetish.

And they’ve stuck to a winning formula following the no-nonsense brilliance of Vic in last series by booking another Yorkshire stereotype, Simon, who asserted: “Men are better at physical stuff – lighting fires, hunting, moving stuff,” by taking charge of building 16 bed frames in one day, which met with this narration: “By mid-afternoon Simon is struggling to put up even one bed.”

You show them, Simon.

Collectively, this bunch is even more hopeless than the class of 2015. They’ve been starving for three weeks and outwitted on a hunting trip by “wild turkeys”.

Two camp mates suffered scorpion stings. Three quit altogether.

Dr Alice poisoned her camp with stagnant lagoon water.

And the women spent five days untangling a rope and fashioning it into a fishing net, which Rob and Simon swam out 60 metres to anchor to rocks and returned with this good news.

“Erm, well, that hasn’t gone quite to plan. We set it out there and let it go. And it just carried on going.” All the way to the east coast of Japan, probably.

But then something highly dubious happened.

At the islanders’ direst hour, with the host declaring: “They’re barely subsisting on scavenged scraps,” Shaney magically stumbled across another fishing net, apparently washed up, in near perfect condition.

And the next morning it had caught a shark just the right size to feed the lot of them.

IMy sincere hope is that this was genuine because The Island is a rare gem whose viewers deserve honesty.

Especially since Monday’s dramatic episode ended literally on a cliffhanger with student Patrick falling 30ft from a cliff-face on to rocks during a desperate expedition to find food.

As it is, I’m mentally answering Tilly’s question to Shaney about that fishing net: “Where did you find that?”

Next to the production crew’s sandy footprints.

Spudulikes

A phenomenal Line of Duty, with “The Caddy” and DI Denton’s showdown.

Lazy, self-centred brats getting a deserved comeuppance in the Peruvian rainforest on C5’s Tribal Teens… Here Comes Trouble.

Fierce’s Steve Backshall reaction when a komodo dragon he was coaxing clambered aboard his kayak.

The Chase’s greatest ever answer: “Which member of the crow family native to the UK has a bare face?” “Russell Crowe.”

And BBC2’s Caravanner of the Year’s awning challenge. Competitor Martin putting up a pole: “We have an erection.” Judge Grenville Chamberlain: “We’ve got to make sure it’s absolutely rock solid, tight, firm. We’ll give it a good tug to make sure everything’s OK.” Well alright, but don’t forget the awning needs assembling.

Spuduhates

ITV Saturday night catastrophe Bang on the Money.

Holly Willoughby swearing on Play To The Whistle.

BBC1 inflicting the same laugh-free I Want My Wife Back on us twice in three nights.

Tribal Teens… Here Comes Trouble’s “spoiled princess” Alex: “I ate a maggot, like, a maggot is not good for me, like, this is not a stepping stone, this is not something to be proud of, it’s a maggot, like, I’m disgusted at myself.” So she didn’t like.

And EastEnders failing to make up its mind if the anniversary of Lucy Beale’s death is Good Friday (like last year) or April 18 (this year). Which doesn’t look like being settled until April 18, Good Friday, 2025.