Brutal and brilliant, this TV show needs YOU!

Jeez. As devastatingly brutal sentences go, this one's up there with the best of them.

What I wasn't expecting was emotion. Nor humour. Nor life lessons in bravery, discipline, strength and investment in people.

But, then again, Channel 4 are experts at this sort of thing aren't they? They pick people and places you think you've got the measure of - secondary schools, maternity wards, A&E departments - and then flip them on their heads to produce soul-searching programmes that can be savage one second and sublime the next.

For me, Commando School is miles better than One Born Every Minute and 24 Hours in A&E.

It's not better than Educating Yorkshire because nothing ever will be. Don't believe me? I have one word for you: Musharaf. Wah!

Anyways, this week's Commando School episode focused on Recruit Borg and Recruit Marks.

The former was a slightly wobbly-round-the-edges lad from Malta whose superiors brilliantly described as being like a Jelly Baby at the exact moment he just happened to be scoffing said sweeties in the next room.

Borg's fitness was a problem from the off: he couldn't climb the ropes, he couldn't complete the run, he just couldn't hack the pace.

Although he did manage to get away with having a baked bean stain on his chin during an inspection so it wasn't all bad.

After failing the rope climb for the umpteenth time, Borg received a spectacularly F-word-laden pep talk from his Sergeant that worked wonders: he was up that rope like a rat up a drainpipe.

However, his next idea was not so bright: washing down raw coffee granules with a sip of water on the morning of the make-or-break fitness test.

Hmm, what could possibly go wrong?

Obviously, everything - and poor old Borg failed.

His was a tale of effort, ambition, hard work and luck: he was so near - just a single little stretch - and yet so far from reaching the top of that rope.

But, as Sarg says, "there's no quirks or qualms, only one green beret and that's the standard".

Marks on the other hand was physically fit - despite having a voice huskier than Clint Eastwood after a night on the Marlboros - but had a stinking attitude.

He was gobby. He was a smart-arse. He was flatulent. See what I mean about the stinking attitude?

But, just as we're about to write him off, we learn about his troubled past of care homes and foster parents. Admirably, the bosses, instead of giving up on him, send him off to counselling and, within a matter of weeks, Marks is a new man - not to mention the best recruit of the bunch.

Who'd have thunk it, eh? A TV show about the terrifyingly tough world of Royal Marines resulting in a seriously fluffy case of the 'ahhhhs'.

Channel 4, we salute you.