Don't miss Bear Grylls' Breaking Point; Louis C.K. returns as Louie

Poor li'l Bear Grylls. The world's best known extreme adventurer has been having a hard time of it.

In 2007, the British "tough guy" was accused of sleeping in posh hotels and not under the stars, as portrayed in his Born Survivor series. More recently, it was alleged that his survival reality series The Island (currently showing on Discovery Channel, Sundays at 11pm) had been perpetuating gender stereotypes by excluding women from the fun and games.

In response, the second series (which finished airing in Britain last week) featured two islands, both off Panama - one hosting an all-female cast, the other all-male. Some of the hungry women were filmed capturing an apparently sleeping pig before slaughtering and eating the poor swine, the third such creature to be killed on the show in a fortnight. The producers then admitted the animals had been flown in especially for the contestants to hunt, drawing outrage from animal-rights groups. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals called for Grylls (pictured, centre) to be arrested for cruelty.

It's hard not to conclude that the controversy was deliberate, though; the first series gained many angry column inches when it transpired that a slaughtered animal had been a member of an endangered species.

So as television's Mr Survival this week premieres what feels like his 85th show, Bear Grylls' Breaking Point (Discovery Channel, Tuesday at 9pm), we should expect to see some headlines. Who will the big bad Bear pick on next? Big-boned people? The mentally challenged? Maybe he'll just wander around poking homosexuals with a big pointy stick until they tell him to get lost. Poking things with a stick, of course, is what Grylls does best.

Well, nope, this show picks only on people's anxieties. In the first episode, Grylls drops a pair of aquaphobes into the Mexican jungle, their only escape being through cascading waterfalls and raging rivers. Determined to have them confront their fears, Grylls takes the two scared souls on a wild expedition but, just as they are beginning to conquer their demons, he drags them into a pitch-black underwater cave. Then adds crocodiles.