The Hunt: Prey vs Predator review: Fun, but a tasty snack for The Traitors, the king of the reality gameshow jungle

This time, it's The Hunt: Prey vs Predator (Channel 4, Sun-Tues, 9pm), which takes the basic template of Claudia Winkleman's clique-bait and attempts to add a survival of the fittest-style twist.

The title may conjure up images of hapless posties from Pontefract or hairstylists from Haversham being pursued across the savannah by a pride of ravenous lions, but the reality is somewhat less red in tooth and claw.

The Hunt gathers 10 ordinary people of varying ages and backgrounds on the edge of a large forest in an unspecified location, where the last one standing could win a prize pot of £100,000.

According to the rather excitable voiceover, they can win by “skill, stealth and intelligence”, or by their “prowess as a social animal”.

At which point you have now learned to sigh, because it means endless sequences of people whispering in corners, making “alliances” and coming up with tactics which we know will be thrown out of the window at the first sign of a pound coin.

To get the cash, the 10 are split into 'predators' and 'prey' and sent out into the forest, where the prey must Outward Bound-style team-building tasks to build up the prize pot, while the predators must track them down and disembowel them. Oh no, sorry, tap them on the shoulder.

Once an individual predator catches an individual prey, they must swap roles and any cash, and whoever is left as a predator at the end of 'the hunt' each day is up for eviction, chosen by the remaining prey.

This all sounds quite complex, but actually watching it clarifies the gameplay and the potential stakes, which makes all the running about in the woods quite fun, especially as they all seem to be blithely unconcerned about such things as 'not making a noise' or 'standing in full view in a clearing'.

And each hunt starts in 'The Glade' with the contestants standing on plinths before a siren sounds and the prey run off blindly, trying to make full use of a headstart. Such is the resemblance to The Hunger Games that you fully expect Jennifer Lawrence to appear and start whistling with her hand in the air in that two-fingered salute.

However, by the time we're back in the Tardis-style triangular lodge where apparently they live for the duration – despite the fact the outside looks no bigger than a kennel yet the inside hides a luxury living complex, complete with pillowy sofas and grazing boards filled with cheeses – you can't help but hope for Plutarch Heavensbee to come along with a poisoned pea-souper.

That's because, in The Hunt, the chat takes precedence over the chase.

There are interminable talks among the prey about who should be voted out, and when, and why, while the predators talk among themselves trying to justify why they shouldn't be the ones to go.

It goes on and on, and in fact takes up about 15 minutes of the end of the first episode, and the producers don't even tell us who gets the boot, leaving it as a cliffhanger for episode two.

Which might okay, if like The Traitors, you have a set-piece like the Round Table, where allegations, claims and counter-claims can be sprayed about like a untended firehose and you have the privileged knowledge of who can be trusted and who can't.

The Hunt has no such structure, and the contestants are remarkably unguarded about pacts and alliances, which makes them virtually worthless as others can easily figure out counter-measures.

It's a show which has some good elements, going to waste for a lack of a clear framework and a dramatic set-piece, strung out to a level which only leads to frustration, not tension.

Which means it will only make a tasty snack for that uber-predator on the prowl from its Scottish lair. Survival of the fittest, after all.