I did watch, belatedly, just to satisfy my curiosity and to be in a position to offer a reasonable critique.
Firstly, it was a Channel 5 programme, thus by definition it was entertainment. You're not supposed to allow it to replace your educational programme. Channel 5, didn't they also do the Benifits Street programme? Where we were supposed to assume that all Bimingham is like that? Didn't they also do the silly programme of many people being stuck in the same house for weeks on end. No doubt you watched that as well, hours and hours of people lying in bed, sleeping. WTF?
Secondly, there were some extravagant claims made by the voice-over, who of course was only reading from a script. I very much doubt that he'd visited Romania or anywhere else. So it was script, carefully worded to make the best entertainment. Some of the claims made that were evidently incorrect:
"The bus was packed" But the only brief glance that you had of the interior of the bus looked more like 50% occupancy to me. So, yes the bus was packed, with what else we'll never know.
Thirdly, They went to sign on at the doctors after six weeks, and "So their benefit claim is well underway". So how long have you been going to the doctors to claim benefit. Unless the programme conveniently subsumed access to medical care as "benefits".
Fourthly, The main protagonist returned to Romania after six weeks, so his claim to benefit didn't get far, did it? But he did say something along the lines of "I don't want to work, I'd prefer to steal" I wonder who paid his fare to UK and back to Romania?
Fifthly, The main protagonist also hoped to gain £40k from benefits, while being tied to some kind of gang boss. Is that the correct term for a 'criminal people smuggler'?
Sixthly, as reported in one of the follow-up comments by the public: "I think I noticed that they were using Polish ID, and not Slovakian, when sat down in the office filling in the form for benefits."
Seventhly, The Slovakian case of two un-employed parents with eleven children and eleven grand-children all on benefits. How was that allowed in the first place? Well I'm sure that Rotherham are on to them now, if they weren't before. But they have been in UK for seven years. However, unlike indigenous scroungers, e.g. benefits Street, maybe something is possible.
Eighthly, This made me fall of my chair laughing. It was a follow-up comment by a member of public after watching the programme;
"In reply to Nicole the Romanian. Your wrong, we do not need you or your country folk, we would be a lot better off without you all. Both financialy and culteraly."
It reminded me of a friend who was a) a racist and b) a policeman. We were discussing immigrants, etc, in the pub, many years ago, and his comment was:
"What do we need immigrants for. They've never given us anything. We're the crème de la crème of humanity."
The rest of us fell about laughing ...and he didn't know why!
Ninethly, Did you see the programme that followed the one in question. Crimewatch, or some such. They staged a couple of fake crimes to gauge the public's reaction?
The one was a mugging in a market. An old ladies bag was snatched, or similar. There was a few other old people about. They showed about five seconds of footage, during the introduction of the programme, and it was never referred to again.
The other 'crime' was breaking into a car. I had difficulty seeing what 'the thief' was doing, and I knew, 'cos they'd told us! The street was pretty much deserted and it wasn't until he broke the window of the car that anybody relaised what was going on. They miserably failed to report how many calls the police received. They told us only how many calls they seen the public make!
Finally, did you make that follow-up comment about UK not needing them culteraly?
