Backbytes: C4's Hunted - who needs facial recognition when you have psychic power?

Future reality TV pursuit series likely to be much shorter

So, farewell then for another season Hunted, Channel 4's addictive series in which 10 people try to evade the security state for 28 days.

This year we cheered as walking inferiority complex Nick and authority-baiting Ayo raced to their getaway boat to the frustration of the hunters, an oddly telegenic crew of spooks, hackers, trackers and cops led by cartoon-sinister east end detective Peter Bleksley.

"It's not like the 70s, you'd bang ‘em up on Friday and by Monday they'd be singing like canaries," he gripes at one point after failing to bribe a captured fugitive to snitch on his mate.

The rules of Hunted are never quite clear. Why do the fugitives think it's a better idea to tromp out onto the rainy road rather than stay for a few days with sympathetic strangers proffering tea, Hobnobs and a comfy bed for the night? The reaction of the strangers themselves is also interesting.

Fugitive: "Can you help me? I'm on the run being pursued by a drone!"

Old lady driving down lonely country road: "Oh fine, hop in then."

But, disbelief suitably suspended it's an enjoyable paranoid romp that gets you thinking: "Well what would I do?"

Staying off Facebook and Twitter (duh) is the first thing we'd do, and turning our phone off would be the second. And we'd stay well away from all cameras too.

"Some powers of state have been replicated, including CCTV and ANPR (automatic number plate recognition)," says Channel 4. Just what has been replicated is not made clear, but the hunters manage to track Ayo's mate's car as it speeds down the motorway towards the final rendevouz point in Kent and are regularly seen studying CCTV footage from roadside cameras, shops and stations (which strangely never gets lost unlike the real thing).

But what about when facial recognition comes onstream? Aside from Bradley Wiggins's sideburned version, faces outside of cars tend to move far less quickly than those inside them. There'll be a ping on a screen as an algorithm makes a match, a whoop and a cheer from the hunters, followed by a brief scuffle outside Greggs and it will all be over in an hour or two.

Mind you, facial recognition has got nothing on the psychic powers of one of the hunters, who predicted with uncanny accuracy that, out of the whole of the UK, Nick and Ayo would make their escape in a small boat from the Isle of Sheppey.

Now that's truly scary.