Calling the interviewees in this documentary survivors suggests their ordeals are over – but due to paltry laws and police reluctance, that is appallingly far from the case

Hello and welcome to part 86,747,398,464 of the continuing cataloguing via television documentary of the apparently infinite series Ways in Which Largely Men Terrorise Largely Women and Prevent Countless Millions of Them from Living Their Lives in Freedom and Contentment. This one comprises two episodes and is entitled To Catch a Stalker.

It comes from the corporation’s most youth-oriented arm, BBC Three, which mandates a telegenic presenter better versed in sympathy with the programme’s interviewees than interrogation of wider issues, and who has usually come up through the ranks of reality TV rather than journalism. Here, it’s Zara McDermott (Love Island, Made in Chelsea, The X Factor: Celebrity), who previously fronted entries in the infinite series on “revenge porn”, rape culture and eating disorders.

In this astonishing and gross series, we stand witness as teams battle to clean up blood, guts and body fluids. Viewer discretion is very much advised – there will be maggots

It has been a while since we had a good, honest point-and-boke documentary, is it not? “Boke”, for those of you unfamiliar with the term, means to be sick. I use it here because the onomatopoeia gives a better sense of the fight that precedes the act, especially if – say – a programme is unspooling in front of you that keeps the nausea building until you are past the point of no return. Viewer discretion – and a plastic bowl – is advised.

So, then, to Crime Scene Cleaners, a 10-part documentary – yes, 10! – that does exactly what it says on the tin. It follows teams from British and American companies as they move in after bodies have been removed and evidence bagged and tagged by police to clean up anything left behind. “Anything” can mean blood – spattered, accumulated in the bottom of a bath tub, trailed along a floor, soaked into a carpet, stained into grouting, arterially sprayed along skirting boards. Hepatitis B, we are informed via a dramatic voiceover, can survive for up to seven days in dried blood, hepatitis C for up to six weeks on hard surfaces. Clever pathogens.