The promise of seeing a skateboarding dog, escapologist octopus and a maths whizz ape made Super Smart Animals the obvious choice while channel flicking through a dreary Wednesday night’s viewing schedule.

But despite the sound of it, as presenter Liz Bonnin was quick to point out, this was not a show interested in what wicked trainers eager to make a profit could make animals do. Rather it was meant to be an insight into how scientific study has proved un-trained animals possess intelligence similar to our own and in some cases, even surpassing us.

Over the course of the programme we were shown examples of animals displaying intelligence traits such as solving problems, planning ahead, memory and creativity. First up were the humpback whales in Alaska catching half a ton of fish a day by using”fishing nets” made of bubbles.

Next Liz was off to Germany to see apes solving puzzles like getting a peanut out of a narrow tube by filling it up with water without any hints of how to do it. Next it was Hank the Heron, who living at a Hawaiian resort has bread thrown at him morning, noon and night. But instead of gobbling it up the crafty fella uses it to bait tastier fish in the ponds.

And the jet setting didn’t stop there. After this the film crew was at Venice Beach, California, to see a skateboarding bulldog, and I have to say, by this point you were left feeling Miss Bonnin landed the year’s cushiest TV job swanning around the world on a glorified holiday.

That said Super Smart Animals was entertaining enough, but the hour running time was a little too long when half-an-hour would have sufficed.

As John Humphrys popped up quizzing a goldfish in the Mastermind chair viewers could have been forgiven for thinking they had nodded off and entered a weird dream world. It was a segment that could win the year’s bizarrest most pointless filling out of a programme supposed to be concerned with a scientific approach to the subject.

For those who remained tuned in past 8.30pm, Liz took us on a quick trip back to Britain to learn about memory in animals through the lowly pigeon. The pigeon was man’s best friend during the Second World War, often using their amazing navigational skills to save lives of servicemen by flying home messages for help.

Some even got medals for their efforts apparently. Now they help couples like the pair in Super Smart Animals to win £20,000 by being first to find their way home in organised races. That is amazing.

For an example of creativity in animals, an octopus was shown thinking on his . . . er tentacles . . . by ducking into a fisherman’s trap on the seabed to pinch his haul of crabs before making his Houdini-style escape.

But the most impressive feats were saved until the end of the hour-long programme when we got to see clips of the late Alex the parrot, who could basically hold conversations with his owner, and Ayumu the chimp who can recall the location and order of a set of numbers after being shown them for just 60 milliseconds.

Ayumu is undoubtedly held up as the number-crunching star of the programme. Born at Kyoto University in Japan, his daily pattern consists of sleeping, eating and studying, similar to a human child. And Liz finishes her report by posing the question, just how clever can animals get if nurtured?

Tonight the two-part series finishes with a look at how animals use intelligence in social situations and whether they have feelings similar to our own.

Catch it of you can – but be prepared for a programme that is a bit of an effort to stay with for an hour.

Watch Super Smart Animals on BBC iPlayer