Daily Telegraph: TV picks
Posted by catherinegee on September 16, 2007
Friday, 26 October
Tonight: Payback Time
ITV1, 8.00pm
Following reports of the questionable selling practices of some payment protection insurance providers, the Financial Services Authority has begun cracking down on firms who don’t explain the full details of what their policies cover before taking their clients’ money. Now thousands of customers could be entitled to a refund. Martin Lewis follows three who have been successfully reimbursed.
Thursday, 25 October
Last Chance Kids
Channel 4, 9.00pm
Showing as part of the Lost for Words child literacy season, this documentary follows Lynna Thompson, head teacher at Monteagle Primary School in Dagenham, on her mission to make sure all her pupils have learned to read within a year. (Shockingly, one in five UK children leaves primary school still unable to read properly.) This concluding episode of the three-part series reveals the results of the final challenge, the Barking and Dagenham Poetry Competition. Poet Benjamin Zephaniah tries to spur the children on.
Scrooged (1988)
Sky Movies Comedy, 6.15pm
Christmas is still a couple of months away yet. But if you’re already in the spirit then where better to start than this skilful modernisation of A Christmas Carol by Richard Donner. Bill Murray is perfect as the Scrooge figure.
Wednesday, 24 October
Heroes
BBC2, 9.00pm
Claude (Christopher Eccleston) continues to teach über-hero Peter Petrelli (Milo Ventimiglia) how to control his powers and stop himself blowing up New York. Meanwhile, Mohinder is blissfully unaware that he has been introducing skull-cracker Sylar to all his potential victims.
Cities of the Underworld
History Channel, 9.00pm
Beneath the busy streets of the ancient town of Cappadocia, Turkey lies an immense underground fortress. In around 1200BC the pagan Hittites carved a sequence of tunnels into the soft rock beneath the city to defend it. This documentary looks at how, using an array of cunning weapons – such as millstones, hot oil and spears – the Hittites fought off their enemies.
Tuesday, 23 October
Oz and James’s Big Wine Adventure
BBC2, 8.00pm
Oz Clark and Telegraph columnist James May’s journey to discover the New World’s wines continues in Paso Robles, California. Among a group of renegade winemakers, they meet the man who planted the first Syrah grape in America.
Monday, 22 October
This World: India’s Missing Girls
BBC2, 7.00pm
Experts estimate that in the past 20 years 10 million Indian girls have been “lost”, usually by being abandoned as babies or through illegal gender-based abortion performed any time before birth. Ashok Prasad’s moving film examines why the huge cost of a wedding and the desire to carry on the family name through sons makes some Indian parents take such drastic action.
Thursday, 18 October
The Whistleblowers
ITV1, 9.00pm
ITV’s attempt to secure themselves a slightly cooler image continues with the fourth episode of this gritty drama. Tonight the corruption-fighting couple discover that a Turkish illegal immigrant who went on to commit murder at the behest of an organised gang had been knowingly let into the country by airport immigration officers. Ben (Richard Coyle) and Alisha (Indira Varma) set about helping one of the officers’ colleagues expose their wrongdoings.
Wednesday, 17 October
Dispatches: Abortion – What We Need to Know
Channel 4, 10.40pm
We’re approaching the 40th anniversary of the Abortion Act and yet abortion is still surrounded by controversy, partly fuelled by those who believe that the 24-week limit is too late. Dispatches investigates why many doctors want the law changed. Pre-term infant survival and foetal pain are the main topics of debate, as some experts are beginning to question the point at which a foetus’s movement stops being a reflex and starts being a reaction to pain.
Leave Us Kids Alone
BBC3, 10.45pm
It may call Lord of the Flies to mind, but this social experiment – in which children run their own school – could teach us some valuable lessons. Tonight 17-year-old headmaster Sam Wadey (who incidentally hates children) feels the heat when a real schools inspector pays a visit.
Monday 15th October
The Riches
Virgin 1, 10.00pm
The series that’s most likely to win Virgin’s new channel critical favour continues. Con artists Dahlia (Minnie Driver) and Wayne (Eddie Izzard) continue to try to convince everyone that they’re a wealthy family. Wayne starts work in the law firm while Dahlia tries to get their kids into an exclusive school.
Monday 8th October
Pete’s PA
Living, 10.00pm
According to Celebrity Wife Swap the other week, Pete Burns’s husband spends all his days taking care of his demanding partner. Clearly the task has all gotten a bit much and now Pete is on the hunt for his own PA. He’ll grill and challenge a collection of hopefuls over the coming weeks before deciding which lucky soul gets the coveted position.
To Die For (1995)
More4, 9.00pm
Nicole Kidman stars in this Gus Van Sant-directed dark comedy about a young TV weather girl desperate to make it. When she realises her unglamorous husband (Matt Dillon) is holding her back, she plots his murder.
Monday 1st Oct
Panorama
BBC1, 8.30pm
Coinciding with BBC2’s Inside a Shari’ah Court (see below) the topic of how to integrate today’s angry young Muslims into British society remains at the forefront of debate. Following the 7/7 bombings the Government promised to quash extremism. But the radical group Hizb ut-Tahrir is still legal; former member Shiraz Maher examines the appeal held by radicalism.
Tuesday 25th September
Colin and Justin’s Home Show
UKTV Style, 8.00pm
Celebrity design gurus Colin McAllister and Justin Ryan present a new magazine-style show in which they go on tour to inform viewers how to make the most of their homes. Tonight, the pair attempt to create a bedroom in the Bluewater shopping centre, Kent, using only the retailers around them, as well as meeting celebrity interior designer Kelly Hoppen.
You Can’t Fire Me, I’m Famous
BBC1, 10.35pm; N Ireland, 11.15pm
Tonight Piers Morgan tackles another reputed diva, Julie Goodyear, with his straightforward interviewing style. Morgan probes subjects such as her oft-reported scandalous private life and her return to Coronation Street – when she announced that she would stay for at least a year, but was then shown the door after just 17 days.
Monday 24th September
Panorama
BBC1, 8.30pm
It will always be a contentious subject in Britain but DNA databasing is here to stay. Is it the latest way to help solve crime or an infringement on our human rights? Vivian White investigates whether we should all be on the database whether we like it or not.
Courage Under Fire (1996)
Film4, 9.00pm
Director Edward Zwick (Blood Diamond, The Last Samurai) seems to have a fondness for the dramatic and his mid-career film Courage Under Fire is no exception. Denzel Washington plays a guilt-ridden Gulf War Lieutenant investigating whether Meg Ryan deserves a posthumous medal of honour.
Thursday 20th September
Born to Be Different
Channel 4, 9.00pm
The second episode of the latest two-part series which has been following the lives of six children born with disabilities. Now aged six and seven, some are able to talk about how it feels to be different from their friends. Zoe dreams of wearing ballet shoes despite suffering from a condition which makes her hands and feet grow inwards.
Primo
BBC4, 10.00pm
Since Primo Levi wrote his memoir If This Is a Man, it has been a successful one-man show for Antony Sher. Based on the National Theatre production, directed by Richard Wilson, it has now been adapted for the screen. Focussing on Levi’s experiences in Auschwitz in 1944, this version remains faithful to the powerful original and comes highly recommended
One Night Stand: Flight of the Conchords
BBC4, 9.30pm
Those who listen to Radio 2 will already be aware of this New Zealand comedy duo. Before their new series starts properly next week, here’s a concert giving viewers a sneak preview of their style of musical wit.
Don’t Call Me Stupid
ITV1, 9.00pm
Tonight it’s the turn of MP George Galloway and society girl Lady Victoria Hervey to teach each other about their specialist subjects before being quizzed by Alexander Armstrong. Galloway takes the challenge of equestrian sports while Hervey learns about the British Labour Movement.
Friday 14th September
India and Pakistan 07: Michael Wood — the Story of India
BBC2, 9.00pm; N Ireland, 9.30pm
Michael Wood’s expansive documentary series reaches the fall of Rome in the 5th century. It may have been the start of the Dark Ages in Europe, but the Indians made significant scientific and technological advancements: they worked out Earth’s circumference and “discovered” the heliocentric universe. (As well as finding time to write the Kama Sutra.) We also witness the performance of ancient rituals, including the casting of bronze images for display in temples.
Wednesday 12th September
RSPCA: Have You Got What It Takes?
Five, 6.30pm
This series following six trainee RSPCA inspectors has just passed the halfway stage. Tonight, Helen and Animal Collection Officer Nicola are called to rescue a wood pigeon with a broken wing, while Ian helps to oversee animal welfare during the summer solstice at Stonehenge.
Tuesday 11th September
Film 2007 with Jonathan Ross
BBC1, 11.20pm; NI, 11.50pm
Jonathan Ross, the BBC’s £18million film buff, returns for a new series. Daniel Radcliffe talks about his new drama December Boys, and there’s a behind-the-scenes look at Kenneth Branagh’s soon-to-be-released As You Like It.
Published in The Daily Telegraph
