THAILAND: EARTH’S TROPICAL PARADISE, BBC2, 9pm
A WHISKY might warm you on these freezing January nights but this silky, luxurious programme will do the job just as well.
This is the last in the series and the focus is on “the mysterious north” of the country which is “cloaked in forest” that “hides ancient communities”. It’s a world away from the popular tourist image of Thailand as a place of bars, beaches and nightclubs.
Monkeys spring through the trees and the foliage is so rich that a youngster could get lost in the leaves. Thankfully, the babies are born bright orange so monkey mummies can see them easily.
We visit a huge cave, 50 metres tall and resembling a “cathedral” inside, home to thousands of swifts and one or two “cave racer” snakes. The swifts have to stay perfectly still at night if they want to stay alive.
It’s a very slow and relaxing programme and the narrator, Sophie Okonedo, could have a second career providing the voice on meditation and hypnosis apps, her voice is so soothing.
ENDEAVOUR, STV, 8pm
APPARENTLY you don’t need Twitter in order to moan that things are offensive and should be banned and censored.
It often feels like a modern plague but this episode of the detective drama reminds us that it’s been going on forever. Shaun Evans plays the young Inspector Morse who is given the task of protecting a censorship campaigner, Mrs Joy Pettybon, who’s visiting Oxford on a lecture tour for her Keep Britain Decent campaign and has been the subject of death threats.
Pettybon is clearly based on Mary Whitehouse and reminds us that calls for censorship have always involved anger and a self-righteous clutching at morality. It never changes.
Pettybon and her followers are appalled by a pop group whose members dance in short dresses and twirl umbrellas.
As they sing about love, Pettybon prays for guidance to fight the “dirt” of their pop culture.
When a body is discovered, it’s revealed the dead man had a connection to a local pop group and soon Endeavour is caught between traditional old Britain and the free-love revolution.
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