RIVERS WITH JEREMY PAXMAN, C4, 8pm
THE Grand Inquisitor has been all over the newspapers recently due to the fact he has left his partner of several decades for a young thirtysomething.
Surely the shocking news hasn’t been leaked just to promote this new series?
You don’t seriously tell the tabloids about your new young thing just because you’ve made a programme about water?
Even though Paxo is being mocked for this tediously typical male behaviour, and even though I gave his recent memoir a poor review, I still admire big Jeremy and we must admit TV news is a bit watery without him.
Speaking of water, he takes the viewer on a journey to Britain’s finest rivers in this new four-part series.
He is an obsessive angler and knows them well.
Tonight he heads to the Scottish and English Border to explore the Tweed.
Along the way, he meets some baby ospreys, stops to get some tweed cloth woven for him, and has a go at sheep-shearing.
SS-GB, BBC1, 9pm
AS with last week’s episode, this one gets off to a very promising and sinister start, with a choir of young boys singing Jerusalem, the anthem of England’s “green and pleasant land”. The words echo down the corridors and the effect is haunting, calling up images of a country and way of life gone forever under the Nazi jackboot. But then they have to go and ruin it all, don’t they? The subtle, creeping fear is smashed when Archer turns the corner and meets … another Nazi super-villain! If last week’s baddies looked like ’Allo ’Allo extras, this one looks like he’s stepped out of an Indiana Jones film.
Not all Germans were evil, and not all British people were pale and stoical – not that you’d realise this from watching SS-GB, which loves stereotypes.
Archer’s main concern tonight is his son as the Resistance have a plan to kidnap him. They’re not afraid of inflicting violence, as we’ve already seen. Most un-British, old chaps …
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