THREE WIVES, ONE HUSBAND, C4, 9pm
“I’M attracted to sassy women and my wives are sassy – all three of ‘em!” I wonder how Mormons define “sassy”, then, as I didn’t see “sassy” women in this documentary about polygamy.
I saw a smug man with two adoring wives sitting on either side of him, gazing at him sweetly, both with long blonde hair, pliant smiles and empty eyes. Can you be sassy and Stepford at the same time?
A group of strict Mormons have retreated to the Utah desert where they’re blasting the rocks apart to build themselves a community where they can have multiple wives “without being judged”.
But with one man about to become a father for the 17th time and with his various spouses giggling about who gets to be “the cooking wife”, I certainly was judging them. Maybe if the women had indeed been “sassy” it wouldn’t have been so infuriating. Instead they seemed like adoring puppies.
SYRIA’S DISAPPEARED: THE CASE AGAINST ASSAD, C4, 10pm
STICK with Channel 4 tonight for a very abrupt change in subject and tone.
Tens of thousands of Syrian protesters have vanished after being taken to President Assad’s “secret prisons” where the only way to communicate with family is to write a message in your own blood.
Some have been released and are now fighting to free those still inside, by building a possible international criminal case against the Assad regime.
The Nazis were convicted at Nuremberg largely due to their own bureaucracy which created an incriminating paper trail. The Assad regime is also “document mad”, and evidence is being assembled and smuggled out of Syria.
This film follows the work of the investigators and tells the harrowing stories of some of those who have survived the prisons.
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