Isthe kiwi as wild as we get?

It’s intriguing to see how others view us. The BBC this week decided to explore the wild side of New Zealand. It wasn’t our Square at midnight or the excitement surrounding whether the T&G clock would move from quarter past five, but the grandeur and isolation of the South Island’s west coast.

In Wild New Zealand (TV One, Sundays) our country is described as a ‘‘land cut off from the rest of the world from the time of the dinosaurs’’. We’re a country of penguins, parrots and predators.

Along the southern coast, in the fiords and inland into the dense forest we see southern brown kiwis, sea lions, blue nosed dolphins, tuis, bellbirds, wekas, keas, the odd 40 tonne whale and snails on steroids.

It’s a spectacular and informative series and will attract Hollywood producers wanting to film Jurassic Park VI somewhere in Fiordland. We could see a trump-osaurus, a savage, flightless creature, who chases away aliens to our shores.

Wild New Zealand paints a bleak and primitive picture of our country where only two people appear to live south of Mount Cook. However, putting perspective into the series would be helpful so overseas viewers don’t think the rest of New Zealand resembles that.

I’ve seen natural history programmes about Alaska, Cape Horn and the Outer Hebrides and never thought we’d be found guilty by association, judged by the company we keep such as fur seals, glaciers and alpine buttercups.

Checking out your ancestors can be a shock. In recent years I’ve discovered I’m distantly related to Boris Karloff who starred in horror movies in the 1930s. He specialised as Frankenstein. Family members refrain from talking about the resemblance.

It may be for that reason I’m attracted to Long Lost Family (Living Channel Friday/monday).

In it, two British presenters Davina Mccall and Nicky Campbell, bring family members together again. It’s a gentle, rewarding series where, at the end, long lost daughters, sons and parents are reunited.

In a recent episode Jeannie Elgar sought her brother Geoffrey, who was adopted out at the age of four, and 16 year old Kirsty West finally admitted to her parents in the delivery suite that she was pregnant. Until then her son, James, was explained as an eight pound gust of wind.

Sadly Davina and Nicky located Geoffrey’s grave in Bermuda, but had more luck with James, who was delighted to meet his mum. They both had bulging blue eyes. So did Boris Karloff, together with stitches on his forehead and an ability to rise from the dead. Or was that Dracula?

I did my best to watch Sherlock (TV One, Sundays) but every time I get so irritated with Benedict Cumberbatch’s fidgety portrayal of the famous detective. About 20 minutes into the episode he was still texting while the Watson child was being christened.

It was either time to change channels or lean into the TV screen, pick him up and plant him headfirst into the baptismal font. I was influenced by the title The Six Thatchers and the mystery surrounding why someone would smash busts of the former British Prime Minister.

Even more intriguing is why anyone would want to collect them.

Instead Our Girl (TV One, Mondays) is simpler, full of daring do and more exciting. Army medic Georgie is captured and held hostage in appalling conditions. The Somali terrorists want to exchange her for one of theirs and, if the British Government doesn’t oblige, they’ll behead her before prayers to Allah.

But Special Forces intervene and, with the help of a drone, locate the encampment, attack it and free Georgie. The problem is the forces are led by Elvis, a regular soldier, who jilted her at the altar. He might have said ‘‘it’s now or never’’ but she was ‘‘all shook up’’ when she recognised him.

Before he asked ‘‘are you lonesome tonight?’’ she spat at him. They’ll never be the same.

The series has a nice balance of action, characters, relationships and even the odd projectile at close range.