Close-up? You could count the whiskers on a warthog’s chin! LAST NIGHT’S TV Serengeti HHHHH Broke HHIII

Time and again during Serengeti (BBC1), i have watched an incredible sequence of big game behaviour and thought: ‘How on earth did the camera capture that?’

So often, the lens is pointing in the right place at just the right moment. The show has attracted criticism for treating the animals as actors in a drama, criticism i’ve never really understood.

TV mogul Simon Fuller, the Pop idol boss who dreamed up this series during a safari holiday, has said from the start that the stories are woven by carefully combining bits of film. So what? You might as well moan that no one really gets murdered in midsomer.

But when the camera pans away from a fleeing porcupine to a young leopard with its muzzle bristling with painful quills, or a zebra foal in a waterhole splashing over a sunken log that rears up to become a crocodile, that’s not trick photography. That’s simply exceptional wildlife film-making.

When i spoke to producer John Downer, he explained the secret: dozens of cameras filming from dawn till dusk, for more than a year. it’s a hugely expensive technique, especially with ultrahigh resolution 6K video recorders, but it guarantees we never miss a moment.

Not all the footage was shot by human hand. Downer’s team has been developing hidden cameras for years, such as remote-controlled lenses concealed in fake rocks. it’s these devices that record the astonishing images of lions sniffing the screens and elephants stomping by, just inches away.

Sequences that were captured by hand-held cameras include the high-speed chases, where Jeeps have kept pace with hyenas and big cats on hunts.

These days, it takes gimbals to be a wildlife cameraman or woman: that’s the jargon for the gyroscopes that keep the picture rock-steady, even in a 4x4 vehicle bouncing over the savannah at 40mph.

Combined with the superpowered zoom lenses that let us count the whiskers on a warthog’s chin from 100 yards, all this tech has created a remarkable show.

The stand-out segment this time was a hunt at the water’s edge, with panicking zebra scattering in all directions as a lioness ruthlessly picked out a juvenile victim.

Next week’s episode is the last in the series. Far from being censured for taking liberties with storylines, Serengeti deserves to be hailed for all its innovations.

Broke (BBC2) also appeared to take an innovative documentary approach last week, as it followed three working men who were struggling to get by, however many extra shifts they did.

But this time it couldn’t resist the temptation to get political. What began as good journalism, letting the subjects speak for themselves, has let itself down with cheap preaching and bias. it even ended with a recording of Jeremy Corbyn spouting socialist soundbites in the Commons.

The BBC was once committed to political neutrality. is there anyone left in New Broadcasting House who remembers that outmoded pledge? All we learned about the two new subjects, Tyrone and Angelica, was that he lives with a couple of marxist activists and doesn’t like his zero-hours contract, and that she has a talent for drumming up media attention.

A placard demanding a living wage is always more effective outside a Ferrari showroom.

Still, there were moments to enjoy. i’ve become quite fond of Steve, who used a frying pan to bash in tent poles on Hastings beach even though he was surrounded by hefty pebbles.

Any Stone Age caveman would have looked at that and thought: ‘Ug! Him do it wrong.’