The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
DISTANT THUNBERG
Greta Thunberg: A Year to Change the World BBC1, Monday, 9pm
The environmental activist has galvanised millions in the fight against climate change. Towards the end of 2019, she took a year off school to examine the effects of global warming first-hand. This vital series follows Thunberg as she travels around the world by boat to meet leading climate experts. In Canada, she encounters melting glaciers and evidence of our biodiversity crisis. She also witnesses the devastating aftereffects of California’s worst ever wildfire. Meanwhile, Thunberg and her supportive father discuss the pressures they’re both under, although she’d clearly rather not talk about herself at all: “I don’t want you to listen to me, I want you to listen to the science.”
Too Close - STV, Monday, 9pm
Emily Watson stars in this morbid psychological thriller as Emma, a forensic psychiatrist tasked with assessing a woman branded in the tabloid press as a “yummy mummy monster”. Connie (played with considerable intensity by Denise Gough) tried to kill herself, her daughter and a neighbour’s child by driving into a river. She claims to have no memory of the incident. Connie is arrogant, angry, cynical and manipulative. The scenes between her and Emma inhabit familiar territory: the intelligent patient/prisoner turning the tables on their interrogator. I’m always suspicious of dramas about mental illness, they’re often quite tawdry and insensitive, but we’ll see.
All That Glitters: Britain’s Next Jewellery Star - BBC2, Tuesday, 8pm
Comedian Katherine Ryan hosts this new “TV competition slash talent search format”. How deliciously ironic. I actually prefer it when derivative TV shows just plough ahead with the job at hand, instead of drawing attention to themselves with a knowing wink. It’s a cheap get-out clause. Anyway, this one finds a bunch of up-andcoming jewellers working on bespoke pieces that could last for centuries. You know the drill: they’re set a series of challenges while being judged by sound bite spouting experts. Even if you have no interest in jewellery, this is a pleasant way to while away an hour. But it is, like most programmes of its ilk, clearly better suited to a daytime slot.
Stacey Dooley: Back in the Psych Ward - BBC2, Tuesday, 9pm
Last year, Dooley made a programme about life on an NHS mental health ward. This is her follow-up report. With characteristic sensitivity, she spends time with staff and patients to find out how they’ve been coping during the pandemic. Since Covid, the demand for beds has shot up.
For so many people with pre-existing mental health issues, the isolation has been impossible to deal with. Young people have been affected more than any other age group. I don’t want to go into the specific details of what the various patients that Dooley meets are struggling with, as those details may prove triggering to some readers, but suffice to say it’s a programme made with the utmost integrity.
Paul O’Grady: For the Love of Dogs - Wednesday, STV, 8pm
During this week’s visit to Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, O’Grady meets some pooches in desperate need of TLC. Staffie-cross Roxi has far too much nervous energy to burn, so the staff try to calm her down with a gentle regime of stroking and exercise. The other star of the show is Dottie, a bulldog with the saddest face. Dottie has been overbred by her former owners; she’s exhausted and scared of pretty much everything. But then she’s paired with another lonely dog in need. I tend to get moist-eyed at the most ridiculous things, but For the Love of Dogs really is such a lovely, uplifting show. It makes the world feel like a slightly kinder place.
The Great British Sewing Bee - BBC1, Wednesday, 9pm
It’s back! From their new home on the banks of the Thames underneath London’s last surviving lighthouse, Esme Young from Central Saint Martin’s School of Fashion, Savile Row tailor Patrick Grant and cuddly host Joe Lycett welcome 12 new sewers competing for this year’s prize. A likeable bunch, they include a Bowie fan and former dinner lady, and a Frenchman who plays lead trumpet for London’s Gay Symphony Orchestra. It’s jolly old business as usual, during which they must design a loose-fitting buffet dress, a collarless 1960s-style blouse and transform a standard T-shirt into an imaginative item of clothing for any age or gender – one of the bold designs sends Grant into a giggling fit.
Bent Coppers: Crossing the Line of Duty BBC2, Wednesday, 9pm
With trust in the Metropolitan Police currently at an all-time low, this timely documentary travels back to an era when the public regarded them as an unassailable paragon of virtue. But as we now know, bent coppers exploited that myth for their own benefit. In early 1970s London, a secret network of corrupt CID detectives inhabited a murky world of extortion, fitups and racist violence. They preyed on defenceless people and ethnic minorities, as well as political activists such as Caroline Coon. Propelled by a funky soundtrack and archive footage, it also features covert recordings of bent coppers colluding with criminals: “We’ve got more villains in our game than you’ve got in yours.”