Mistresses, BBC One, 9pm
The likelihood of a happy ending was always extremely remote. A doctor just can’t have an adulterous affair with a terminally ill patient, help him to die and afterwards sleep with his son. It’s not going to work. And if you’re suddenly getting in touch with your inner lesbian, it doesn’t help to fall in love with someone whose civil partnership you have just arranged. Bad idea. Nor, for that matter, can you look forward to a lifetime of domestic bliss if your husband is impotent and you’re pregnant. “Love,” says one of the characters, “reduces us to booze and bonfires.” Only it’s not love that does it. It’s a scriptwriter with an overheated imagination.
Horizon, BBC Two, 9pm
A team of scientists has listed the 20 most dangerous drugs in the UK based on the harm they do to the individual, their addictive power and their destructive impact on society. Towards the bottom of the list are Ecstasy and LSD. Cannabis is higher on the list because of its links to psychosis. Tobacco at No 9 kills more people than do narcotics, alcohol, HIV, suicide, homicide and car crashes combined. Alcohol at No 5 is responsible for 40,000 deaths and costs the NHS £1.7 billion a year, and right at the top of the list are cocaine and heroin. These are not intended as definitive rankings, but as a useful frame of reference when it comes to legislation.
Medicine Men Go Wild, Channel 4, 9pm
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The telegenic twins cross the Siberian tundra to the northern coast of the Chukchi Peninsula to find out why the indigenous people rarely have heart attacks. The Chukchi inhabit a frozen wasteland without agriculture, livestock or vegetables for most of the year. They eat whatever they can get from the sea – largely fish and sea mammals – which are rich in omega3 fatty acids. The downside of this marine-based Atkins Diet is that it takes a little getting used to. The twins are greeted with the traditional Chukchi delicacy of raw, fermented walrus, followed by frozen fish heads and blubber. The tribe are immensely fit and healthy. But anyone capable of eating raw fermented walrus would have to be, wouldn’t they?
Shameless, Channel 4, 10pm
I remember thinking at the end of the last series, “If only they would put Shamelessout of its misery”. A series once filled with exuberance and vitality had degenerated into a third-rate soap opera, and I was astonished to hear that yet another series had been commissioned. Well, how wrong can a person be? This new series got off to a rollicking start when Frank Gallagher was told that his days on Earth – or at least on the Chatsworth Estate – were numbered. A few episodes on and so far it remains on cracking form. Frank leaves home after a family row and ends up living rough, and – in a beautiful and touching scene – ends up sharing a tent with his eight-year- old son Liam, who has also run away from home. I’m ashamed I ever wished this series away.