The Alastair Campbell Diaries, BBC Two, 8pm
These three one-hour films, which match extracts from Alastair Campbell’s diaries with footage from the contemporary archive, are the highlights of the week’s viewing. Tonight’s opening episode covers the period from Tony Blair’s rise to power to the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. No one has better conveyed the atmosphere of the morning when new Labour swept into power with its promise of a new dawn. The less high-minded among us will relish the backstage gossip – especially the clashes between the pugnacious Campbell and the oleaginous Peter Mandelson that came to a head when Blair had to step in to prevent the two of them coming to blows. Episodes two and three will be shown tomorrow night and on Friday. “Unmissable” isn’t a strong enough word.
Who Do You Think You Are? Adoption Special, BBC One, 9pm
Borrowing the format of the popular genealogy series, Nicky Campbell launches a season of programmes over the next two weeks to highlight issues surrounding foster care and adoption. Campbell was adopted a few days after he was born in 1961 by Frank and Sheila Campbell. “I’ve traced my birth family,” he says, “but this is a chance to find out more about the roots of my adoptive family – the people who I think of as my real mum and dad.” His father fought in the “forgotten war” against the Japanese in Burma, and he discovers why Frank had such a stormy relationship with his own father. No preview discs were available.
Wire in the Blood, ITV1, 9pm
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There are good reasons to dislike Wire in the Blood – most especially the way it transforms the reality of lurid headlines into a kind of pornography of violence for primetime entertainment. Tonight’s story, for example, begins when a white middle-aged man is seen dragging a young black girl into his car on a bleak housing estate. But the series has improved markedly since it was first aired nearly five years ago. Robson Green’s performance as the criminal psychologist is far less eccentric than it was; each episode is filled with energy and tension as the police race against the clock; and most of all, it is filmed and edited with consummate skill. But it is debatable whether trash – and unpleasant trash at that – deserves to be so well made.
Brothers & Sisters, Channel 4, 10pm
The family brings in a criminal lawyer to look at the $12 million hole in their pension fund. They are given a number of choices: sell off the major assets of the corporation, declare bankruptcy, falsify their year-end accounts (and go to jail) or win the lottery. Fortunately, Calista Flockhart’s boyfriend in the series happens to be a hedge fund manager who may be able to offer useful advice. The series is still as intelligent, well acted and watchable as ever. But unlike the great US dramas – The Sopranos or Six Feet Under – it doesn’t have a life of its own. As James Delingpole once wrote about Nip/Tuck in The Spectator: “All the joins are visible”.