MURPHY’S LAW
BBC One, 9pm
Things are not going well for Murphy (James Nesbitt). He is deep under cover and suffering from stress. His cover may be blown. Out of the blue, he is forced to drop everything and give evidence in court over a previous case.The defence lawyer tears himto shreds. Murphy stares. His muscles twitch. His sentencesget shorter. Back on the case,he has a crucial meeting with the bad guy. A tonne of heroin is onits way. His minders are jubilant. Except . . . hang on . . . There is another episode next week. Looks as though Murphy could be in serious trouble.
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WHO KILLED MY BABY?
Channel 4, 9pm
By focusing on the death of one child, this disturbing programme looks at the whole issue of “shaken baby syndrome”. There is no question that violence is inflicted on babies. But there is often an element of doubt involved, and the thought that someone could lose their child and then be falsely accused of causing its death is cruelty beyond imagination. Three combined symptoms — the swelling of the baby’s brain, haemorrhaging and bleeding behind the eyes — were once considered to be irrefutable evidence of violence, but new research and the discredited medical testimony in recent cases of infant death have prompted the Attorney-General to review more than 80 convictions that may be unsafe.
BUILD A NEW LIFE IN THE COUNTRY
Five, 9pm
Just as all the other channels are jettisoning programmes about couples bravely going where thousands of others have gone before, dear old Five decides that this would be a moment to jumpon the departing bandwagon. For good measure, they have thrownin a dash of Grand Designs, only here it is Not Such Grand Designs. The couple in tonight’s programme swap their bungalow in Surrey for five acres in Lincolnshire witha massive 18th-century barn in need of complete renovation. Everything that could go wrong does go wrong and thousandsof onlookers die of boredom, but the couple end up with a beautiful home.
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BEETHOVEN’S HAIR
BBC Two, 11.20pm
There are three good reasons to watch this film. First, the storyof how a lock of Ludvig van Beethoven’s hair passed from one generation to the next and ended up in Arizona is extraordinary. (In October 1943 it was handed to a doctor treating Jewish refugees as they hid from the Nazis in the church tower of a Danish fishing village.) Second, it describes how the lock of hair was found to contain levels of lead one hundred times above the norm, which would explain Beethoven’s ill health, his uncontrollable bursts of temper and even his deafness. And finally, there is the music.
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Multichannel choice
By Anna Frame
LIVE INTERNATIONAL CRICKET: ENGLAND V AUSTRALIA
Sky Sports 1, 2pm
While the Ashes contest continues to loom over the cricket calendar, this one-day series seems to have no purpose other than to allow the Australian squad to acclimatise to English conditions. Whatever happened to home advantage? There were signs, even amid the embarrassments of last week, that the Aussies visitors were beginning to run into form. Cornered teams of their quality are bound to come out fighting, and today’s encounter, from Durham, will find them even more eager than normal to beat England. If such a thing is possible.
ANGUS BATEY
LAS VEGAS
Sky One, 8pm
Jon Lovitz, as the oddball billionaire Fred, waltzes back into this undemanding drama with the American R&B singer Ashanti as arm candy.
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AFRICA: WHO IS TO BLAME?
BBC Four, 9pm/12.15am
Astonishingly, the average income in Africa is now lower than it was at the end of the 1960s. So who is to blame for the continent’s troubles? With the G8 summit in Edinburgh looming, Jerry John Rawlings, the former President of Ghana, and the Kenyan law student June Arunga travel across Tanzania and Rwanda to explore Africa’s seemingly insoluble problems of violence, poverty and disease.
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CURSE OF THE ELEPHANT MAN
Discovery, 9pm/3am
John Merrick believed that his extensive deformities were caused by his mother being frightened by an elephant while she was pregnant with him. Here, the Elephant Man’s descendants use DNA advances to solve the true cause of his illness.
NUCLEAR TECH
History Channel, 9pm
In April, the Thorp reprocessing plant at Sellafield was shut down after the leak of enough radioactive nuclear waste to half-fill an Olympic swimming pool. This timely documentary will probably do little to allay our fears as it examines the challenges facing scientists to transport and store spent nuclear fuel safely. And if that is not enough to keep us awake in our beds at night, it also highlights the nightmarish possibility of terrorists abusing the atom for their own reasons. The nuclear industry is still predicting a clean, non-radioactive, near- limitless source of energy in years to come, but will they ever be able to convince a sceptical public? AF