Secrets of the Sexes BBC1
Silent Witness BBC1
My Life as a Child BBC2
I love it when science gets it wrong. 'Science' got it wrong enough to be evicted from the Big Brother house, of course (and I think I've beaten my own personal record for a speedy digression right there), but BBC1's Secrets of the Sexes: Attraction was a far less shouty object lesson in wrong science extremely wrongly applied, with commensurately wrong - though entertaining - results.
The Beeb corralled 20 single men and 20 single women for a spot of 'scientific' speed-dating 'in collaboration with an international team of scientists'. As this team of scientists was comprised entirely of men the experiment necessarily involved letting the male subjects design computerised images of their ideal women.
'I'm in love with that! That's perfect!' declared one subject of his terrifying, inflatable, Jordanesque creation - definitely more of a 'that' than a 'her'. But the freaky variables (comedy breasts, J-Lo-plus butts, legs as long and presumably as bendy as those of a praying mantis) were evened out to arrive at a universal ideal who looked a bit like Elle Macpherson, which might cheer Elle up a bit now that's she's single too. On the other hand, just looking in the mirror and shouting: 'Hello world! I'm Elle Macpherson!' could do the trick.
The women's 'ideal' man, meanwhile, was a buff Brad Pitt-a-like, but expecting women to create their computerised perfect men smacked of tokenism because everybody knows that women are barely swayed by looks at all. If a man doesn't actually scare small children, retains at least some of his own hair (though perhaps not some of other people's), is taller than Verne Troyer, isn't petrified by the concept of foreplay, knows his way round Prada, drives something big and German, and pulls in 100K pa - any of these is just a bonus and in absolutely no way whatsoever any kind of a deal-clincher. And, naturally, women will happily trade all that stuff for any man who can do a mean David Brent over half a shandy in the Losers Arms, because above all we really love it when they make us laugh. As if.
Anyway, so far, no surprises.
Beth and Peter were two singles whose progress we followed throughout the experiment. Peter (a 37-year-old, divorced politics lecturer, single for four years) was put in Selfridges' window while passing women were asked to comment on his perceived status, attractiveness and dateability. He scored dismally low in his jeans and T-shirt but when suited and booted by a fashion stylist and remarketed as a man who might not be intimidated by the prospect of entering a BMW showroom, Peter's desirability rocketed. Proof that although styling has yet to be accorded -ology status, it should be. Beth (32, property manager, can't sustain relationships) was pretty picky: 'I'm not looking for someone mega-rich ... say, Richard Branson,' which made you suspect that all the science in the world would have a tough time sorting her out.
Anyway, she was packed off to the speed-dating in a little black dress which gave her cleavage and emphasised her low waist-to-hip ratio, which is apparently what blokes like ('Phwoaarr! look at the low waist-to-hip ratio on that ...'? Nope, I've never heard it either).
At the end of the day, though, technology couldn't stop Beth being both abrasive and controlling. And she didn't rate any of her suitors, nor they her, even when confronted by each other's 'scientifically perfect' match. Beth and Dave should have ticked each other's boxes but apparently, like God, lust is all in the non-scientific details.
After a couple of dates they were getting on fine but I had a hunch that pukka Dave might find Beth's estuarial vowels a bit grating, and so it came to pass ('the way she spoke ... silly thing really'). Even if you're packing a wad and your waist-to-hip ratio scores a perfect 10, the science of snobbery takes some beating.
Peter didn't fare much better than Beth at the speed-dating, but found the experience a confidence-booster, even though everybody he met wanted to be 'just good friends'. Meanwhile out of the 400 permutations available to the single speed-dating guinea pigs, not a single coupling subsequently evolved into anything approaching a relationship, which proves - hooray! - how entirely random it all is.
But the very best bit of the show came when three idiots calling themselves The London Seduction Society demonstrated that their uniquely belittling chat-up technique ('You can't keep a boyfriend? You're a fussy one. Have you tried girls?') was, well, not to put too scientific a point on it, entirely rubbish. Among the three of them, there was only one offer of a date from among the 20 woman. 'No surprise, the way they were messing about' sighed a scientist, unscientifically.
Science can, of course, always be relied upon to get it right in Silent Witness. Here the police may pratfall over mountains of rotting red herrings and disembodied MacGuffins, but s'OK - a smart forensic pathologist will sort it all out, Sherlock-style.
Obviously SW has lost a great deal of its allure for me since the departure of Amanda Burton, late lamented queen of the delicately furrowed brow and unfathomable near-Vulcan middle-distance stare, but instead of shoe-horning Emilia Fox into the same role they've simply broadened the forensic brief so that she doesn't have to carry the whole show wafting trails of dry ice and angst. Yet.
Instead the plot revolved around one of Fox's colleagues, Prof Leo Dalton (William Gaminara), whose wife and daughter were killed by a car crashing into a cafe where they were having coffee. As befits the show's traditional emotional froideur, Dalton's comment to Emilia Fox's Nikki - 'I have to go. There's been an accident. My family's been killed' - was met by the most extraordinary response: 'Do you want us to come with you?'
Do you want us to come with you? What kind of barmy world do these forensic sorts live in? What's wrong with 'Oh my God! Leo, I- I- I'm so sorry ...' or even 'Blimey, that's terrible, Leo - what happened?' But 'Do you want us to come with you?' is, contextually, about as apposite as performing the dead parrot sketch.
Of course Dalton didn't want them to come with him. What he really wanted to do was become pathologically obsessed with the investigation (which turned out not to be just an accident, of course) to the point where he could start pinning loads of scribbled-upon pictures of the suspects on his living-room wall (hastily acquired from ... well, where do they get them? Downloaded from tvdramasuspects.com?) and doing a bit of deranged-with-grief-but-still-inspired stalking of potential Baddies, to the point where the officer in charge of the investigation was forced to hand it all over to the deranged prof and wait for a blinding result. Ideally at about 9.57pm on Tuesday night. Needless to say he wasn't disappointed, even if I was.
We know that kids - particularly our own - say the funniest and/or most heartbreaking things, mostly when they're trying not to be kids. BBC2's charming My Life as a Child - essentially a deftly edited compilation of video diaries - regularly delivers stuff to make you snivel and should disavail anybody of the surprisingly prevalent notion that childhood is some sort of rosy funland, full of light and laughter.
For every seven-year-old Asa, announcing to the camera that he's going to the hospital with his pregnant mother 'to find out if it's still a boy or not' (it is), and who subsequently decides that 'I really like Dexter but when he gets older I think he might get into a bit of a pest. Because you know what little kids are like...', there is a Ben, 10-year-old son of divorced parents, admitting that 'all we ever do is go back and forth. We never get to choose, they do. It's like we're a toy to play with and they have to share us and it's not nice'; or the heartbreakingly people-pleasing nine-year-old Ellie: 'I'm going to my dad's house. He rents loads of videos out and takes us to the cinema ... and it's really nice of him to spend his time with us.'
Lord knows how their own parents have dealt with watching these films if I'm already misty-eyed about Ellie's adult future, which could well include an ongoing search for men who will take her to the cinema and then be kind enough to carry on spending time with her. The surprise is that these kids, though deliciously childish, are apparently almost entirely formed as adults, with all the chaos and heartbreak and speed-dating that that may entail. Look and learn and take notes, it's a mini-thesis on parenting, only without the science and the supernannies.
