Welcome to Primetime Picks where we offer you the best of the best Sir, in programme choices for the coming week.

There are some great documentaries in the coming week as well as films and new series, so click on the Read More link to take a look at our recommendations…

Monday

Dispatches: The Children Britain Betrayed, 8:00pm, Channel 4

Ten years after the death of Victoria Climbié, Dispatches investigates the failures still present in Britain’s child protection system. With a child being killed by their parent or carer every seven days in the UK, and over 160 child killings since 2004, journalist Peter Oborne examines how such horrific murders might be prevented in the future.

The murder of Baby Peter last year focussed attention on the failures of social services but as Dispatches demonstrates, the failures in child protection reach beyond the realms of just social work departments to include police forces, health services and – as one mother claims – even the family court system.

The Real Full Monty, 9:00pm, Sky1

Documentary which offers an antidote to the recession with this uplifting and revealing special that brings together jobless men from all walks of life, from the former city boy to a down-on-his-luck builder. Together, they will be challenged to put on the performance of their lives as they transform themselves into strippers and go the ‘full monty’.

The men will be laid bare in every sense as they reveal their background stories and emotional journeys, from overcoming the setback of redundancy to building up the confidence to perform a striptease.

Following auditions, the chosen men will embark on a mission to pick themselves up, lose their inhibitions and have fun too. The film will follow these would-be Chippendales as they prepare their routine, costumes and performance space. They’ll not only have to learn how to dance, get fit and let go of any body confidence issues in time for the big night – they’ll also have to organise and market the show to ensure they have a full house for their debut performance.

Tuesday

What’s Really in our Food? 9:00pm, BBC1

In this one hour special, reporters Tom Heap and Simon Boazman turn food detectives to find out what’s really in the stuff we’re eating.

Take the chicken in your Saturday night takeaway, for instance. You might think it was just chicken – but this documentary reveals how it may actually contain skin and bone from other farmyard animals. The programme takes its findings to one of the companies involved, the head of the Food Standards Agency – and the British public.
And Heap and Boazman lift the lid on the murky world of food fraud – where people set out to deceive us about what we’re eating. They talk to the industry insiders who say it’s rife, and the food enforcers who are out to stop it. And they meet the scientists who are deploying CSI-style forensics to work out if someone’s been messing with our food.

The film also goes beyond what is says on the label – to test just how much fat is in our lean beef mince, find out how salad sold as organic isn’t actually what it claimed to be, and asks where the meat in our ready meals is really from.

Freefall, 9:00pm, BBC2

Freefall tackles head on the extraordinary financial crisis we are currently living through. Written and directed by multiple-Bafta Award-winning Dominic Savage, the film dives into the events that have caused turmoil in so many people’s lives.

Tautly and delicately interwoven, the film follows the lives of three men with everything on the line. Gus is the high-flying city exec who packages and sells bundles of mortgages for extortionate profit. Dave is the mortgage broker who can make anything happen, and when Dave offers Jim, his old school friend, a way out of the council flat he and his family have been stuck in for years, it’s an offer that is too good to refuse.

When the market collapses, each character is confronted by a shocking, revelatory truth that shines a burning light on the new realities they face.

Wednesday

Getting On, 10:30pm, BBC4

It’s hard to see life on the geriatric ward of a hospital being a barrel of laughs, but it provides the perfect setting for this new BBC comedy.

Jo Brand, Joanna Scanlan and Vicki Pepperdine play downtrodden NHS employees who have to deal with every bowel movement and hip complaint.

In the first episode, an unsavoury sample and a deceased patient cause problems for the staff.

Days That Shook the World: Hiroshima, 8:00pm, BBC4

At exactly 5.32am on August 6th 1945, a B29 Bomber, The Enola Gay, took off from a small island in the South Pacific on a clandestine operation. It’s mission? To drop a bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, a bomb unlike any other that would change the world forever.

This film dramatises the minute by minute events leading up to the world’s first ever atomic bombing. Based on extracts from President Truman’s personal diaries whick show the decision-making process reflecting America’s real fear that the Japanese would never give up, Japanese eyewitness accounts of the tragedy in Hiroshima, diaries written on board Enola Gay, and the personal testimony of Colonel Paul Tibbets, the man who led the mission so secret not even his crew knew the enormity of what they were doing.

One millionth of a second after detonation, Hiroshima ceased to exist as a city. As estimated 100,000 people were killed and 47,000 buildings flattened. Nobody knows exactly how many civilians died in Hiroshima but its impact will be felt forever.

Thursday

Pregnancy: My Big Decision, 9:00pm, BBC3

The season kicks off with My Big Decision, a documentary series following five pairs of teenage girls facing similar and potentially life-changing decisions.

Separated by age, culture and geography, but sharing the same all-consuming desires the girls go on a very personal journey of self discovery – but they’re taking their mums and grans with them.

Taking a break from everyday life, the six women embark on a five day road trip across the length and breadth of the UK, immersing themselves in the subject matter. From sex and pregnancy to binge drinking and plastic surgery, the teens are set to make a decision that could change the course of their lives.

In Pregnancy – My Big Decision, we follow 16-year-old Chantelle and 14-year-old Lydia who are both convinced they want to have a baby.

New Tricks: The War Against Drugs, 9:00pm, BBC1

New series of the popular drama featuring an eccentric group of ex-police officers who are brought out of retirement to investigate unsolved crimes.

Tonight, Brian Lane reluctantly goes into rehab to treat his alcoholism but a chance remark leads the rest of the UCOS team to join him as they re-investigate the death of a heroin addict at the clinic nine years earlier.

Friday

Farrah’s Story, 7:30pm, Channel 4

This intimate documentary chronicles the final two years of Charlie’s Angels star Farrah Fawcett’s life.

Filmed by the actress herself as well as her family and friends, the film documents her time spent in both Los Angeles and Germany where she decided to undergo controversial stem cell treatment to help her fight against the cancer that ultimately claimed her life.

Shaun of the Dead, 10:00pm, ITV2

The gorgeous Simon Pegg stars in this horror comedy as Shaun, who isn’t having the best of times…

The staff at the store he works in don’t take him very seriously as a temporary boss, his girlfriend Liz has had enough of always meeting at the Winchester Arms – or the fact tht his best mate’s always gooseberrying – and his relationship with his stepdad is a fraught one.

Then, just to make matters worse, the living dead have risen and are spreading their zombie curse to everyone they can get their teeth into. Just doesn’t seem worth getting out of bed some days does it?

Here’s the film’s trailer…

Saturday

Fred and Rose: The West Murders, 10:00pm, Discovery Channel

This is the first of a three-part series about the murderous couple from the West Country. The lives of the Wests’ are revealed using home movies and police tapes, including how officers used Fred West’s fear of ghosts to discover where bodies were buried.

The programme features archive footage and tapes of police interviews with the couple to re-tell the grisly story. Not for the faint hearted.

Groundhog Day, 9:00pm, Five USA

A far more light hearted option is to watch this great and classic film starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell.

Cynical TV meteorologist Phil Connors – along with his producer Rita and cameraman Larry – travels to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania to cover the annual festivities which feature groundhog, ‘Punxsutawney Phil’.

However, a blizzard develops that Connors had predicted would miss them, closing the roads and shutting down long-distance phone service, forcing the team to return to Punxsutawney.

Connors awakens the next morning to find it is again February 2nd, and his day unfolds in exactly the same way as the one before. He’s aware of the repetition but nobody else is. The day keeps on repeating over and over again and somehow, Phil has to learn to break the cycle…

Here’s the film’s trailer…

Sunday

NASA’s Worst Disasters: Hidden Horrors of the Moon Landings, 8:00pm, National Geographic

This fascinating documentary reveals the unknown facts about the six Apollo missions as well as the rarely recounted breakthroughs, harrowing escapes and heartbreaking disasters.

It’s followed by several more documentaries including, NASA’s Worst Disasters: Seconds from Disaster about the horrors encountered with the Space Shuttle Columbia and Space Shuttle Challenger.

Dara Talks Funny: Live In London, 10:00pm, BBC2

Recorded at the 3,500 capacity Hammersmith Apollo, Dara O’Briain Talks Funny … provides further evidence that the comedian — popular for presenting BBC2’s satirical quiz show Mock the Week — is a major draw on the live comedy circuit.

O’Briain has an engaging onstage presence, and while none of his material leaves you dazzled at his sheer comic invention, he’s a comedian who makes a crowd feel relaxed and ready to spend time in his company… and he’s a good laugh.

That’s it for this week. Join us again next week when we’ll have more Primetime recommendations for your viewing delight!