Welcome to our Primetime Picks of what’s on our tellyboxes next week, and it looks like being a good ‘un this week!

Monday

The Real Pink Panther: Lord Victor Hervey, 8:00pm, Channel 4

The final film in Channel 4’s Toffs and Crims series, which explores the affinity between the upper echelons of society and the criminal underclass.

Victor Hervey, the sixth Marquis of Bristol, masterminded a gang of career criminals and then found himself at the Old Bailey on two counts of jewel theft.

It has long been believed that, when he was convicted in 1939 and sentenced to three years penal servitude, this was the end of Victor’s criminal ways. However, recently declassified police documents reveal that after he was released Victor may still have been involved in crime…

The Herveys have always been one of the aristocracy’s most scandalous families. The 18th-century phrase “When God created the human race, he made men, women and Herveys” is attributed variously and has been applied to the family throughout the centuries.

Under the spotlight today are It Girls Lady Victoria and Lady Isabella; in the 90s it was their troubled half-brother John. But it can be argued that their father was the most notorious Hervey of them all. Victor was expelled from Eton and kicked out of Sandhurst. Infamously, he failed in an attempt at arms-dealing during the Spanish Civil War. Despite enjoying a massive allowance and having won notoriety as Mayfair’s biggest playboy, Victor wanted more.

A shameless self-publicist and fantasist, he was desperate to outshine his notorious relatives and soon cast himself in a new role, that of criminal mastermind extraordinaire. So, with a gang of ex-public school boys and hardened cons he set out on criminal career. Hervey’s first victim was a Russian princess. His second was a society lady famous for her jewels. However, only two days after this second crime, the police caught up with Hervey and his gang.

Victor had set out to be the greatest Hervey of them all, the grandest Marquis of Bristol ever. Instead he scandalised his generation, sowed the seeds of his family’s ruin and tarnished the reputation of the British aristocracy. To this day the true extent of Victor’s criminal dealings will never be known, but with the details we do have his story is quite incredible enough.

Revenge of the Bin Men, 9:00pm, Channel 4

It used to be so simple: you put out your rubbish and the bin men took it away. Not any more. Bin Wars are raging up and down the country.

At middle class dinner parties the length and breadth of Britain, the conversation often turns to what the bin men will, and won’t, take away.
War has broken out between the people who are putting out too much rubbish and the councils whose job it is to dispose of it all.

As landfill space runs out and the government increases recycling targets, town halls across the country are getting tough about recycling, fly-tipping and litter. They’re tracking down bin delinquents and making them pay. And the public are fighting back.

This Cutting Edge film follows the men and women on both sides of the battle, from the Hampshire resident determined to stop his local council introducing smaller bins, to the woman employed by Peterborough council to teach people the right and wrong way to use their bins, the man responsible for 80% of the city of Worcester’s penalty notices, and the man who ended up in court for his protest when the bin men wouldn’t take his rubbish away; and the bin men stuck in the middle, between the new regulations and the public who aren’t prepared to put up with it.

Tuesday

Dangerous Love: A Comic Relief Special, 9:00pm, BBC3

Model Danielle Lloyd embarks on a journey to uncover the true extent of violence in teen relationships in the UK today and to understand the impact this is having on Britain’s young women.

Visiting organisations funded by Comic Relief, Danielle hears the real stories of teenagers who have violent boyfriends. She meets 21-year-old Sam, an inspirational young woman who, havingsurvived violence in her teenage years, is now supporting others.

Danielle’s search for answers also involves going back to school with children in Hendon to see groundbreaking solutions in action. Determined to stop more teens finding themselves in abusive relationships, the journey ends with her finding out about a campaign to directly spread the word and make a difference.

Horizon: What’s the Problem with Nudity?, 9:00pm, BBC2

What is wrong with nudity? Why are people embarrassed about their bodies? How and why did they get the way they are?

Horizon takes a group of volunteers and subjects them to a series of psychological and physical tests to challenge attitudes to the naked human form. The questions raised strike at the heart of human physical and social evolution.

Human beings are the only creatures that can be ‘naked’ – but why, how and when did people lose their fur? That question takes Horizon around the world to meet scientists from Africa to Florida, and they are finding answers in unexpected places: the chest hair of Finnish students, the genetic history of lice, and the sweat of an unusual monkey.

It turns out that something everyone takes for granted may hold the key to the success of the entire human species.

Wednesday

Hero Animals, 7:30pm – 8:00pm, Five

The Dog That Battled the Bear

First in a new series of 6 episodes profiling heroic animals.

Dog-sled racer Paul was saved by one of his huskies when a black bear attacked him in the wilds of Canada.

While all of the other dogs fled, lead husky Grizzly stepped in to protect his master.

The heroic husky kept the voracious she-bear at bay for seven long hours while his injured owner clung to a tree.

Ku Klux Klan, 9:00pm, National Geographic

This documentary takes a look behind the white robes of one of the oldest terrorist groups operating in America, the Ku Klux Klan.

With a combination of new material and archive footage, plus interviews with undercover FBI agents, discover how the Klan is divided into two segments, one which has adopted the violent tactics of right-wing extremist groups like the neo-Nazis, and the other which has adopted a mainstream political approach.

Find out how the fiery crosses of the Klan are rising again in response to America’s immigration debate.

Thursday

Red Riding, 9:00pm, Channel 4

This is the first episode of this new and thrilling trilogy of films based on David Peace’s cult noir novels about Yorkshire during the 1970s and 80s. Welcome to a world of paranoia, corruption – and the terrifying legacy of the Ripper murders…

It’s Yorkshire in 1974, and fear, mistrust and institutionalised police corruption are running riot. Rookie journalist Eddie Dunford is determined to search for the truth in an increasingly complex maze of lies and deceit surrounding the police investigation into a series of child abductions.

When young Clare Kemplay goes missing, Eddie and his colleague, Barry, persuade their editor to let them investigate links with two similar abductions in the last decade.

But after a mutilated body is found on a construction site owned by a local property magnate, Eddie and Barry are drawn into a deadly world of secrecy, intimidation, shocking revelations and police brutality.

Mediums: We See Dead People, 9:00pm, Biography Channel

Fascinating 2-hour special that delves into the work of psychic mediums as they speak to the dead, solve crimes, photograph spirits, explore hauntings, and get involved in other paranormal activities.

Featured are John Holland, who “feels” the giant fireball that killed factory workers nearly a century ago; Jeffrey Wands, who talks to the dead at a New York cemetery; and Dr. Gary Schwartz, a psychologist who tests mediums for accuracy.

Friday

Natural World, 8:00pm, BBC2

Iron Curtain, Ribbon of Life

When communism crumbled in 1989, it created an opportunity for wildlife. The Iron Curtain that divided communist Eastern Europe from the capitalist West had created a no-man’s-land protected by barbed wire and minefields – a last haven for many rare animals and plants.

This film tells the story of the movement, led by biologist Dr Kai Frobel, that set out to save the wildlife of this precious strip.

Now as we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Iron Curtain, we can also celebrate the birth of the biggest conservation movement in the world, a ribbon of life stretching 13,000 kilometres across Europe, protecting everything from bears and wolverines in Finland to rare eagles in Bulgaria.

Al Murray’s Multiple Personality Disorder, 9:30pm, ITV1

Multi-award winning comic Al Murray returns with a brand new sketch show full of new comedy characters and a few well-known guests.

Prurient Dad gets caught short, rock star Gary Parsley is not happy with his dinner and Barrington Blowtorch is caught with his hands in his latest victim’s pockets.

Saturday

Auschwitz: The Nazis and The Final Solution, 7:00pm, UKTV History – this channel will change it’s name to ‘Yesterday’ as of 2nd March

Surprising Beginnings

On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, this series charts the evolution of the camp and the mentality of the perpetrators, and shows how the place related to the Nazis’ overall campaign of extermination.

This first programme tells the story of the beginnings of the camp and how it was originally intended for a very different purpose than the murder of the Jews.

The Photographer, his Wife, her Lover, 9:00pm, BBC4

Paul Yule’s film uncovers the private life of O Winston Link, a giant of contemporary photography whose images, made in the 1950s and depicting the last days of steam, have become icons of 20th century Americana.

However, behind the veneer of success and recognition is a tragic story of deceit, lies and greed – together with an unexpected and sordid twist.

Sunday

Meet the Parents, 7:15pm, BBC3

A Jewish male nurse – played by Ben Stiller – plans to ask his live-in girl friend to marry him. However, he learns that her strict father – the awesome Robert DeNiro – expects to be asked for his daughter’s hand before she can accept.

Thus begins the visit from Hell as the two travel to meet Mom – Blythe Danner – and Dad, who turns out to be former CIA with a lie detector in the basement. Coincidentally, a sister also has announced her wedding to a young doctor.

Of course everything that can go wrong, does, including the disappearance of Dad’s beloved Himalayan cat, Jinxie…

Here’s the trailer for this hilarious film…

Piers Morgan’s Life Stories: Katie Price, 10:00pm, ITV1

In the third show of this six part series, Piers Morgan interviews Katie Price, aka Jordan.

In this intimate and revealing hour long interview, filmed entirely in front of a studio audience, Katie Price talks frankly and relives some of the more difficult moments in her life which lead to some unexpected tears.

She also speaks openly about her husband and family, her career including:

How she misses doing glamour shoots. How she couldn’t be happier with her marriage to Peter and they are planning more children. Her thoughts on being a role model; her mother is hers. And she reveals if she was ever in love with Dwight Yorke.

Piers also asks about why Katie decide to take up the invitation to take part in I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!

Katie says: “I always used to say I’m not the person they’re saying I am in the tabloids, so I was quite excited at going in and letting people see what I was like. What a man-eater I was!”

And on meeting Peter, Piers asks if she knew about him before?

“Yes,” she says. “I knew the name but I thought he was an estate agent now. I did fancy him, I saw him in the papers.”

The show also includes insightful interviews with Katie’s brother Daniel Price, sister Sophie, her mother Amy and husband Peter Andre.

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Hope you have a great week and we’ll see you here next week with more Primetime Picks!