TV preview, Strictly Come Dancing (BBC1, Saturday):

Strictly Come Dancing (BBC1, Saturday 6.25pm), The Vietnam War (BBC4, Monday 9pm), Through the Lens of Larkin (BBC4, Monday 7.30pm), W1A (BBC2, Monday 10pm), The Undateables (Channel 4, Monday 9pm), First Dates (Channel 4, Monday 10pm), The Great British Bake Off (Channel 4, Tuesday 8pm), Rellik (BBC1, Monday 9pm), Liar (ITV, Monday 9pm), Doctor Foster (BBC1, Tuesday 9pm), Horizon: Being Transgender (BBC2, Tuesday 9pm)

Sean O'Grady
Thursday 21 September 2017 13:00 BST
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Debbie McGee (centre) and dancing partner Giovanni Pernice with host Tess Daly in the new series of ‘Strictly Come Dancing’
Debbie McGee (centre) and dancing partner Giovanni Pernice with host Tess Daly in the new series of ‘Strictly Come Dancing’

I often wonder what future generations of non-linear TV viewers (ie not TV viewers at all) will make of Strictly Come Dancing. I’m guessing it will seem as quaint and antique as in fact it already is, a leftover from a past age where competitive ballroom dancing was “a thing”, as they wouldn’t have called it in the heyday of Peggy Spencer (Google her).

Of course, it has a celeb layer on top now, but I’m at a loss, I do confess, to recognise many of the names or faces that will soon be prancing their way across our screens. Strictly is only one outcrop of contemporary celebrity culture and hardly the most offensive example of being invited – deluded? – to believe that we know these people and thus care about whether, in this particular, case, they can do the fandango. Recent commemorations about the death of Diana remind us how strange that phenomenon is, where people attach emotionally to complete strangers, though Strictly is probably less corrosive to the nation’s mental stability that Dianamnia was. On that basis, I’d like to nominate the lovely Debbie McGee to win. She’s like family to me, you know.

Before the quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan there was the quagmire of Vietnam, the last substantial conflict America was involved in before what are still its current interminable struggles in the Middle East. BBC4’s The Vietnam War delves deep into its origins, progress and consequences, half a century on from its peak and the series is timely, now that so many surviving combatants are well into old age, and their leaders and generals long gone (on both sides).

When the last Americans scrambled out of Saigon in 1975 it represented a then unprecedented military humiliation for the United States. Around 60,000 Americans had made the ultimate sacrifice since President Kennedy committed the first “advisers”, very roughly 10 times the fatalities in Iraq and Afghanistan combined, and for little gain or benefit for any of those concerned (and sadly so because the American cause itself was, in principle, just).

Then, as now, America felt itself engaged against an evil ideology that directly threatened Americas security – in that time communism, just as today it is Islamism, and, for a previous generation it had been fascism and Nazism. America soon became a superpower tied down and out foxed by gangs of guerrilla fighters, “like a pitiful helpless giant”, as Richard Nixon once put it. Yes, that does sound familiar, doesn’t it?

It’s probably not the point, after all, but the more one learns about Philip Larkin’s private life the less likeable he is, though his poetry seems to be growing in stature, which is, I concede, really the point about this slightly odd man. Now we have an opportunity to assess his hitherto neglected photography, celebrated in Through the Lens of Larkin. Perhaps predictably, given an all-consuming vanity, he seems to have been something of a pioneer of the self-portrait, or “selfie” as we call it nowadays. An interesting portrait.

For anyone who’s spent much time at the BBC (me included) or, for that matter, any sort of organisation where imagination rubs hard up against clashes with bureaucracy and petty internal politics (me again), W1A sears the eyes and tortures the ears. I’ve seen, and heard, this sort of thing for real far too many times (we call it “byline banditry” in newspapers), but watching a poor intern Will (the ubiquitous Hugh Skinner) having his best idea nicked still hurts and embarrasses. I suppose that’s what tends to happen in a creative environment over populated by uncreative “creatives”. W1A: clever, crafted, creative, exquisitely agonising comedy. So that’s all good, then.

I’m never sure about Channel 4's forays into reality TV. Sometimes it’s pure freak show (Naked Attraction – you may have seen the second series of the tit-and-bum show over the summer), but oftentimes surprisingly sympathetic and sensitive, and a service to tolerance and understanding. The Undateables is better than it sounds because it shows us why autism or Tourette’s doesn’t make someone any less of a catch; while First Dates carries on the work of telly cupid, with the blind-daters enjoying meals, chatter and just a few butterflies about the possibilities of discovering love. Very sweet. Talking of which, The Great British Bake Off has settled down nicely as it emerges from the Channel 4 oven. This week focuses on the pudding, and I’m not talking about Paul Hollywood. Kaboom-tish (sound effect there).

Rellik and Liar, both by the talented Williams Brothers, go head to head again on Monday night, and, if you can go through the emotional wringer again, there’s the psycho-horror of Doctor Foster waiting for you to come home the night after. It’s the penultimate episode, by the way, and I still want Gemma (Suranne Jones) to win (in the same way as I do Russian Julia on Bake Off, now that Scouse gran Flo has been kicked out of the tent and, as mentioned, Debbie McGee on Strictly).

You should make time to see Horizon: Being Transgender, and especially so, if like me, you’re a bit unsure about some of the non-binary stuff that’s going around these days. For me it changed my mind about the trans people, I admit, such a vague but uninformed sympathy for their claims for care and equal rights to, now, a much better informed one (though no doubt I will sound ignorant to some).

The new non-binary world of self-declared gender and sexuality can be a bewildering one for some, as friends, family and workmates try to support trans people they know, and are nowadays more “out”. These are, after all, people who simply feel that their body’s bits don’t exactly match their mind’s perception of who they are, to varying degrees, in varying ways, and with varying sexualities allied to that. It’s all quite nebulous, which I think is quite natural too. So right there, on Tuesday night there’ll be some television that will enlighten you, and not a celebrity in sight: you don’t see that enough, really you don’t.

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