Bonjour! Willkommen auf Why go out! Que pasa?
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is my contribution to Europe Day. Not much, I agree, but seemingly more than 600 channels of British television can muster. See, I'm trying to think what we could possibly do to celebrate. A nostalgia show, perhaps, lasting many hours and called something like "The Top 50 Comedy European Product Names, Like Krapp and Twätt!" Or maybe we could have a Europe night where we could all wear silly hats and sing European songs, and oh, no, hang on, that's Eurovision, and it's not for weeks yet (though I'm counting the minutes...)
No, there's no European fun to be had on television tonight, but there is some simply quite good television, and that's good enough, isn't it? Well it'll have to be. There's a programme on modernism, which should keep you highbrow lot happy (and there's CSI and Lost for the rest of us) - what else? Find out now, with the picks of tonight's TV, taken from this week's Guide.
Lost 10pm, C4 After a certain amount of scene-setting in the season two openers, Lost gets on with what it does best: skedaddling madly towards a denouement that will come, oh, some time around when it's finally cancelled. Meanwhile, tonight's theme is belief, as explored by the contrast between Jack's world-weariness and Locke's need for a "leap of faith". If things are tense underground, they're plain bad for the former raft-crew, dumped in a pit and joined by rough, tough Michelle Rodriguez (Girlfight). Great stuff.
Jonathan Wright
One Life 10.35pm, BBC1 "I've got so used to it, I'd miss it if it wasn't here." Sixty-five-year-old Christine Lyall-Grant was a literary editor for the Cambridge University Press. Then she started making mistakes. Alzheimer's was unpicking her mind like a neural jigsaw. This follows a year in her life, and increasing dependence on daughter Fiona, who reveals mum "loves being naughty, like a rebellious teenager!" Spirited though she is, the reminders on Christine's whiteboard only highlight the poignancy of her situation.
Ali Catterall
Comedy Lab 11pm, C4 Comedy Lab has, in the past, uncovered a host of talents, some of which you might wish it had left covered up; these include Dom Joly, Peter Kay, Jimmy Carr and Russell Brand. Returning for its ninth season of eight episodes, tonight's double-header begins with "Fonejacker", whose animated antics on the blower include an African scamster scheme involving loose change. Bad Crowd, meanwhile, is set in prison and revolves around the attempts of newly arrived middle-class inmate Aiden McCabe (Aiden McArdle) to woo the prison's most eligible homosexual.
David Stubbs
Battlestar Galactica 9pm, Sky One The first part of the season-closing two-parter looks like they've just realised how little time they have to tie up the many loose ends. This episode shames most other TV shows with its huge sweep of subject matter. Politics, religion, madness, daring rescue missions, space exploration, romance and more are all packed tight into the 42 minutes, leaving little time to catch your breath. A miscalculated light jump brings with it a discovery that puts the search for Earth on the back seat. The always entertaining Dean Stockwell joins the cast as a bizarre, hectoring space priest and the scene is set for the grand finale -- which might just top season one's classic denouement.
Phelim O'Neill
Living With Modernism 10pm, BBC4 Centre Point is London's most visible symbol of modernism, and its architect George Marsh built a remarkable commuter belt house for his family. With its sliding walls, cave-like basement room with built-in sauna and shower with moulded bottom benches, the house is a feat of irreverent creativity and practical engineering ingenuity. Presenter Simon Davis stays with Marsh's family to find out what it's like to live in the house, and the programme essentially becomes a showcase for the architect's brave, modernist vision.
Will Hodgkinson
Bright Leaves (Ross McElwee, 2003) 1.35am, FilmFour A dream about tobacco leaves was interpreted by Ross McElwee's wife as a sign that he was missing the south of the US, so he returns to South Carolina. He meets a cousin who is an obsessive collector of movie paraphernalia where he sees Bright Leaf, a Gary Cooper picture that was based on the life of his great-grandfather John, a once-wealthy tobacco grower who was swindled by his partner Buck Duke. From this unpromising premise develops a detective story in which McElwee gets a greater sense of his own identity and tells the story of the US tobacco industry itself.
Will Hodgkinson
______________________________________________________
Bright Leaves. Hm. Could be good, could just make me want a cigarette. Do you think I could sue if they made me take it up again?
Perhaps not. Then, of course, if you're really low-brow, you'll be lapping up The Starlet (8pm, Living) instead. Terrible, fabulous television.
