GALAPAGOS
BBC Two, 9pmThe final part of this achingly beautiful miniseries features some of the strangest-looking creatures so far, including the guineafowl puffer fish and the spotted eagle ray.
But even these do not begin to compare with the otherworldliness of the creatures that float up each night from the depths of the ocean. The series ends on a cautionary note, describing the threat to the fragile ecosystem of the islands that once were protected by their isolation. That isolation is long gone. Now there are more introduced plants than native ones; goats that were brought in as a reliable source of food have ravaged the vegetation and 100,000 tourists visit each year. Sadly, this lovely series can only increase the threat.
UNREPORTED WORLD
Channel 4, 7.35pm
The suits at Channel 4 deserve to be proud of their continued support for this strand. Big Brother may pay their bills, but Unreported World — focusing on matters of life and death that affect hundreds of thousands of people in some of the least publicised parts of the globe — is one of the moral arteries of the channel.
In the first of a new series, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy reports from South Africa, where refugees from all over the continent are flooding
into the country as illegal immigrants and being treated abominably. Either they are accused of stealing jobs and creating a crime wave, or exploited as virtual slave labour. In the country that overcame apartheid, an illegal immigrant says: “I feel I’m being treated like an animal.”
JOHNNY KINGDOM: A YEAR ON EXMOOR
BBC Two, 8pm
Heaven knows, we all have our prejudices. Personally, I’ve never been too keen on wildlife presenters who hurl themselves at crocodiles, shout with excitement at the viewer or present themselves as capital-c Characters. (David Attenborough deliberately wears nondescript clothing in front of the camera because, he says, he doesn’t want to be a distraction.) Johnny Kingdom, on the other hand, is a wildly enthusiastic presenter, covered in tattoos and camouflage clothing, who addresses the viewer like a long-lost friend at a noisy party. Admittedly, he looks after a delightful three-legged deer (aka “the tripod”) and films glorious images of badgers and stags on Exmoor — but it’s very much the “Heeeere’s Johnny!” approach to natural history.
