A Place by the Sea Channel 4, 3.15pm Chosen Channel 4, 10pm
Let's start with the jolly stuff. A Place By The Sea: a daytime daydream home-buying show surely facing redundancy as the Nu-Gr8 Depression prevents ordinary folk cashing in their big-city housing chips for rustic havens on sun-dappled beaches.
Devotees of dodgy TV should thus savour the show's presenter, Seetha Hallett, just like endangered species fans should have kept a closer eye on the merry frolickings of the dodo. Seetha Hallett: mega prannock!
The mesmerisingly average Ms Hallett parrots her lines as if reading from a Janet and John book, sometimes waxing faux-flirty when addressing would-be property-purchasers: "What do you think of the upstairs, then?"
Dyed-blonde Seetha exudes permanent surprise via painted-on eyebrows two inches higher than nature intended. That shimmery silver eyeshadow and coral-pink lipstick: it's the soccer WAG look. No Wayne Rooney for Seetha, though. She's more suited to being wife/girlfriend to midfield enforcer Darren "The Clog" Wimpole, of Blue Square Conference South pace-setters Drabford and Dullborough United.
Apt, this, as Seetha and APBTS are leagues below knowledgeable Phil'n'Kirstie in Location, Location, Location and Property Ladder's can-do goddess Sarah Beeny.
In contrast, the harrowing Chosen constituted the most compelling and valuable bit of talking-heads TV we might ever see as three grown-up victims of paedophilia bravely shared their emotional hurt. Human empathy and a sense of inquiring rigour are among the best weapons in old-school journalism's armoury, and documentary film-maker Brian Woods used them to the full.
Having won his subjects' trust, Woods created a frank and redemptive two-hour marathon confessional. His valiant trio heroically and honestly continued their painful lifelong bids to make emotional sense of the unforgivable sexual outrages forced upon them in their long-lost innocent youth, 40-odd years previously.
All had been serially abused by three adult male teachers, plus one of the teacher's friends, when they were 11-year-old boarders at Caldicott School in Buckinghamshire. In consequence, Alastair Rolfe was left to question his sexuality for decades.
Tom Perry buried his memories, only to suffer depression in later life. Mark Payge's early youth was scarred by drug-fuelled nihilism.
Throughout their adult lives, all were plagued by shame, guilt, bafflement, disgust and anger. Despite this, Mark's hard-earned final words attested to healing: "I'm on the road to forgiveness." Each wounded recollection emerged powerfully, simply through fraught pauses which emphasised the lasting damage done.
Chosen employed only one bit of modern TV technical tricksiness, rendering old monochrome photographs of days gone by at Caldicott into 3-D images. And so its ivy-clad mansion rippled chillingly back to life.
Two men faced criminal charges in connection with the case in 2003. One of them, Martin Carson, was sentenced to just two years. The other did not stand trial because of the amount of time that had elapsed since the abuse was said to have taken place.
However, to listen to Alastair, Tom and Mark was to hear their ultimate victory, as they have manifestly emerged from their ordeal as everything their abusers weren't: admirable, self-controlled, whole human beings.
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