THE LAST KINGDOM, BBC2, 9pm
YOU really have to be into this type of thing. It’s been mocked in the past as a lower-budget Game of Thrones but if you can see past its showier American rival then you can enjoy this, the second series of the sweaty, bloody, torchlit epic drama of ninth-century England.
It opens with some celebrations that Wessex is finally safe from its various Danish invaders, but danger still lurks beyond its borders.
The people are warned of “two godless brothers with an appetite for slaves, silver and war”.
And so, after a few mild “hoorays” at Wessex being free, the story charges straight back into peril. Uthred journeys north to seek revenge for Ragnar and to seize back his ancestral lands.
Everything is spectacularly angry, abusive and violent in ninth-century England. Let’s be glad they didn’t have Twitter.
SMILE! THE NATION’S FAMILY ALBUM, BBC4, 9pm
HOW quaint the idea of a photograph album will seem to a young person. A clumsy, fat book bound in fake leather, usually maroon coloured with tacky gold lettering spelling out “Memories”, and when you open the thing you’ll probably find the pages have stuck together, and lots of photos have slipped loose and need to be peeled away from others.
You don’t get those problems with an online photo album but they do seem a bit soulless.
This documentary celebrates the family album and traces how technology has changed the way we take and collect our precious family photos.
Once, we all gathered together, holding a pose in front of a heavy camera while children niggled and someone yelled “Cheese!”
Now it’s a casual selfie, taken, stored and displayed in seconds.
Here, the evolution of the family photograph is nicely linked in with Britain’s post-war social history.
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