THREE GIRLS, BBC1, 9pm
EVERYONE should watch this. No matter what your views are on multiculturalism, political correctness and personal responsibility, there are lessons here for everybody.
It’s a three-part drama about the grooming and rape of young girls in Rochdale by Pakistani gangs, based on a true story and made with the co-operation of the victims.
Watching it, it’s hard to know where to direct your anger: at the vile rapists and paedophiles; at the utterly worthless social workers who regard the girls as “slags”; at the judgemental police; at the poison of political correctness?
We follow Holly, who becomes pals with a group of girls who delight in getting free kebabs, taxi rides and vodka at the seedy Top Curry shop. Soon, the men demand sex in return and Holly is repeatedly raped. She’s afraid to go to the police because her attacker threatens to rape her sisters and burn down her house.
Her only hope lies with a crusading sexual health nurse, played by a furiously brilliant Maxine Peake.
HORIZON: STRANGE SIGNALS FROM OUTER SPACE!, BBC2, 9pm
MAYBE I’m old-fashioned but is it not a sad day when Horizon puts an exclamation mark in its titles?
It’s also a sad day when a Horizon documentary needs to pad itself out with dull details about the scientists who feature in its shows. This programme was about the search for extra-terrestrial life, but it began like a Netflix drama, showing us the cosy, all-American life of two scientists. Just get to the point! See, now they’re making me use exclamations too!
Once you cut all the padding away, we learn about the Lorimer Burst, the Dyson Sphere and The Great Silence, but are aliens out there, or are the various beeps and whistles we pick up perhaps coming from your microwave in the kitchen?
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