PAULA, BBC2, 9pm
THIS new Irish drama is very dark.

It’s a three-part series about Paula, a science teacher who’s been indulging in some nights of passion with her colleague, a fellow teacher who is married with children.

They are hardly great dramatic lovers: in once scene Paula puts her arms around him, not to caress him, but to squeeze a spot on his neck. So it’s no great passion as far as she’s concerned, and soon she starts to rebuff his advances. But her lover won’t take the hint. He accosts her in the school corridors and leaves her explicit notes.

Just as the drama is setting up the jilted lover as the baddy, the story swings in another direction.

Having discovered rats in her basement she hires a local man to remove them but he’s not who he appears to be. He’s desperate for cash and Paula’s messy affair may offer a chance for blackmail.

THE TRUTH ABOUT HIV, BBC1, 9pm
MOST of us remember the shocking public information about Aids which the Government produced in the 1980s, featuring images of a massive gravestone, and a clip from the chilling film which opens this programme.

Then Elton John appears, speaking of his many friends who died of Aids during that decade. Schoolchildren, when asked about the disease, mention Freddie Mercury. Little wonder then that many of us regard Aids as a disease of the past. This film makes clear that it is still with us but, mercifully, so is the related scientific research.

With 35 million dead, and the numbers infected with HIV rising, the work continues and there may be hope of a cure. A drug to prevent HIV is already available on the Scottish NHS and drugs to combat the virus means “it doesn’t have to be a death sentence”. But we still need education.

The programme shows pupils blaming a government conspiracy and other “dirty things”.