DOCTOR FOSTER, BBC1, 9pm
I ASSUME feminists hate this show, as it takes the idea of a scorned woman and cranks it up to the max. It shows Gemma Foster as bitter, vengeful, resentful and irrational, and has her skulking in bushes, peering in through windows, and boozing in the garden while indulging in acidic witchcraft. This is a nervous man’s idea of an angry woman.
Tonight’s episode is less wild than last week’s series opener – and so I was mildly disappointed.
Gemma is desperate to know why her son, Tom, has left home, though I don’t know why she’s so bothered. He’s a sulky, moping dishrag of a boy, so let him go. But she can’t – not when that would count as a victory for her ex-husband Simon. Gemma also persuades her flirtatious neighbour Neil to befriend Simon in an attempt at spying. She’s desperate to know where he got all his money from. Perhaps a few drinks will loosen his tongue?
THE GREAT BRITISH BAKE OFF, C4, 8pm
THIS week is bread week, and I always huff when it comes round. Bread can’t be that interesting, I always moan. It’s just bread, I complain.
It’s just toast, or pieces, or food for the ducks, I sigh – and I’m always proved wrong, for the things these bakers can do with bread are beyond our imaginings.
The technical challenge is to make a cottage loaf, which sounds deceptively easy, but it’s all about acquiring the correct bulbous shape. Many bakers fail, with one lamenting that her loaf looks like BB8 from Star Wars. Another is likened to a cow pat. They were more like Weebles to me, and I was humming the tune to the “Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down” adverts.
There are blushes and giggles in the showstopper round, when one baker’s elaborate bread sculpture contains a very indecent-looking pink snail.
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