IVANKA TRUMP: AMERICA’S REAL FIRST LADY?, C4, 9pm
WITH mysterious Melania hiding in her Manhattan tower of gold, it seems that Ivanka Trump is now acting as the First Lady. Well, someone has to do it. And if she is stepping in to fill a legitimate role –though I hate to say it – she doesn’t deserve some of the hate she’s receiving. When she appears on podiums beside women of talent and achievement, we wouldn’t be writhing and hissing, mocking her earrings, dresses and privilege, if it was Melania. So why should Trump’s wife be automatically more deserving of respect than Trump’s daughter?
The President is expected to cart a pretty woman around with him, and Matt Frei travels to America to find out more about this unexpected First Lady.
THE DAY THE DINOSAURS DIED, BBC2, 9pm
WE know a giant asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs and three quarters of life on Earth, but this documentary seeks to solve “the ultimate dinosaur mystery” – why did they all die, even those who were far from the impact site? The asteroid may have been nine miles wide and moving at 40,000 mph but, even so, how could an event in Mexico kill life across the entire planet?
The first half of the show is a bit dull, being concerned with rocks, fossils and drilling equipment, but then we move to the Nevada Test Site where the team begin studying nuclear tests as a way of understanding the asteroid impact, and then the whole show roars to dramatic life.
We learn the asteroid had the power of ten billion Hiroshimas, and its blast wave was so powerful it even disrupted the elements in the ground and changed the structure of quartz, and its heat created firestorms which quickly engulfed the whole world. Basically the Earth was set alight.
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