THERE is irrefutable evidence on television this evening that aliens have landed on Earth and ingratiated themselves into society. I speak of Hulk Hogan in Suburban Commando (Pearl, 9.30pm).
Mr Hogan co-produced this comic vehicle, which is really aimed at kids, so God only knows why it is being broadcast at 9.30pm. He turns out to be rather likable, as does the rest of the cast, including Shelley Duvall as a stressed-out mother and Roy Dotrice as her stressed-out husband.
The real aliens, if you count yourself among the believers, are in E. T. Files (World, 9.30pm), which looks once again at the Roswell incident, the alleged government cover-up surrounding it, and that silly autopsy footage in which two pathologists in anti-contamination suits extract chopped liver from a latex model.
Among those asked for an opinion are witnesses who say they saw the spaceship crash-land at Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947 and saw three alien bodies taken away by the top brass to a military base in Dallas.
It was at Dallas that the autopsies are said to have been performed. Experts from everywhere give their views on the authenticity or otherwise of the footage, examining it from every conceivable point of view and a few more besides.
The autopsy on the autopsy is followed by part two of Encounter Of The Fifth Kind, which discusses abduction by aliens and cross-fertilisation experiments between extra-terrestrials and human beings. American housewife Kathy Davis swears she has had several children by space aliens as a result of contacts from space, the aliens having fertilised her and taken the foetus away. It doesn't sound like the kind of claim that would stand up to serious cross-examination, but she does have backers. A doctor, Steven Greer, says he met four space aliens on two occasions.
THERE are more temporal pleasures to be had in Russia In The 90s (World, 8.30pm), a series of films by notables, this week Italian director Lina Wertmuller, about the problems faced by an emerging nation. It's a unique insight into a place no-one really seems able to understand, least of all the people who live there.
