When Rover Met BMW (BBC, 10.05pm) should strictly speaking interest only car bores, since in essence this new series is really only about how one car company bought and ran another.
But as this is a German company, which bought up one of the most British brands around, the implications are endless. Instead of presenting a purely business programme about corporate warfare, the producers have gone to great lengths to bring us the real people behind the battles. And personalities are always much better telly than automobiles.
The first of these is John Towers, former Rover CEO, who from the first moment he appears to talk about the merger and the rumours his job is on the line, comes across as a decent chap stuck in something of a cleft stick.
The camera follows him around his hotel bedroom as he puts on the finishing touches before attending a vast press launch for the new Rover car. As he squeezes into his shoes, he reminisces fondly about spending all his pocket money on car magazines, as we the audience know his days are numbered.
This is confirmed only moments later when his new boss, BMW man Dr Wolfgang Reitzle, is interviewed in his office, in close up, insisting the future is rosy. We just know the two men are not going to get on.
There are also a few nice cameos by my colleagues in the British press, including the astonishingly rude, but fair-minded Russell Bray, motor correspondent of the Mail on Sunday, who arrives in Italy for the Rover 200 launch prepared to take on all comers. 'Good flight?' the Rover PR man asks chattily. 'White wine wasn't good.' Bray snaps in total seriousness. 'Wasn't drinkable! Attention to detail!' The editors string together several hilarious shots while the journalists are out test driving the car along the Italian coast. Dan Thisdeil from Motor Trader seems oddly anxious about his companion's driving technique. 'I like all four wheels to be on the ground all the time,' he admits cautiously to the Sunday Express ' Neil Lyndon. 'I think that must be because you don't do much driving,' Lyndon snubs him, revving up for a particularly sharp bend.
