Channel hop
When navigating life's many challenges - be they murder mysteries or anniversaries of a tragedy - those with cool heads fare well but those who also possess a warm heart do best.
You wouldn't know it from his stoic expression but George Gently (BBC Entertainment; Sunday to Tuesday at 9pm) is a sensitive man. After his wife is murdered, the senior police officer (played by Martin Shaw; Judge John Deed) takes on one last case - don't they all - to bring her killer to justice. He inherits a young, ambitious assistant detective, John Bacchus (Lee Ingleby, pictured, left, with Shaw; Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban), whose allegiances are unclear, to say the least.
Together they investigate members of a motorcycle club in their native Durham, in northeast England, following a trail of crimes that seems to lead to the back door of the police department itself.
The series, three episodes in all, satisfies in the grand tradition of British sleuth yarns; the hidden clues, the clever observations and the old-fashioned foot chase are all present. As a foil to Gently's world-weary yet ultimately unflappable morality, Ingleby shines as the worshipping yet calculating Bacchus. He is the one who provides the last firm twist to the pilot episode - and the reason Gently comes unequivocally out of retirement to entertain us further. Bravo, Bacchus.
Finally, as the ninth September 11 since the attacks on New York and Washington approaches, we would do well to remember the lessons Americans of all faiths and colours learned the hard way - especially as we grapple with our own grief born out of violence, courtesy of a disgruntled ex-policeman in Manila. Who better to tell it like it was than those who personally witnessed the felling of the twin towers, the destruction at the Pentagon and the losing of lives?
My 911 (National Geographic Channel; Saturday at 11am and 11pm) channels the power of the personal narrative by keeping the bells and whistles to a minimum. There is no poly-sci professor spelling out 'the bigger picture' nor trumpeting of a hero; whether they exist is the viewer's conclusion to draw after hearing the accounts of a dozen or so individuals whose lives became connected through the disaster.