Week 39 highlights 2012

12 September 2012

The Boy Who Can't Forget

 

Train your ocular jellyballs on this astoundingly beauteous cornucopia of televisual marvelousness, you lucky, lucky peeps.

 

Saturday 22/09/2012
8:15pm
Comedy World Cup 2/7
Hosted by David Tennant, and featuring the pick of Britain's finest comedy talent, Comedy World Cup is a new panel show in which Tennant referees two teams of comedians as they compete against each other in a hilarious knockout competition. In each episode the teams, whose careers and comedy know-how span a total of 100 years, pit their wits against each other in a series of rounds. The second show sees team captain Alan Carr with Sara Pascoe and Clive Anderson pit their wits against captain Micky Flanagan with Kevin Bridges and Stan Boardman.

 

Sunday, 23/09/2012
7pm
Jimmy and the Whale Whisperer
Farmer and wild life enthusiast Jimmy Doherty travels to the beautiful Caribbean island of Dominica to meet an amazing man, who calls himself the Whale Whisperer. A decade ago Dominican Andrew Armour befriended an injured sperm whale calf he nicknamed Scar, and since then he has claimed he can communicate with Dominican Sperm whales, who let him swim among them like family. If 'The Whale Whisperer' is for real, Jimmy hopes he and top whale scientist Professor Joy Reidenberg (Inside Nature's Giants) can help him get close enough to these gigantic, intelligent and little-known animals to carry out an important experiment.

 

Sunday, 23/09/2012
8pm
Kevin McCloud's Man Made Home
Kevin McCloud has always had a dream - to buy himself a beautiful piece of woodland, roll up his sleeves and build himself a cabin in the woods. Kevin's decided that everything for the cabin has to be made by hand from his woodland, and if it not, then it has to be constructed from somebody else's rubbish. Together with a hardy band of friends and experts, Kevin is going to reuse, repurpose and recycle almost all his building materials for his bold building in rural Somerset. Kevin's vision is to build himself a magnificent retreat: a magical shed of his imagination, without it costing the earth. Can a simple more creative life make you happier? There's more Kevin on Wednesday in Grand Designs.

 

Sunday, 23/09/2012
9pm
Big Fat Quiz of the Nineties
Jimmy Carr hosts the second of three special editions of the Big Fat Quiz series, and if the 90s taught us anything it was how to delete our internet history! But why did we stop eating burgers? How did Magic Eye work? And who were Papa and Nicole? Phill Jupitus, Jack Whitehall, Alan Davies, Claudia Winkleman and Denise Van Outen tackle the questions, plus there are guest appearances by Wolf from Gladiators, Michael Buerk, Chesney Hawkes, and Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer.

 

Monday, 24/09/2012
8pm
Retirement Homes: Channel 4 Dispatches
Dispatches goes undercover to investigate the multi-million pound retirement property industry. As millions of retirees face downsizing their homes, reporter Morland Sanders and Dispatches' undercover pensioner look at some of the pitfalls of buying a retirement flat. Sanders also meets the pensioners who've discovered living in a retirement home isn't what they hoped for as they battle through tribunals and try to reduce their living costs.

 

Monday, 24/09/2012
9pm
999: What's Your Emergency 3/10
This powerful new 10-part documentary series reveals how Britain is changing through the eyes of police, fire and ambulance teams on the front line responding to 999 calls. This week's programme focuses on relationships. When things go wrong, more of us than ever are dialling 999, asking the emergency services to pick up the pieces and protect us from those we used to trust. An increasing number of 999 calls involve relationship disputes, but they're never easy to resolve. The emergency operators are inundated with petty, non-emergency calls, ranging from people falling out over what they're watching on telly, to others arguing about computer games and who gets to keep the kitten when they split up.

 

Tuesday 25/09/2012
9pm
The Boy Who Can't Forget
Can you remember what you were doing on 15 March 2003? Or what the weather was like on 30 May 2007? Twenty-year-old British student Aurelien can. He is one of just a handful of people in the world who are baffling scientists with their ability to recall an incredible amount of their lives. Aurelien is the first Briton to go public with this extraordinary talent. Is it an elaborate trick or some sort of obsessive compulsive behaviour, or perhaps the result of physical differences in their brains? This remarkable documentary explores the phenomenon known as superior autobiographical memory

 

Tuesday 25/09/2012
10pm
Shameless 4/10
Billy discovers a used pregnancy test after Mimi, Karen and Gloria spend the night boozing. He turns to Jamie for advice, and both of them set out to discover who's the daddy. Jackson is suspicious because Avril and Calum are always together after hours, but when he sneers at an invitation to go clubbing, Avril leaves him behind and makes it a night to remember. Aiden and Chesney collect meat for a raffle and manage to get stuck with a live cow, and a guilt-ridden Shane starts watching the family of the man he's killed. (The next episode follows on E4.)

 

Wednesday 26/09/2012
8pm
The Food Hospital 2/6
In the second episode, the experts try to solve the problem for parents who want their kids to eat their greens. Plus, first to be seen at The Food Hospital is wannabe footballer Ezra, 14 from Brixton who suffers from ADHD - Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. The experts also meet Maryn, 30 from London, who has turned the normal five fruit and veg a day into 50 a day. And Jayne, 31 from Northumberland, suffers from Alopecia Universalis, which has left her with hardly a hair on her body.

 

Wednesday 26/09/2012
10pm
Drugs Live: The Ecstacy Trial 1/2
In a UK television first, two live Channel 4 programmes will follow volunteers as they take MDMA, the pure form of ecstasy, as part of a ground-breaking scientific study. Presented by Jon Snow and Dr Christian Jessen, the programmes will include footage of the scientific study alongside a debate exploring issues around the controlled drug. The programmes aim to cut through the emotional debate surrounding the issue and accurately inform the public about the effects and potential risks of MDMA. The concluding programme airs tomorrow evening.

 

Thursday, 27/09/2012
8pm
Location, Location, Location 3/5
Kirstie and Phil are in north London helping two sets of househunters with very different problems. Ify Okoye is searching for her first home. But having already viewed a whopping 90 properties she's got one of the worst cases of househunter's fatigue Kirstie has ever seen. Phil's with first time buyers Mike and Rosemary, who have spent the last six years abroad and want to settle down. But will their property aspirations prove too big for their budget?

 

Thursday, 27/09/2012
9pm
The Audience 3/3
In this series, a person with a life-changing decision to make is followed round by 50 strangers for a week. Unsure what to do, individuals turn to The Audience for help. After a week, The Audience must agree on a decision and deliver their verdict on the path to take. The third programme features Anthony Powell, a 28-year-old office worker from Liverpool. He needs help to make the biggest decision of his life: whether to quit his job and go travelling. The 50 strangers unearth the grief Anthony endured when he was younger, forcing him to confront the heart of the issue - the loss of his parents - and talk openly about it for the first time.

 

Friday, 28/09/2012
8pm
Baggage 2/8
Gok Wan hosts this brand-new dating game show with a difference, in which contestants must choose and reject potential partners on the basis of their 'baggage'. In the second show, Sarah has her pick of three sexy suitors, Jevan, Ian and Adam - one cries all the time and another learnt his dating technique from a book. Whoever she picks, will they be able to work out what's inside her big red bag? When it's Ed's turn to pick from three lovely blondes, he's faced with the revelations that one will only see him once a week, another can't ride a bike and a third will always put football before him.

 

Friday, 28/09/2012
10pm
Alan Carr: Chatty Man 3/14
In the third episode, Alan is joined by Jessie J who chats about her autobiography Nice to Meet You, and One Direction talk about their new album and single. Plus, there's music from US singer Alicia Keys.