After The War Was Won | Super Tiny Animals | Charlie's Angels | Frozen Planet | Your Money and How They Spend It | Storyville: Bobby Fischer – Genius and Madman
After The War Was Won
1pm, Yesterday
We've all seen the footage from the end of the second world war. It looked as if Britain became one huge party with streets full of emotional scenes as soldiers reunited with their loved ones. But that's not the whole story. The demobilisation of 4.5 million troops took more than 18 months, and many of the returnees were damaged physically and mentally, arriving at homes that had completely changed in their absence. This series provides what might be the last chance to hear the stories of the elderly survivors. Phelim O'Neill
Super Tiny Animals
7.30pm, ITV1
Pigs aren't just for breakfast; they're for handbags, too. "Micro-pigs" have recently joined "teacup puppies" and "dinky donkeys" as a must-have accessory. These fairy-sized critters, weighing less than a pound (but costing considerably more), come with a never-ending range of pink tutus, crystal-encrusted bows, and tiny wellington boots. And it makes economic sense: you can feed four Lilliputian lovelies for the price of one normal-sized dog. But the phenomenon has also given rise to unscrupulous backstreet breeding, as Jane Horrocks explains.
Charlie's Angels
8pm, E4
ABC cancelled this reboot after four miserable, misguided episodes from creators who said they didn't want their remake to be "campy". But the crucial thing about camp is that it has brains. Irony. Wit. Fun. And the thing about this "campless" rejig, in which three bad girls do the bidding of some unseen billionaire pervert, is … well, it's just absolute guff, from the mechanically recovered acting to the feeble action scenes and dire script. Tonight, they bust a sex-trafficking ring. Whatever. Life-depleting.
Frozen Planet
9pm, BBC1
Having examined in often brutal close-up the lives (and deaths) of animals in the polar regions, this week we look at how the human animal copes in conditions to which we are ill-conditioned. Despite temperatures of -50C, and it being plunged into darkness for three months of the year, the Arctic plays home to villages, towns, even cities. These vary from communities of locals levering precariously down the sides of cliffs for seabird eggs, to overseas workers drawn by the oil industry, or teams of scientists letting off balloons into space.
Your Money and How They Spend It
9pm, BBC2
The second in this series has Nick Robinson looking at government revenue or, in other words, tax. Last year, £549bn was collected through taxation but the government still ran a deficit; so how can they raise more? Robinson does his best to bring to life a dry but essential subject, and he does a good job of delivering figures that may run counter to popular belief (the top 1% contributes 27% of income tax, for example).
Storyville: Bobby Fischer – Genius and Madman
9pm, BBC4
The line that divides genius from madness has rarely been more blurry than in the case of Bobby Fischer. More than three years on from his death – itself inevitably attended by controversy, including a bitter wrangle over his fortune and his exhumation – this documentary attempts the uphill task of making sense of Fischer's singular life story. The archive footage and interviews with those who knew him recall both the breathtaking chess champion who revolutionised the game, and the delusional wretch who spent much of his life all but rendering himself friendless and stateless.
