This week, Richard travels light.

Thinking of backpacking around Thailand or Malaysia this summer? Well maybe you should think again in light of Return To Paradise (C4 Sun 06 July 03 2.30am). It’s co-scripted by Bruce “Withnail & I” Robinson, back to the ground he covered in his awarding-winning screenplay for The Killing Fields. Three friends are holidaying in Malaysia, soaking up rays and taking advantage of the cheap and plentiful supply of local herb. Two of them bail out, leaving Joaquin Phoenix to cop the flack when he’s caught with a weight under his fez. His sister, Anne Heche, tracks the other two down months later to tell them her brother will swing if they don’t return and share the blame and serve some time. It’s an excellent dilemma at the heart of this tropical nightmare - a sort of Midnight Express for the 90s - but without the happy ending.

In France, Michel Houellebecq is something of a sensation. He’s Franco lit’s bad boy, and the translation of Atomized a few years ago shocked us Brits with its tale of a washed-up boozing and shagging university lecturer. My kind of read. He landed himself in the dock over possible racist remarks, but the case collapsed and Extension Du Domaine De La Lutte (C4 Mon 07 July 03 2.20am) is a fine adaptation of his work. Like American Psycho, it’s not as nasty as the book, but this deconstruction of what Houellebecq terms the “omega male” will thrill those of you who like your cinema brutal and sardonic. Laughter in the dark.

Brian “rip-off” De Palma has spent his career trying to emulate Alfred Hitchcock. Badly in most instances. In 1948, Hitch tried to make a film in one take but Rope actually has four discreet cuts in it. In Snake Eyes (five Mon 07 July 03 9pm), De Palma tried to make the longest opening scene without a cut. Both Orson Welles (in Touch Of Evil) and Robert Altman (in The Player) have also done this. So this disappointing, but technically exciting, Nicolas Cage vehicle is little more than De Palma taking his cock out of his trousers and pointing at it.

Like Welles, Terry Gilliam has had an obsession with Don Quixote most if his life. Welles died trying and Gilliam is half-way there, as Lost In La Mancha (BBC4 Mon 07 July 03 9pm) documents his painfully fruitless attempt to adapt Cervantes’ prototype novel. Everything that can go wrong does. Poor geezer. Richard Berger 04 July 03