 |
| BBC ONE Unplaced Week 31 |
|
Lost Land Of The Jaguar: Steve
Backshall prepares to descend
over Kaieteur Falls On the north coast of South America, between Venezuela and Brazil, is the country of Guyana. This former British colony is the size of Great Britain but has a population of just 800,000. The towns are mainly on the fertile coastal strip – travel south and there is rainforest for hundreds and hundreds of miles.
Lost Land Of The Jaguar, a new, three-part series for BBC One, brings an international team of scientists, climbers and wildlife film-makers to the Guyanese rainforest to search for the extraordinary animals that live there.
They will spend a month exploring the unknown, unexplored and untouched forests of Guyana to show that this forgotten forest is truly unique and should be saved, for ever.
In this first programme, wildlife cameraman Gordon Buchanan goes in search of the rare giant otters and soon discovers their tracks – they are almost as large as he is. The remote camera he sets to trace the otters unexpectedly captures the elusive jaguar – South America's biggest cat.
Meanwhile, canopy expert Justine Evans and the climbing team build a platform high in a tree-top. After a long week of waiting, Justine finds and films a family of red howler monkeys.
Insect expert Dr George McGavin crawls into a giant fallen log and soon discovers not only crickets but also their predator – whipspiders – perfectly adapted for hunting in darkness.
Climber and biologist Steve Backshall sets off to explore a giant waterfall that lays to the west of the country – Kaieteur Falls. His aim is to abseil the 240m to the plunge pool and be the first naturalist to explore this habitat. At the bottom, he is pummelled by the spray but finds a perfect habitat for species of frogs and freshwater crabs, which co-exist in a habitat of wild vegetation.
DB2
|
| BBC TWO Unplaced Week 31 |
|
Igal Naor plays the ruthless
dictator in House of Saddam Igal Naor plays the ruthless dictator Saddam Hussein in a gripping, new, four-part drama series that charts the rise and fall of one of the most significant political figures in recent history.
It's March 2003 and, in the opulent presidential palace of Baghdad, Saddam Hussein watches, defiantly, as President Bush declares in a televised address to the Iraqi people that "the tyrant will soon be gone". The sound of bombs are heard in the distance.
Back to July 1979, again in Baghdad, during the seventh birthday party celebrations of his daughter, Hala, Deputy President Saddam and his allies force the intimidated President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr to resign.
Convening his first governmental congress of the Ba'ath party, Saddam exposes supposed detractors of his new leadership who are led from the courtroom and forced to "confess" to an attempted coup. Blindfolded and terrified, they are lined up against a wall and executed by members of Saddam's party in the ultimate test of loyalty to their new leader.
The personality of the new president permeates Iraq: the image of a heroic and popular leader is projected to the people. When terrorist attacks tear through Baghdad, Saddam orders a full military rebuttal against the perpetrators, leading to the Iran-Iraq conflict.
As war wages, Saddam faces troubles at home; the death of his domineering mother; the youthful nonchalance of his son and heir, Uday; and the deterioration of alliances with Barzan Ibrahim, his half-brother and former deputy. Saddam finds solace in the beautiful, married, Samira Shahbandar, who becomes his mistress much to the chagrin of his glamorous wife – Sajida.
Saddam's family and closest friends gather for a lavish ceremony to celebrate daughter Raghad's marriage to Hussein Kamel, Saddam's cousin and increasingly close ally. Amidst the celebrations, a feeling of underlying tension mounts – as jealousy, rivalry and paranoia threaten to test loyalties to the limit.
House Of Saddam stars Igal Naor as Saddam Hussein, Said Taghmaoui as Barzan Ibrahim, Shohreh Aghdashloo as Sajida and Christine Stephen-Daly as Samira Shahbandar.
LH2/NF
Dr
Alice Roberts – Don't Die Young Ep
1/8
Tuesday 29 July
8.00-8.30pm BBC TWO
 Feature
|
|
|
|
 |
Dr Alice Roberts begins a
second series of Don't Die
Young Taking viewers on a tour of the human body, anatomist Dr Alice Roberts returns to BBC Two for a second series of Don't Die Young.
In this first episode, Dr Alice gets to grips with the bits most men don't like to mention to doctors – their reproductive organs. She offers a no-nonsense guide to how male anatomy works and practical advice about keeping healthy. Ten thousand men in the UK die from prostate cancer every year. Yet, if detected early enough, prostate cancer is a condition which is almost always curable.
Dr Alice is joined by Mark Smallman, a 30-year-old, Birmingham-based events manager. Mark meets urologist Alan Doherty to discover how to self-examine for lumps and to see his own testes scanned on ultrasound.
Mark watches Doherty carry out a pioneering operation on prostate cancer sufferer Ian Roberts. A Coventry police officer in his early fifties, Ian has the cancer removed using keyhole surgery. He explains his symptoms and why it is important for men to have regular check-ups with their doctor.
Dr Alice also uses cross-country athletes to follow the journey of the sperm from the testes to the womb and a fuzzy-felt game to test knowledge of the male anatomy.
RF
Dr
Alice Roberts – Don't Die Young:
Female Reproductive Organs
Ep 2/8
Tuesday 29 July
8.30-9.00pm BBC TWO
Feature
|
|
|
|
|
Trusted doctor and anatomist Dr Alice Roberts continues to take viewers on a tour of the human body, offering an informative guide to healthy living along the way.
This week, Dr Alice continues her tour of reproductive systems – this time looking at the female sexual organs. And, unlike last week, she is in possession of these organs herself. Ever game, she uses an MRI scanner on her own body to demonstrate how everything fits together – possibly a first for a television presenter. "So, there we go," she says, "my vagina on national television – my mum would be proud."
Dr Alice is joined by Rachel Macfarlane, a 24-year-old paralegal in Manchester, who would like to find out more about her body and her fertility. Rachel, like most women, is likely to be at her most fertile when young, but admits that she has no plans to have children anytime soon.
Using Dr Alice's trademark dissections of animal parts, drawings and props, the female reproductive organs are explained. Dr Alice witnesses the birth of a baby girl, demonstrates the journey of a female egg once it leaves the ovary and examines some new scientific research which suggests that women advertise their most fertile times to men without even realising it.
There is also advice on how to become "breast aware", the importance of being protected from sexually transmitted infections and the value of smear tests for fighting cervical cancer.
RF
Battle
Of The Brains
Monday 28 July - Friday 1 August
6.00-6.30pm BBC TWO
|
|
|
|
|
The sharpest brains from across the land are about to do battle in the TV quiz event of 2008.
Battle Of The Brains gives top quiz teams from across the UK the chance to go head-to-head and compete for the right to be recognised as the smartest collective minds in the country.
Two teams, comprising a captain and six team members, compete over two rounds in a game of intellect, nerve, strategy and skill. For the captains, it's not what they know but who they know as the winning team gains a place in the final where they will have 90 seconds to correctly answer six consecutive questions and win £2,000. But will the captain select the right players and, more importantly, can they correctly answer the captain's question to win the chance to defend their title on the next show?
CM2
|
