Live Aid: Against All Odds (BBC2); Out of Africa: The Many Faces of the Black Icon (BBC2); Doctor Who (BBC1): BOB Geldof was a fading star. A mediocre singer on the verge of being dropped by his record company, he was better known as Mr Paula Yates at The Tube studios in Tyne Tees, where he was an unpopular and frequently miserable figure. There was nothing in his history to suggest a missionary vocation.

But one autumn evening in 1984, he was sitting at home with his girlfriend, the aforementioned Paula, and daughter Fifi, when he saw Michael Buerk's report for BBC News on the famine in Ethiopia, and it changed his life.

He started small. At a party later that evening, he limited himself to two cocktail sausages. But he went on to help put together first Band Aid, and then Live Aid, at the start of a 20-year crusade against poverty and injustice, which next month sees its latest incarnation in the Live 8 series of concerts.

Live Aid: Against All Odds, was the story of how that concert in July 1985 was put together, but it was just as much the story of Geldof's transformation from mouthy pop star to popular saint. He initially refused to go to Ethiopia and was adamant he would not be pictured with starving children, but as the momentum grew he found himself so moved by his anger at what was going on that he couldn't stop.

Everything and everyone, including Midge Ure, his collaborator on the Band Aid single, became expendable. Ure was as much involved at the start as Geldof, but was gradually elbowed aside. While Ure shrugged: "That's the way Bob is," it was left to his then-girlfriend Annabel Giles to express resentment at the way he was written out of the Band Aid story.

It was a fascinating documentary, charting the many hitches and setbacks in putting on the Live Aid concerts, and in an interview with Daily Star photographer Ken Lennox describing his visit to a refugee camp, contained some of the most moving footage you'll see in a while. It was also noteworthy that even in 1985 Geldof was being called sanctimonious, a label which, despite everything he has done, has become part of Saint Bob's image.

Also noteworthy was how the original concert was criticised for its lack of black performers, a charge levelled at Live 8 20 years later. But if black stars were absent then, Adrian Lester was on hand to supply a few in Out of Africa: The Many Faces of the Black Icon.

In what was effectively a run-down of famous black people, Lester went from Mike Tyson to Nelson Mandela by way of Muhammed Ali, Billie Holiday and Paul Robeson. It was a curious programme: the only connection between them was they were black, and, as Colin Powell remarked: "I'm an American first and black second."

There was little insight, and little also that was new, apart from possibly the story of CJ Walker, the first black female millionaire. A washerwoman in Louisiana, when her hair fell out she experimented with chemicals and stumbled across a formula which straightened kinks in hair, making herself a fortune and a heroine to millions of black women.

But it did assemble a prestigious line-up of talking heads, although nothing to top the sight of Chris Eubank and Frank Bruno arguing over whether Beyonce can be considered a black icon.

Although it has made several appearances in this column, it would be a shame to let the last episode of Doctor Who's comeback season pass unremarked.

Just as it's hard to believe now that Live Aid very nearly never happened, it's equally difficult to think there was ever any doubt the Doctor's return would be a success. In adding a new dimension - that of emotion - to the programme, Russell T Davies and his team of writers have made this a Doctor with enough to please the fans, but something to interest a new audience too.

The influence of recent teen dramas, particularly Buffy the Vampire Slayer, was particularly evident in the final episode, when it was Rose, the real star of the series, who came to the Doctor's rescue, in a clear nod to Buffy's sidekick Willow. "You were absolutely fantastic," said Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor, adding: "So was I." There will be some who disagree with that last, finding Eccleston's aggravating grin too much to stomach, but as a comment on the new series it fits quite nicely.

Published: 20/06/2005