My Foetus (C4); One Life: Billboard Love (BBC1): PROGRAMMES that cause an outcry before being shown often prove an anti-climax because they're nowhere near as shocking as promised by the advance publicity.

But few people, whatever their feelings in the abortion debate, won't have been upset or distressed by parts of film-maker Julia Black's personal odyssey to understand the arguments.

She had an abortion when younger - a lifestyle choice that she doesn't regret - and was pregnant while filming My Foetus. She wanted to explore the secrecy surrounding abortion.

Images of aborted foetuses, recognisable as babies, were shown. Previously, these have been banned from the Pro-Life Alliance Party Election Broadcasts.

A doctor spoke graphically about aborting in the later stages of pregnancy. Finally, we saw an abortion being performed, using the manual vacuum aspiration method, on a woman who was seven weeks pregnant.

Black didn't aim to batter people into submission to adopt one view or the other, but to remove the veil of secrecy. She pointed out that no one was entitled to make a moral judgement without knowing the full story of why a woman wanted an abortion.

The images may well have influenced fence-sitters to come out for or against abortion. I suspect those who already held strong views won't be swayed.

As education, Black's film was valuable. Like a pregnant woman considering abortion, viewers had a choice - they could switch off if they didn't want to see the images.

The One Life documentary series returned with Billboard Love, a frivolous account of a divorced mother's attempts to find a man. Nicky Taylor is a film-maker, so she knows what makes good TV, down to describing her sales pitch as a "buy one, get three free" situation - a reference to her three small children.

A friend describing her as plump didn't boost her confidence, but did provide Nicky with much amusing material as she tried to lose weight.

She went to singles nights, where she met a man who admitted to being a sewage farmer ("just give me a sniff," she said), and to a lock-and-key party, where she felt embarrassed on her own. "I've been here an hour and nobody's looked at me, let alone tried to force my lock," she declared.

Putting her face on a giant billboard brought her 26 emails, although eight of the men were too old, nine too young and the rest lived in America.

Her mother, who advertised for a date in the same way, was luckier. Three months later she was still going out with a man calling himself "Topless Mercedes".

By the end, Nicky had given up hope of finding Mr Right, or even Mr Almost Right, for the time being. Fantasies were better, she decided, as you didn't get hurt. This was one Bridget Jones who didn't find her Mr Darcy - although she did lose nine pounds.

Published: ??/??/2004