Sweet Medicine (ITV1), Seven Wonders Of The Industrial World (BBC2): Those suffering depression from the axing of Peak Practice will find a perfect substitute in Sweet Medicine, which is also about a medical practice in Derbyshire. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Patricia Hodge is the old bag of a mother, Georgina Sweet, clearly irritated at having to interrupt her foreign holiday as her doctor husband has inconveniently died at home. "You may not have noticed but my whole world has just been turned upside down," she pointed out, before snogging her dead husband in his coffin.

Standards have to be maintained. This is a woman who uses the word "vociferously" in normal conversation and bans waiters with tattoos from serving at the wake.

As soon as eldest doctor son Nick (Jason Merrells from Cutting It), who's returned to look after the practice temporarily, says: "I'm not staying. First thing after the funeral, pack our bags and go back to London," you know he's going nowhere.

Georgina disapproves of his wife Deb (possibly because Gillian Kearney is as attractive as the Derbyshire countryside that features heavily in the series). "Everyone calls me Deb," she tells her mother-in-law. "I'm not everyone, dear," replies Georgina.

Younger Sweet brother, Eddie (Oliver Milburn) isn't a doctor but does carry out intimate examinations - in bed with his girlfriend. "I would introduce you to the family but it's not exactly the right time," he says, nipping away from the funeral for another sex session.

Various relatives and patients hover around waiting for a storyline to come along. They include the dead man's brother, someone who tells skunk jokes and the actor who plays Fenner in Bad Girls.

After all the cheapskate history on TV - you know, a few talking heads and reconstructions featuring a cast of dozens not thousands - what a pleasure to watch The Great Ship, first in the Seven Wonders Of The Industrial World dramatised documentaries.

This was a good story well told. Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who helped create the modern industrial world, was not a well man by the mid-1800s. He smoked 40 cigars a day, survived on four hours' sleep a night and was suffering from an incurable kidney disease.

But he determined to build a ship that could circumnavigate the world, the largest moving, man-made object ever built. This floating city for 4,000 passengers would be five times the size of any previous ship. It would require 200 stokers working round the clock to feed the coal to power an engine four times higher than a four-storey house and harness power equivalent to over 8,000 horses.

The building of The Great Eastern was fraught with financial problems and arguments with naval architect John Scott Russell. Eventually, it did sail the seas, only to find demand for its services wasn't there. Thirty years later, the wreckers began to tear her apart.

Inside the double hulk they found the skeletons of two workers, trapped alive during the construction. This unpleasant discovery convinced many the project was doomed from the start. A bit like Sweet Medicine.

Why we've all turned on to American TV

- see Saturday's

Northern Ech

Published: ??/??/2003