Death In Holy Orders (BBC1); Secrets And Lies: Male Bodies (BBC3): The biggest mystery about the latest TV adaptation of the bestselling PD James thriller Death In Holy Orders is why they've changed the actor who plays her poet-writing detective Adam Dalgliesh.
Roy Marsden, who took the role in previous series, has been replaced in the switch from ITV to BBC. Now an agonisingly serious Martin Shaw gets to wander around in Death In Holy Orders, looking as though he has a bad headache as his mind sifts through the clues. He might as well be trying to guess the homeowner in Through The Keyhole for all the emotion he shows.
Even a whiff of romance fails to arouse his 'supremely indfferent, unruffled' appearance as Janie Dee's academic gets chummy with him.
Then again, he has a lot on his mind after returning to St Anselm's, the theological college where he spent many happy summers as a boy. The place is a hotbed of bad habits now, as Dalgliesh discovers when sent in a semi-official capacity to investigate the suspicious death of a young ordinand buried beneath a collapsing cliff.
"Not exactly sweetness and light, this place, is it?," suggests a visitor. This is very true. Archdeacon Crampton is on the rampage, threatening to close down a place he considers out-of-date and elitist.
Men in frocks go around saying things like "We wish you were dead - all of us", while another young ordinand goes skinny-dipping in a very cold North Sea watched by an older priest with a dark secret.
I enjoy reading the PD James novels but, even with Marsden starring, I've always liked the TV versions rather less. This latest adaptation did nothing to convince me the Dalgliesh stories aren't better read than seen.
A sterling cast - including Alan Howard, Robert Hardy and Clive Wood - did their best but, at three long hours spread over two nights, this was a very slow death indeed.
At least I could see the point of Death In Holy Orders, which is more than could be said for Secrets And Lies. In this half-time time-filler, celebrities who enjoy various degrees of fame talked cheerily about male bodies.
How men react to illness and going to the doctor were among the topics under discussion - if a succession of sound bites can be called a debate - before hitting viewers below the belt as they spoke about the importance of being 'healthy and happy down there'.
There was an important point to make about the need for men to regularly examine their testicles for unusual, potentially cancerous, lumps. Footballer Neil Harris talked serious about what happened when he found a lump, which was completely at odds with the general levity of the comments from other participants.
Ex-EastEnders star Patsy Palmer promised to go home and check her husband herself. Tara Palmer Tompkinson said she'd checked her boyfriend's in the past and would continue to do so, although I was puzzled by her comment that 'it's easier for someone else to find your handbag, so it may be easier to find a lump'.
The only reason for the programme seemed to be to allow TV reviewers to say, quite accurately, that these celebrities were talking balls.
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