At Home With The Braithwaites (ITV1);A Place In The Sun (C4)

THE Euro-lottery winning Braithwaites are back to prove themselves the most dysfunctional family on the box.

They've won a fortune, lost it, and now regained it in Sally Wainwright's bold and brazen comedy-drama in its fourth, and final, series.

Just in case you've forgotten what's happened in the past, the youngest Braithwaite daughter Charlotte filled us in with the gory details, signing off with a knowing: "Makes your family look normal, doesn't it?" Her description of her relatives as "rich and gruesome" seemed only too true.

Dame Alison Braithwaite is dead, lying in her coffin as her grieving family pay their last respects. Anyone acquainted with them knows this couldn't be true - the relatives would be fighting and arguing, not filing silently past the coffin - and, indeed, this turned out to be a dream.

But the hunky new gardener isn't a dream. He was real and topless in the Page 3 sense. His mind was on beds, but not the sort in which you plant flowers. "Put your shirt on, Dame Alison doesn't want your body thrust at her first thing in the morning," the head gardener told him, unaware that the look on her face signalled the oppposite.

For the time being, she had other things with which to contend, namely Mike. Nobody thinks much of him, their views ranging from "boring little turd" to "the one you invite to parties hoping he can't come". After too much drink, he made his way to Dame Alison's bedroom and, from the noises she overheard, Charlotte deduced (wrongly) that they weren't discussing the possibility of war with Iraq.

It all ended in typical Braithwaite fashion with a disastrous wedding, a punch-up and a car chase. With a lesbian wedding and a bitter divorce among delights still to come, it would seem the family are certainly proving that money can't buy you happiness.

What it can purchase is A Place In The Sun, the title of one of the many - far too many - foreign property programmes littering the schedules. This one is, at least, short and sweet at just 30 minutes.

Management consultant Dennis and retired banker Gill, who met at a paella party, had £175,000 to spend on a home in Madeira. As they'd never been to the island before or even lived under the same roof together, this seemed a risky proposition. Surely the point of a dream home is to buy it in somewhere you know and love.

They saw seafront apartments, country houses and a modern villa with fabulous views. I rather liked the place with its own vines and wine press. Guide Amanda Lamb informed them that Brits buy 40 per cent of property sold on Madeira. So if they dreamed of getting away from it all, they were out of luck. It would be just like home, but sunnier.