The Week The Women Went (BBC3)

Without a Trace (C4)

YOU just knew it was all going to end badly when lorry driver Andy said: "I just don't understand why she thinks it's going to be hard for me. It is not rocket science is it?" It's almost as if he'd been asked to say something provocative just so it can come back to haunt him later, and from the smirk on his face he knew it too.

Andy was one of the men of Harby, a village in Nottinghamshire, who were to do without their womenfolk for a week. While the women lived it up in Center Parcs, the men would look after the children and manage their homes, at the same time as completing a series of Big Brother-esque tasks.

But the women had only been gone half an hour when the cracks started to show. A meeting to decide on what projects they would set themselves for the week descended into chaos as children ran amok: no-one had thought about childcare. John offered to make the bacon sandwiches, but no-one offered to help. Instead they stood around wondering when they would be ready. As an advert for the unfairer sex, The Week The Women Went wouldn't make you go out and get one.

Just as apparent as the divide between men and women was that between the locals and the incomers. Colin's family had farmed in the village for generations and he wasn't going to let anyone get in the way of his plan to concrete over the playing field. Watching him run rings around solicitor Andrew was like watching a leopard toying with a sparrow.

Millionaire Pete - "the richest man in the village" - had to go a week without wife Shirley, meaning he had to go shopping to feed his children on burgers and chocolate. But as he had nothing to do with the rest of the village, he could have been in a different programme altogether. Not for Shirley the likes of Center Parcs - instead she was off to Cyprus.

Slick US drama Without a Trace returned for a new series with a double bill. Following the FBI's Missing Persons Squad, last night's first instalment had Jack trying to cancel his transfer after his wife asked for a divorce, while the team looked for a blind girl kidnapped during a camping trip. The second part dealt with a missing nursing assistant who turned out to be wanted for bombing an abortion clinic, while Jack put noses out of joint when he returned to the team.

Without a Trace oozes class, another in a long line of slick US police series, character-based but without neglecting the drama, in contrast to some of its British cousins, where the plot gets lost behind the eyebrow twitching anguish. If this makes it sound indistinguishable from the likes of CSI, The Shield and Law and Order, it's only because the bar is now so high.

BEWITCHED!

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