Losing Gemma (ITV1); Searching For My Son (C4): CONSIDER the thoughts of Gemma: "Isn't India great - it's just like being abroad".
Or, "I'm a feminist, but not when it comes to men". And then, on boarding a crowed train in India, "Flipping 'ell it smells like Horse of the Year show in here".
Raucous Gemma is not an ideal travelling companion. No wonder Esther, forced to go backpacking with her to India after a friend dropped out, wants to get away from her at the first available opportunity.
Losing Gemma is a 'what went wrong on my holiday' type of thriller which benefits from being filmed on location in India. At least the scenery is convincing even if the plot isn't.
Rachel Leskovac's Gemma is the sort of person you dread being made to sit next to on an aircraft. She's noisy and chatty in a vacuous way who insists on being the life and soul of the party every minute of the day.
Her aim on visiting the Taj Mahal is not to the admire the beauty of the architecture or hear the love story behind the building of it, but to have her picture taken in the same pose as the famous photograph of Princess Diana.
"Look tragic and troubled," Esther tells her as she snaps the picture.
Gemma insists on responding to the odd married couple, Zac and Coral, who befriend them and invite them on a boat trip amid talk about "people loving each other unconditionally".
I'm with Alice when she asks, "Isn't this getting a little weird". Weird, yes; interesting, not really. Alice points out that the couple have stolen from them, followed them and stalked them which Gemma finds flattering, not spooky.
At the end of the first episode, we left Esther in jail under suspicion of murdering Coral. The good news was that Gemma had disappeared.
Searching For My Son followed two women searching for the babies they'd given up for adoption soon after birth four decades or so ago. It was an emotional journey with many tears along the way.
The documentary also provided a reminder of days when getting pregnant out of wedlock was frowned up. Mo actually disguised her pregnancy for nine months, then she returned to school as if nothing had happened after giving away her baby.
Peta was cast out by her family, sent to a mother-and-baby unit run by nuns. She smuggled a camera in to record her last days with baby Anthony.
Her son, now 37, agreed to have contact with her. Mo's son didn't want to meet her, although his message was that he didn't have any issues with his adoption. "I can't change his mind if that's how he feels," she said.
"I've got to be philosophical. He's not been part of my life so in that sense I haven't lost anything. Have to put it down to it's not meant to be - but I seem to say that an awful lot in my life."
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