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Seven Wonders of the Commonwealth (BBC1) | iPlayer
Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony (BBC1) | iPlayer
Child Genius (C4) | 4oD
The Secret Life of Students (C4) | 4oD
The Honourable Woman (BBC2) | iPlayer
In case you didn't notice it was the opening of the Commonwealth Games last week. Thus it was a time to celebrate, but not too much because, whisper it, the Commonwealth used to be the empire and that's, well, a little awkward. The BBC, ever sensitive to such matters, decided to get around the history by concentrating on the geography and launched the week with Seven Wonders of the Commonwealth.
Clare Balding told us that the 53 member states were united by "the shared values of equality and democracy" – in the same way, perhaps, that the Spice Girls were united by girl power. The throat-clearing out of the way, it was off to a series of dramatic locations dotted around the globe in the places that used to be represented by the pink bits on the map. Victoria Falls, Milford Sound, the Namib desert, the jungles of Bengal – it was reminiscent of one of professor Brian Cox's spectaculars, only without the science or cosmic reflection.
Unless, that is, you count such observations as "Wow!" "Incredible!" and "Amazing!" as profound insights into the nature of the universe or that part of it that shares the values of equality and democracy. Such were the redundant superlatives with which our intrepid presenters decorated the breathtaking scenes they beheld.
It all seemed a bit pointless in an energetic sort of way, but there were some compensatory moments, chief of which was Dan Snow in a mangrove swamp collecting wild honey while Bengal tigers prowled nearby. Apparently it's one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, with as many as 100 local honey collectors eaten each year by tigers.
The Commonwealth Games opening ceremony. Photograph: Xinhua News Agency/REX
Who knows why anyone would take such a risk, other than from a desire to be on TV or as a result of conditions of less than Commonwealth equality. The whole ritual – which included smoking out the bees, therefore occluding sight of the killer cats – seemed so head-scratchingly weird that one would like to see it dramatised in the opening ceremony of a major sporting event.
The forensically choreographed pageant is in vogue nowadays only in North Korea, and you can't get more out of fashion than that. In its place has come the baggier postmodern style of ironic realism that was perfected by Danny Boyle at the London 2012 Olympics. A smaller-scale tartan version was employed at the Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony, featuring lots of people in period costumes excitedly running around for no discernible purpose and a generous helping of references to Glasgow's industrial heritage.
Fortunately Huw Edwards was on hand to explain what it all meant. "A jumble of Scottish emblems and symbols," declared the Welsh semiotician and newsreader, "some of them majestic, some a little more mundane." Edwards's downbeat summary aside, the TV coverage was characteristically epic, with endless sweeping cameras and aerial shots and presenters making explanatory announcements in CAPITAL-letter style.
Gary Lineker, fresh from his Brazilian bronzing, and Hazel Irvine introduced the proceedings from Celtic Park and they both, like their guests, wore flesh-coloured face microphones. It was an unwise production choice because it made everyone look as if they were sporting grotesque carbuncles on their cheeks and had fallen victim to some unspeakable medieval affliction that no one dared mention.
Channel 4's Child Genius: a sometimes touching geek show. Photograph: Stephen Wells Photography
But forget those small quibbles. It was a grand event, and having got through the three hours, which only occasionally seemed like six, this viewer felt as if he'd run a marathon while sitting in his armchair. That's what sport can do to you.
A different, no less intense competition, was to be found in Child Genius, the second series of this fascinating, disturbing and sometimes uplifting look at youngsters attempting to become Mensa's child genius of the year. As ever, the kids appeared to be parented to within an inch of professional intervention. There was nine-year-old Aliyah, fed on a diet of smart drinks made from juiced cabbage and kale. You have to be "cruel to be kind" said Shoshana, her psychologist mother, who believed she had identified the optimum means of maximising her daughter's intelligence.
Shoshana's parental philosophy didn't seem hot on humility. She pointed out that she was smarter than her daughter. "She's not profoundly gifted," she said. "And I was."
Gifted at what, exactly, and to what end? These question weren't asked but they hung there like an in-shot boom throughout the film. Some of the boys wore bow-ties, as if to signify they were throwbacks to another, more rigid era of childhood. And some of the parents were intolerant of any underperformance in the heat of competition.
You kept wondering how much say the children themselves had in their participation in this geek show. Perhaps the most touching case was Rubaiyat, a genuine prodigy who at 11 was grappling with the Riemann hypothesis, maths so fiendish that it hurts my brain just to write out its name.
The Secret Life of Students: a disappointingly limited vocabulary. Photograph: Ryan Mcnamara/Channel 4
He hoped that the competition might enable him to meet like-minded children – ie the sort of kids with whom he could discuss the zeta function without seeming like a freak. And maybe trade tips on how to tie bow-ties.
For all their false maturity and hot-housed swottishness, it was noticeable how the children all seemed enthralled by the rich possibilities of verbal expression provided by the English language. The same could not be said, alas, for the subjects of The Secret Life of Students.
Nearly all of the Leicester University undergraduates featured in the opening episode seemed to revel in a reduced language, one that's the fruit not of classic texts but of inane texting. One of the most annoying aspects of this series has been the pop-up social media messages flashed on screen to show exchanges of numbing banality.
Maggie Gyllenhaal in The Honourable Woman. Photograph: Robert Viglasky/BBC/Drama Republic
One of the students kept on complaining about the level of education she was receiving for the £9,000 a year university fees. Listening to her speak, you had to think she had a point, albeit one that would have been stronger had she seen fit to attend lectures.
There was a scene at the beginning of the increasingly intriguing The Honourable Woman in which two dinner-party guests came to blows over the rights and wrongs of the Israel-Palestine dispute. It was written and worked as semi-comedy but it happened to coincide with real-life events that made it semi-tragedy.
"Fish was good," said the morally constipated intelligence officer Hugh Hayden-Hoyle (Stephen Rea) after the meal.
When equality and democracy are not shared values, there are no easy answers, just futile observations.
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