In 1985, Australian journalist John Pilger made The Secret Country, a film about his homeland's mistreatment of its indigenous people in which he suggested Australia was effectively running an apartheid regime. Nearly 30 years later, Pilger has made Utopia (ITV), a film that covers much the same ground, though with understandably less subtlety and rather more anger, as nothing much has changed. Indeed, as white Australia has emerged as one of the richest nations on the planet thanks to its mineral resources, the indigenous people are worse off than many of those living in developing countries. The incidence of trachoma among Indigenous Australians is among the highest in the world.

The Utopia of the title is not Pilger's irony. It is an Australian irony – the name of one of the poorest and desolate areas of the continent, 200 miles north of Alice Springs where the local health centre for indigenous people has no running water, the lone toilet is rancid and snakes can get through the cracks in the corrugated-iron walls. Just next door is a large, fenced-off house with 18 air-conditioning units attached where the white district commissioner lives. The irony didn't end there as the Australian minister for indigenous health, Warren Snowdon, who insisted he was proud of what he was doing and that Pilger's questions were puerile, was a dead ringer for Alf Garnett.

There were moments when watching this film felt like being smacked about with a sledgehammer. I got the point early on and the repeated flicking from the wealth and complacency of white Australia to the poverty and degradation of the Indigenous Australians became wearing. But since gentle persuasion hasn't yet managed to persuade millions of people that accusing Indigenous Australian communities of harbouring paedophile rings, imprisoning indigenous people at 10 times the rate apartheid South Africa imprisoned black people or that sterilisation of Indigenous Australians isn't the answer, then bludgeoning may be a natural response on Pilger's part.

And yet it was the small details and the asides that had as much impact. The Australian war memorial in Canberra that has blanked out any reference to the frontier wars between the white settlers and the Indigenous Australians that went on for the best part of 150 years; not a single dead Indigenous Australian from that era gets a mention. "I guess Australia isn't ready to confront some parts of its history," said a guide apologetically. The white Aussie declaring we're all Australian now, to which a passerby said: "I'm not. I'm Irish." The former concentration camp on Rottnest Island just off the coast of Western Australia, which has now been turned into a luxury spa. I hope the guests sleep well in the $200-a-night room in which 51 Indignenous Australians were held before their execution.

For those who like their jollity to be strictly enforced at Christmas, the BBC has long been the TV channel of choice. The 12 Drinks of Christmas (BBC2) had the feel of a show that had been dreamed up over a boozy Christmas lunch and was far more fun to make than to watch. Alexander Armstrong and Giles Coren – or Xander and Giley as they call themselves – are best friends and brothers-in-law who spend every Christmas competing with each other to provide the best booze. Apparently.

I can't believe for a moment that they do behave like this in real life as otherwise their wives would have dumped them both long ago. Nor could I believe that Xander spends Christmas saying, "Christmas isn't Christmas without a nice glass of port in front of a log fire", or Giley drives a white van with a flag of St George to Calais on a booze cruise. But every Christmas show needs its Christmas schtick and I'm sure they both did very well out of it. Xander spent his Christmas money on a £50 bottle of something and Giley spent his £20 on something else. I cared even less about the outcome than they did.

I was more interested in the huge country pile that was used for the filming. If it does actually belong to Xander or Giley, as the show suggested, then there's even more money in stocking-fillers than I imagined. The biggest surprise was the carol singers who turned up at the end to sing for the lords of the manor. What was Vicky Pryce doing dressing up as the lady vicar?

Still rather Xander and Giley than Alex Polizzi's Christmas Fix (BBC2). Polizzi used to be a vaguely credible TV presenter, but someone has given her a makeover and told her to push herself slightly too close to the camera and flirt suggestively. So off she went, thrusting herself into a whole heap of over-the-top decorations and table settings that she too felt no Christmas should be without. It was wrong on so many levels. Whatever Christmas the BBC is having, it isn't mine.