TV programs worth watching
Sun May 30 — Sat June 5

The 19th century was the age of iron and steam. In Britain, in 
particular, triumphant capitalism was still in its progressive 
phase. It spurred the best minds of the time to take full 
advantage of the economic advantages of the industrial revolution 
to initiate a breathtaking series of outstanding engineering 
achievements.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel was acknowledged as one of the most 
brilliant of all the British engineers. His father had built the 
first tunnel under the Thames, but the younger Brunel's "supreme 
surviving achievement is the former Great Western Railway, with 
its many tunnels and viaducts, constructed between 1835 and 1841" 
(The History Today Companion to British History).

As well as designing many famous bridges, Brunel designed the 
Great Western, the first ship designed as a trans-Atlantic liner. 
In 1845 he designed the Great Britain, the first ocean-going 
screw steamer (as opposed to the previous paddle steamers).

And in 1857 he designed the Great Eastern, a ship so huge (18,914 
tons and accommodation for 4000 passengers) that it would be 
unequalled for nearly half a century.

Its vast size was to enable it to carry enough coal to sail from 
London to India via the Cape of Good Hope without needing to 
refuel. In The Great Ship (ABC 7.30pm Sunday) Brunel's 
purpose is changed to designing a ship that can "circumnavigate 
the globe without refuelling", an aim with little or no economic 
merit.

The Great Ship is the first episode in a new BBC series 
Seven Wonders Of The Industrial World. This first episode, 
at least, is in the "docudrama" genre, or that odd contradiction, 
an acted documentary.

It is very well done, of its type (Ron Cook is excellent as 
Brunel), even if it does have the feel at times of a Jane Austen 
novel set incongruously in a Dickensian ship-yard.

However, it is a little unfair to Brunel to make a program about 
his engineering genius and focus it on his one great ruinous 
folly, for the Great Eastern was an economic disaster.

The ship was way ahead of its time, not in its design which was 
innovative but definitely of its time, but in the economic basis 
for its concept. It never carried its intended 4000 passengers, 
for there was no market for such a capability.

Forty years later, after the expansion of the US westwards and 
the growth of railways there, a wave of migration to North 
America took place that would have filled the Great Eastern's 
passenger complement trip after trip. But by then the great ship 
had been broken up to reclaim the iron in it for scrap.

Mystery Of The Missing Ace (ABC 9.30pm Wednesday) is a 
very curious little piece of historical TV journalism. In tracing 
the story of the final mission of WW2 aerial reconnaissance ace 
Wing Commander Adrian Warburton, the program raises more 
questions than it answers.

Warburton became a living legend on the besieged Mediterranean 
island of Malta, where he flew daredevil reconnaissance missions 
and fell in love with a beautiful English singer who came to 
entertain the troops and stayed to plot aircraft movements during 
the siege.

In 1944, he was posted to a desk job in Britain while he 
recovered from injuries received in a jeep smash in North Africa. 
He was made liaison officer to a US airforce unit commanded by 
Roosevelt's son.

Although he was technically still on sick leave, and unfit to 
fly, he was chosen by the young Roosevelt to be one of two pilots 
to go on a mission over Germany to photograph a heavily protected 
factory.

Warburton had never flown missions over Germany, with its intense 
flack, where reconnaissance pilots had to fly at 30,000 feet and 
make it quick. His exploits had all been over the Mediterraneum, 
where he flew extremely low and often went back for a second or 
even a third pass over the target!

Despite protests from his own officers, Roosevelt insisted that 
Warburton, who was a British not a US officer, fly the mission in 
a US plane. He did not return, and astonishingly, the US 
authorities did not notify the British of this fact for three 
weeks.

One of the most glamorous and highly decorated pilots of World 
War II just faded from memory, until an amateur historian in 
Britain and another in Germany tracked down the likely site of 
his crashed aircraft.

The account of Warburton's career in Malta and the long-delayed 
search for his remains makes for interesting viewing. But why he 
was even in the air that day, in the wrong air force and the 
wrong theatre of war, is left unanswered.

If you're going to make an inconsequential costume piece for 
television, then the antics of a notorious 18th century bedroom 
jockey are probably as good a subject as any (think of all that 
lace, and those wigs!).

The four-part Franco-Italian serial The Young Casanova 
(SBS 8.30pm Fridays) stars Stefano Accorsi as Casanova, aided 
by French actors Thierry Lhermitte and Frangois Berleand.

At the Luchon television festival in 2002, The Young Casanova 
won the FIPA Silver Award for Drama and a special prize for 
the soundtrack.

June 6 is the anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, so 
the day before SBS is running D-Day: The Shortest Day (SBS 
7.30pm Saturday). It recounts what US and British spokespersons 
(and SBS) are wont to call "an historic event which changed the 
face of the world".

Just remember, Britain and the US delayed opening a second front 
in Europe for as long as they possibly could, making the USSR 
carry the maximum burden of the war. Only when it became clear 
that unless they got off their backsides they would be waving 
hello to the Red Army across the English Channel did they set 
about actually invading France.