SATURDAY 20 NOVEMBER 2010

SAT 19:00 Life (b00p1n00)
Hunters and Hunted

Mammals' ability to learn new tricks is the key to survival in the knife-edge world of hunters and hunted. In a TV first, a killer whale off the Falklands does something unique: it sneaks into a pool where elephant seal pups learn to swim and snatches them, saving itself the trouble of hunting in the open sea.

Slow-motion cameras reveal the star-nosed mole's newly-discovered technique for smelling prey underwater: it exhales then inhales a bubble of air ten times per second. Young ibex soon learn the only way to escape a fox - run up an almost vertical cliff face - and young stoats fight mock battles, learning the skills that make them one of the world's most efficient predators.


SAT 20:00 Birds Britannia (b00vzz1j)
Seabirds

The British people's relationship with seabirds is an ancient and turbulent one, like our relationship with the sea itself. It is an untold chapter in the history of our rise and fall as a seafaring people, a story of conflict, exploitation and, finally, understanding.


SAT 21:00 Wallander (b00q3l7z)
Series 2

The Fifth Woman

An elderly bird-watcher falls to his death in a meticulously-planned and brutal murder. In an apparently unconnected case, a local man disappears and Wallander gets too close to one of the suspects. Wallander believes he is on the trail of a serial killer bent on revenge.


SAT 22:30 Mad Men (b00vzz1l)
Series 4

Chinese Wall

The employees of SCDP scramble to hold onto the rest of their accounts when word leaks of Lucky Strike's defection to BBDO. Roger lies to the rest of the firm about going to Raleigh to try to win back the account. While waiting for Trudy to give birth to their daughter, Pete is wooed by Ted Chaough at rival firm CGC. Megan shows interest in both Don and the advertising business.


SAT 23:15 Getting On (b00vzy37)
Series 2

Episode 4

Darkly comic series that offers a glimpse inside a world a million miles away from traditional hospital dramas. This is the dull, dreary, dog end of the health service with paperwork to fill in, bottoms to wipe and the drama played out in a thousand tiny acts of revenge and kindness, shining a light on the way workplace relationships play out and mapping out the life of a hospital through six shifts (five days and one night) on B4 ward.

Hilary's 'Icing the Cake' initiative is spreading... but not always successfully. Best behaviour has a habit of bringing out the worst. Pippa has a lunch appointment with Peter, while Den and Hilary have a difficult matter to deal with. Kim embarks on a vendetta of a different kind. Will they ice each other's cakes?


SAT 23:45 Greek Myths: Tales of Travelling Heroes (b00vzxv9)
Eminent classical historian Robin Lane Fox embarks on a journey in search of the origins of the Greek myths. He firmly believes that these fantastical stories lie at the root of western culture, and yet little is known about where the myths of the Greek gods came from, and how they grew. Now, after 35 years of travelling, excavation and interpretation, he is confident he has uncovered answers.

From the ancient lost city of Hattusas in modern Turkey to the smouldering summit of the Sicilian volcano Mount Etna, the documentary takes the viewer on a dazzling voyage through the Mediterranean world of the 8th century BC, as we follow in the slipstream of an intrepid and mysterious group of merchants and adventurers from the Greek island of Euboea. It's in the experiences of these now forgotten people that Lane Fox is able to pinpoint the stories and encounters, the journeys and the landscapes that provided the source material for key Greek myths.

And along the way, he brings to life these exuberant tales - of castration and baby eating, the birth of human sexual love, and the titanic battles with giants and monsters from which the gods of Greek myth were to emerge victorious.


SAT 01:15 Aristotle's Lagoon (b00q0hh2)
In the 4th century BC the Greek philosopher Aristotle travelled to Lesvos, an island in the Aegean teeming, then as now, with wildlife. His fascination with what he found there, and his painstaking study of it, led to the birth of a new science - biology. Professor Armand Leroi follows in Aristotle's footsteps to discover the creatures, places and ideas that inspired the philosopher in his pioneering work.


SAT 02:15 Gods and Monsters: Homer's Odyssey (b00vtwnz)
Virginia Woolf said that Homer's epic poem the Odyssey was 'alive to every tremor and gleam of existence'. Following the magical and strange adventures of warrior king Odysseus, inventor of the idea of the Trojan horse, the poem can claim to be the greatest story ever told. Now British poet Simon Armitage goes on his own Greek adventure, following in the footsteps of one of his own personal heroes. Yet Simon ponders the question of whether he even likes the guy.


SAT 03:15 Birds Britannia (b00vzz1j)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]