What if the eyes were not windows to the soul, but portals to the abyss? The Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst Slavoj Zizek said it best when he suggested that the profundity of feeling inspired by the close eye contact of lovers was not cosy and emotionally comforting, but in fact fundamentally terrifying, as it offered a glimpse into the hollow unblinking emptiness of human existence. Zizek was talking about Hitchcock’s Psycho at the time, but he could have been describing the fascinating and strangely disturbing ONE Life: The Woman Who Can’t Stop Lying (BBC One).

For here was a superlative documentary that repeatedly intercut the story of a con-woman and pathological liar, Caroline Morgan, with whopping great close-ups of her silent staring eyes. Morgan, it must be noted, has gorgeous eyes. Soft, olive-green saucers that drew into their beguiling gaze the tragic lives of three unsuspecting patsies called Phil, Ray and Steve. The men, middle-aged and browbeaten, gathered together at the start of the documentary to discuss how Caroline had fleeced them of money, dignity and their belief in honest communication between the sexes. They, as the show itself announced, were going to uncover “the mystery of the woman that connects them”.

Everything after that unfolded with unerring precision. Flashbacks to Caroline’s entrapment of her ex-fiancé Steve were constructed via fantastical testimonies from friends, family and Caroline herself (newly released from a nine month prison stretch). Here, vital information was tantalisingly revealed in judicious narrative bites. We learnt about Caroline’s phoney multimillion-pound inheritance story, and how she faked elaborate cancer symptoms, including shaving her head and eyebrows, to mainline sympathy and intimacy directly from her victims.

And all the while there were the eyes. Those big Bambi eyes. Getting colder, darker and more remote as the depths of her deceptions were revealed. By the end of the programme, they were a lifeless doll’s eyes, sitting impassively opposite her prime patsy Steve in a quiet beer garden. The producers had organised a postprison reunion between Steve and Caroline, with a view, possibly, to some Jerry Springer-type theatrics. A punch, a kick, a slap at least? But Steve could only look forlornly into those same dark eyes and forgive Caroline completely, and boyishly moon, and hope perhaps for more of the same.

It was a moment of impossibly cruel truth. Because it showed us, conclusively, that a choice between the cold-eyed abyss and olive-green romance is no choice at all.

Otherwise, meaningless and increasingly haphazard regurgitation of 1970s kitsch was the order of the night. Never Did Me Any Harm (Channel 4) and series two of Life on Mars (BBC One) both plundered the 1970s for props, design, décor, and costumes, but with little emotional or intellectual resonance.

The former programme, yet another piece of reactionary time tourism, allowed the successful businessman and all round wet blanket John Gregory to recreate at home his tough 1974 council estate childhood for the benefit of his unimpressed wife and two recalcitrant preteens.

In other words, John went from being just the money-earner to the de facto household autocrat and was able to shout at his wife, drink beer and hit his children with impunity. The programme claimed, bizarrely, that after two weeks of this ugly regime everyone involved was much happier with their lot — especially John’s now Stepford wife and his servile automaton children.

Of course the 1970s gags in Life on Mars are all arch, ironic and knowing and have informed much of the giddy, slightly nerdy, “Instant Cult Classic” kudos that surrounds series one like a bad smell. This time the narrative parameters remain the same. Contemporary DCI Tyler (John Simm) is still stuck in 1973’s world of tough nononsense policing while trying to work out whether he’s mad, in a coma, or really back in time.

And yet, like all the best cult TV, including The Prisoner, Twin Peaks and Lost , the central conceit is but a MacGuffin that propels Tyler through a sequence of disparate adventures. Although here, because the conceit also undermines the nature of Tyler’s lived environment (Is he dreaming? Is he awake?), it tends to make the drama on display vaguely unsatisfying. That said, the production design is sensuous and slick, and Simm himself has surely got one of the most empathetic faces on TV? He can convey confusion, determination and inner rage in a single tortured grimace.

If you look closely, of course, you’ll see that it’s all in the eyes.

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