Don’t get me wrong, I love John Sweeney. The ace Panorama hatchet man and award-winning political journalist has put his reputation, and life, on the line in international hot zones as diverse as Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, Slobodan Milosevic’s Serbia, and backstage at a psychiatry exhibition in the Church of Scientology. And frankly, anyone who can turn a full-bore emotional meltdown, as Sweeney famously did at the latter location, into a canny PR stunt is tops in my book. Which is why his latest investigative bout, Weekend “Nazis” (BBC One), was such a howling disappointment.

Imbalanced and directionless in every way, Sweeney was parachuted into the War and Peace military show in Beltring, Kent, to interrogate the event’s dweebie role-playing Second World War enthusiasts about their political beliefs. Which was surely akin to asking Melvyn Bragg to interrogate the MiniPops? Sweeney could clearly sense the fish-in-a-barrel factor from the start, but neither he nor the show’s producers seemed to know how to redress the balance.

They initially tried humour. And cue Sweeney’s unusually fruity voiceover: “If you go down to the woods in Kent, you’re sure of a big surprise!” This was followed by shaky-cam footage of men in vintage uniforms firing blanks at each other and squirming in the mud, watched by an appreciative crowd of bloodthirsty relatives. “If war’s your thing,” continued Sweeney, with a soupçon of derision, “then it’s a fun day out for all the family.”

Sweeney, however, soon revealed that the Nazi role-players outnumbered the Allies by ten to one, and the tone became serious. Keen to show us that he was disturbed by this, and possibly aware of his increasing status as a celebrity reporter, Sweeney here inserted meaningless footage of himself stomping around the Kent campsite in wellies and trademark denim jacket, looking like a Status Quo roadie and scowling a lot. Dressing like Nazis isn’t just tacky, he mused, it’s tasteless! He then pounced on unsuspecting Nazi reenactors and hit them with tough penetrating questions like, “It’s a beautiful day, but you’re in a Nazi uniform?”

Most of the reenactors claimed to be preserving history, others could barely get their noms de guerre out (“I’m General Field Marhsall, eh, Ve, Erich Von Manstein!”), while others were just kind of dumb – “My grandfather fought for the right for me to wear the Nazi uniform!” Frustrated by the unflappability of his subjects, Sweeney turned to the experts. He spoke to a genuine German, a babe-licious historian called Dr Karina, who surveyed the bric-à-brac stalls of Hitler mouse-pads and coffee mugs, and pronounced: “I mean, the guy wasn’t good-looking, but apart from that he was a mass murderer – you don’t want him in your kitchen!” Er, OK. Sweeney then set his keen sights on visiting Holocaust denier David Irving, which resulted in a shamefully soft interview that was memorable only for Irving’s closing posthandshake comment, delivered like a senile Bond villain: “You have now shaken the hand that has shaken more hands that have shaken Adolf Hitler’s hand than any other, er, hand in this entire campsite.”

The show concluded with secretly filmed footage of some of the reenactors being racist bigots in the beer tent. By then Sweeney’s voiceover had drifted into catatonic apathy as he decided that neo-Nazism was simply “not on, not even for the weekend!” Which is a shame, because there were intriguing ideas there, some difficult questions begging to be asked about the allure of imperialism to the British national psyche, and the nature of the link between iconography and ideology. But that might have been too much like the old Sweeney. Better just to stomp around and scowl instead.

Meanwhile, if not quite in the barrel, the proverbial fish were definitely in a Plexiglas bullet-proof sneer tank in Hollywood Lives(ITV1). The show that once emerged as an insider’s view to the alien otherworldly life of a nihilistic überclass now feels like every other feculent piece of small-screen tittle-tattling exhibitionism around. This time, Tinseltown Madams, dating gurus and fading divas were all subtly ridiculed in a hopelessly unenthusiastic attempt to explain how sex, rather than money and power, made the Hollywoodian world go round.

Out of the box

— Jane Austen’s diabolical plans for world domination from beyond the grave continue unabated with news that the BBC is now producing Miss Austen Regrets, about a marriage proposal that the unmarried Austen apparently accepted (yes, it’s THAT exciting!), ahead of the new Sense and Sensibilityadaptation, which itself comes hot on the heels of ITV’s Persuasion, Northanger Abbeyand Mansfield Park, not to mention the movie Becoming Janeand the upcoming rom-com The Jane Austen Book Club. Surely the McAusten burger is only a Happy Meal away?

— Iconic 1980s TV soap Dallasstumbles from small to big screen. Director Gurinda Chadha ( Bend it Like Beckham) has been replaced by Betty Thomas ( The Brady Bunch Movie) and the movie will now be a comedy starring Meg Ryan as Sue Ellen and John Travolta as JR. Yay!

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