Click here to watch an exclusive clip from Ross Kemp in Afghanistan

You cannot quite say that our soldiers in Afghanistan are a forgotten army. Last summer, ITV1’s Guarding the Queen followed the Grenadier Guards to Helmand province and in November BBC One’s Panorama had an hour-long special on the ground with the Guards as they undertook a jittery skirmish with the Taleban. But it is probably fair to say we do not remember the 7,000 troops out there enough. Even as a write this, there is news of another death.

Ross Kemp’s exemplary (and I never expected to type that sequence of words) new documentary series for Sky One makes their lives unforgettable, partly because Kemp seems to identify more strongly with the ordinary squaddie than do most journalists – most journalists’ mind-sets are distinctly unmilitary – and partly because the production values of this HD series make Camp Bastion alarmingly real.

Ross Kemp in Afghanistan is the sort of thing that would make that old theorist of current affairs, John Birt, fume against journalism’s bias against understanding. The context of how and why the British are fighting in Helmand was given in less than a minute. But to say it did not help us understand, at least on a visceral level, what is going on would be like saying Rudyard Kipling’s Barrack Room Ballads have no historical value.

Training with him on Salisbury Plain he is shocked by the callowness of Josh Hill, an 18-year-old who joined the army at 16 and counts himself fortunate in comparison with some of his mates to have a job. A few months later, Kemp flies into Kandahar air-base to be even more shocked that Josh seems to have aged five years. More shocking for us is that Sergeant Keith Nieves, whose wife had broken down in tears in her kitchen at the thought of her husband going to Afghanistan and leaving their two sons, had already been injured so badly that he has to return home.

In Ross Kemp on Gangs, Sky has obviously played with the tough man image Kemp created on EastEnders, promulgated on ITV’s Ultimate Force where he played an SAS sergeant and then debunked on an unfunny episode of Extras. Critics will say he is still playing tough man and it is time this star of panto and domestic violence headlines (the violence inflicted, allegedly, against him) grew up.

A few “SAS-my-arse” jibes are hurled at him as he trains in England. It is hard to tell if the soldiers thought less or more of him for his having acted the hero professionally but his rapport with them looks genuine and earned. What this programme concentrates on, however, is Ross’s fear. You hear it in his voice as he lands at Kandahar in pitch darkness and see it in his face next week when he almost gets killed in combat. But fear, albeit fear surmounted, is what none of the Royal Anglians we meet can hide. As those he meets on his arrival at Afghanistan tell him, they are in hell.

Eccentric, ultra-liberal Summerhill School in Suffolk is, in contrast, presented as a heaven of endless summers in CBBC’s new series Summerhill, although with kids romping around in pirate costumes there are elements of Never Never Land, too. Making a drama of the school’s near terminal run-in with Ofsted in 2000 is in theory a great idea, although I am not sure it could ever really work as a children’s programme that depicts the inspectors as black-suited killjoys with comedy names such as Myrtle. That said, educational theory is children’s business as much as parent’s and this serial will spark some parentled debates around middle-class tea tables. Dramatically, it is Grange Hill meet Hogwarts, or Lord of the Flies with a happy ending.

The last episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm (More4) had Larry David borne up to Heaven having explained himself to his guardian angels. He was back in domestic hell last night, eating a cake shaped like a black penis in front of a black woman whose surname is Black (“It’s like me being called Larry Jew”), trapped in his own lies as he attempts to avoid socialising, and, as always, forgetting his own rule about telling his wife nothing. Part of the plot revolved round Cheryl’s wish to take in a family left homeless by a Katrina-like disaster. “I can’t help thinking about the hurricane,” she says. “My nose is still itching me,” Larry replies, defining what is left of their relationship.

Out of the box

— Like the News at Ten new logo? So do I. It’s based on the Roman numeral X on Big Ben’s clock face. But look up at the real thing and you’ll notice that, bizarrely, the real face does not have a number 10 on it, just a single stroke. It must have made for a nasty moment for the graphics team in Gray’s Inn Road.

— I was talking to a television engineer over the weekend – I won’t say from which company – and he confirmed to me what I long suspected: the picture quality on LCD flat screen sets is a joke within the industry. The future, apparently, is not even plasma but something called SED (surface conduction electron-emitter display), which uses a combination of flat panel and cathode ray tube technology to deliver better quality than either LCD or plasma. Expect to see the first sets this spring.

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