Life and Death on the NHS

ITV1, 9pm

Far more than any flag-waving rhetoric, it is the spirit of tolerance, the rule of law and the miracle of the NHS that makes many of us proud – and grateful – to live in the UK. This documentary celebrates the NHS by following two people – 26-year-old Nicky,who has a terminal heart condition, and teenager Rebecca, who has a brain tumour – as they undergo operations to save their lives. (They are just two of the eight million people who will have NHS operations before the year is out.) Nicky’s new heart beats so strongly that it takes a little getting used to. And Rebecca, when asked of her plans for the summer as she comes round from the anaesthetic, replies groggily: “I’m going to the Reading Festival.” In a quiet, low-key way, it is intensely moving.

Lab Rats

BBC Two, 9.30pm

If the feedback I get is anything to go by, there are two things viewers dislike above all else. One is orchestral Muzak in wildlife programmes. The other is canned laughter in sitcoms. The latter is particularly bad because it sets up an old-fashioned style of comedy with one character dollying up a feed-line and someone else hitting it for six. Unfortunately this new sitcom, set in the laboratory of an English university, uses a laughter track. It is a pity, because the characters are an entertaining lot who would benefit from the chance to escape from this straitjacket of comic conformity, while Chris Addison – last seen on our screens in The Thick of It – has a wonderful line in engaging, deadpan delivery.

Grey’s Anatomy

Five, 10pm

Anyone thinking of watching tonight’s episode should be warned – it requires a thick skin and a strong stomach. We are told, in the purring Desperate Housewives-style voiceover at the beginning of the programme, that: “Being worshippers at the altar of science, we don’t like to believe miracles exist, but they do.” And behold, we witness just such a Hollywood miracle unfold before our eyes, when a beautiful doctor is resurrected, having had a chance to hug her dog and her mother in the afterlife before coming back to life to resolve her “intimacy issues”. It’s cloying, manipulative, sentimental, mawkish and ridiculous – like mainlining marshmallows.

The Charlotte Church Show

Channel 4, 10pm

The great thing about The Charlotte Church Show, from my point of view, is that it is recorded just before transmission, so no preview tapes are available. I say this with feeling, because I once saw her Christmas special and it brought on a migraine. But for those of you who are made of sterner stuff, she’s back with a new series, with Catherine Tate and the comedian Lee Mack as her first guests.

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