Oceans (BBC Two)

The old joke about middle-class people who admit to having a television “but only for the nature programmes” captured the status of BBC natural history as a benchmark of intellectual TV. Those snobs can never have seen Oceans, among the BBC’s dampest-ever squibs of a natural history series. Last night’s episode on the Red Sea could have been good, but sank below the weight of its own verbal bilge. The camera crew shot some glorious underwater pictures. Shame about the motley crew of wet experts flopping about in front of them.

As the team sailed the Red Sea, they sought to enlighten us with a scientific method that we might call the “really” formula. Here is nose-studded marine biologist Tooni Mahto describing the unique sight of a new ocean being formed as a rift between Africa and Arabia opens by 2cm a year: “It’s really, really special.” Or listen to the maritime archaeologist Lucy Blue expounding on their historic discovery of an oyster-shucking tool that suggested that humans had passed this way on their way out of Africa 125,000 years ago: “Really important . . . really fascinating . . . a really exciting thought.” And here is the expedition leader Paul Rose detailing the scientific rationale behind his search for hammerhead sharks: “I really, really, really want to find them.”

Then there is Philippe Cousteau, the American grandson of the famous French sub-aquatic pioneer Jacques. Billed as an “environmentalist” (when did being green become a profession?), Philippe comes across like oceanography’s equivalent of Calum Best, trading off his famous name and relative youth. Where Narcissus fell in love with his reflection in a mere stream, Cousteau the gap-decade kid appears to see the oceans as a mirror, expecting us to be impressed by such statements as “This is Probably One of the Most Exciting Dives of My Life”. Yeah, really, really.

Perhaps my view of the personalities was polluted by their clunky eco-message. Few humans enter the southern Red Sea at the war-torn Horn of Africa (unlike the “tourist diving Mecca” up north), and they used this to contrast its “really pristine” condition with the alleged man-made mess of other oceans.

The Red Sea shows what the oceans once were, said Blue, and what they could become “if we give them a little bit more respect”. How one might show respect to an endless expanse of water, and whether it would notice, was not explained. Instead the team used a sunken Italian ship packed with Second World War bombs as an easy symbol of Man’s inhumanity to sea. “And you think, you know,” said Lucy, “what possesses Man to destroy on that scale?” Yeah, like really, really, really.

Suspicions that these observations might possibly have as much to do with soft moralism as hard science grew alongside evidence of the gaps in their/our knowledge. They began with the familiar notion that coral is dying everywhere as man-made global warming heats the oceans. Yet in the very warm waters of the Red Sea, coral is flourishing. Why? Nobody really knows. The same coral can become spectacularly fluorescent at night. Why? It’s a “scientific mystery”. At the end Cousteau exclaimed: “There’s so much it holds that we don’t understand, and that’s SO exciting!” So maybe ignorance really is bliss. Or at least, it allows you to project your own prejudices into the darkness, like the lights from that coral.

Their journey culminated in a visit to Jacques Cousteau’s underwater village. Built in 1963, in the age of scientific optimism that sent astronauts to the Moon, it was home to French oceanauts for a month. Although excited to follow in Cousteau Sr’s diving-boot prints, the Oceans team seemed oblivious to the contrast in aims. He experimented to see how man could survive under the sea; they are preaching about how the seas will survive only if Man gets out of them (apart, presumably, from the eco-experts). They did convince me, however, that our view of the ocean might be improved if at least four humans would get out of the picture.

The Devil’s Whore (Channel 4)

Some faith in humanity’s capacity to shape the world was restored by the second episode of The Devil’s Whore, Channel 4’s remarkable drama of the English Revolution. The Leveller Colonel Thomas Rainsborough told Oliver Cromwell that, instead of waiting for God’s light to guide Parliament’s cause, “we must make our own light shine” and overthrow the King and the landowners. By the end Cromwell, spooked by Rainsbor- ough’s demands for one man, one vote, had his old ally killed (more conspiracy theory than historical fact, but this does not claim the dread title “docudrama”).

Meanwhile, Andrea Riseborough in the title role brandished a sword to make Keira Knightley’s Caribbean pirate look like a soppy panto prince, and besotted assassin Edward Sexby (John Simm, good as ever) guarded her like a spaghetti western anti-hero as they exchanged sour nothings. “There is a madness in you that feeds off the times, Sexby,” she said. It will not have a happy ending, but it’s still, like, really, really good.

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