Midsomer Murders | Wonderland: Boy Cheerleaders | Michael Wood's Story Of England | The Boys Of H Company | Mad Men | Film 2010 With Claudia Winkleman
'You can't have an unhappy cheerleader' ... (left to right) Scott, Elliott, Josh, Joe, Mackenzie, Harvey and Camoye in Wonderland: Boy Cheerleaders. Photograph: BBC/Quark Films/Quark Films
Midsomer Murders
8pm, ITV1
A guilty Wednesday evening diversion or subtle deconstruction of a rural bourgeois idyll? Either way, John Nettles as DCI Tom Barnaby is remarkable in that he doesn't seem to do anything – it's perhaps the easiest job in TV, or maybe he's the Charles Bronson of prime time, where a fixed expression and narrow eyes act as a cover for manifold emotions. This week the bodies start dropping round a boxing champ, his dodgy manager, a justice of the peace with familial complications, the village solicitor and an artist who shares a workshop with a moody blacksmith. MS
Wonderland: Boy Cheerleaders
9pm, BBC2
This latest dispatch from the enlightening documentary series follows a group of boys from south Leeds as they compete in their first cheerleading competition. What is really striking about this film is not the fact that they are breaking gender stereotypes in suburban Yorkshire, but the strain that the commitment of practice and performance puts on the boys and their families. As their charismatic trainer so aptly puts it, "you can't have an unhappy cheerleader – it just doesn't work". WC
Michael Wood's Story Of England
9pm, BBC4
England's history, Michael Wood's latest visit to Kibworth reminds us, is not a smooth progression towards democracy and freedom in which the great and good graciously give ground when confronted with reasonable arguments. Rather, it's a tale punctuated with moments of dissent and violence, a compelling narrative that runs alongside the efforts of ordinary people to gain access to education. Accordingly, tonight's episode encompasses Wat Tyler, the ascent of Kibworth residents to a new mercantile class, and the free-thinking Lollards. JW
The Boys Of H Company
9pm, More4
Britain has more than enough second world war mythology of its own to consider, but this two-hour documentary persuasively urges the sparing of a thought for the US marines who stormed the Japanese island fortress of Iwo Jima in February 1945. The 33-day battle killed 7,000 American soldiers – and won the marines more than a quarter of the medals of honour awarded in the entire war. The film focuses on H Company of the marines' 5th Division, a unit comprised largely of teenagers who had never seen combat. AM
Coppied by http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2010/oct/13/midsomer-murders-wonderland-boy-cheerleaders
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