Science, sense, and substance

Body Story, Channel 4, Thursdays 900 pm

It's a pity that Channel 4's medical series Body Story has appeared so soon after The Human Body, the BBC's venture into similar territory. The irresistible temptation to make comparisons leaves Channel 4's offering outgunned—visually, technologically, and financially. While Auntie could afford to hire Ennobled of Hammersmith and cart him to all sorts of exotic locations—from the top of an Egyptian pyramid to the bottom of a swimming pool—the producers of Body Story had to make do with actors playing such parts as football-loving construction workers and motorcycle couriers who are would-be pop singers.

It might have been better if Wall to Wall Television, the production company which made Body Story, had chosen a different title. Using the word “body” again invites those unfair comparisons and casts a shadow over what might otherwise have been seen as a modest but rather good series. Each of the six programmes sets the biology that it is describing in the context of a simple dramatised story: …