With Christmas decorations now on sale, many people will be looking forward to the festive TV schedules. With ‘one-off’ favourites such as All Creatures Great and Small and Strictly Come Dancing, there should be something for everyone to settle down with and enjoy. TCW’s TV Editor picks two highlights that are worth setting the record button for.
Trump: The unvarnished truth – BBC1, Boxing Day, 4pm and December 28, 6pm
WHILE it fell to David Lammy to draw the public’s attention to Nigel Farage’s association with the Hitler Youth, a far greater and more powerful individual has been spared such damaging exposure.
Although rumour and speculation have long surrounded Donald Trump and his alleged friendship with Adolf Hitler, journalists have to date struggled in vain for incontrovertible proof of this widely held, but little talked about aspect of political intrigue.
That silence will be shattered once and for all by a two-part investigation that has not only unearthed new and verifiable evidence, but additionally has made allegations of a second, and for some, even more damaging relationship.
With an unrivalled reputation for hard-hitting documentaries and exposés, the BBC has excelled itself with this disclosure which is certain to be in line for suitable recognition from the media community. Produced by the Panorama team and bearing their hallmarks of painstaking research, these two one-hour programmes make some explosive claims.
The history of Trump and his unexpected second term as President have long been dogged by controversy and gossip. At last, the BBC can lift the lid on information that, had it been in the public domain pre-election, would almost certainly have seen Biden re-elected.
Part One: Trump and Hitler
Having uncovered 8mm home movies, apparently filmed at the Wolfsschanze (Wolf’s Lair) the BBC has found footage clearly showing a close friendship between these two titanic figures in history. Particularly upsetting is a grainy (soundless) recording of Trump and Hitler engaged in a vigorous Schuhplattler dance. Trump, dressed in traditional lederhosen, can be seen clapping loudly and striking the soles of his shoes, thighs, and knees with his hands while Adolf Hitler is seen laughing and encouraging him. Additional film shows the two individuals enjoying the sunshine and mountain air on the terrace.
Part Two: Trump and King Herod
For viewers still unsure which side of the fence they sit on regarding President Trump, the follow-up investigation will eliminate any lingering doubts. Panorama has uncovered parchment and papyrus scrolls which unequivocally show that Trump was Herod’s right-hand man and, sickeningly, the architect of the doctrine that lay behind the order to kill the first-born child. This shocking revelation, confirmed by expert historians, should lead to an immediate call for Trump’s impeachment.
Earth: Dying Now – BBC2, Christmas Day, 8pm
THIS three-hour documentary is an overdue wake-up call to those who still deny the unfolding environmental disaster that is engulfing humanity. Filmed over a period of three years, and fronted by national treasure Sir David Attenborough, this sobering programme has made television history, not least for having film and production crews fly to each of the 195 countries in the world.
Attenborough skilfully weaves his dystopian narrative against a backdrop of alarming moving images showing fires, floods, tornadoes and droughts and explains in simple and comprehensible language how these devastating weather phenomena can be laid entirely at the door of mankind’s wanton carbon output.
Attenborough is without question a modern Cassandra, gifted with the ability to see into the future. Alarmed, and wishing to educate fellow humans, he also practises what he preaches. In the back garden of his west London home he has constructed a massive concrete underground tank into which he captures and stores most of his carbon output.
Visitors are very familiar with being lectured on his home-grown Carbon Reduction Accelerator Programme (CRAP) which he hopes will be adopted by the government. He already has a powerful ally in the shape of His Majesty King Charles.
The closing segment of this evocative production is breathtakingly poignant. Standing on an ice floe with a polar bear named Shaggy,Attenborough whispers that this lovable creature will disappear entirely in the next two years if we do nothing to address anthropogenic climate change. But it is perhaps his final sentence that will, with any luck, serve as a call to action for the British people: ‘When this programme is finished, can you please just go outside and drop dead.’
