Last night's TV

Remember Commando comics? You know, those little black-and-white illustrated books schoolboys used to have: tales of heroism in the first and second world wars. Well, that's what Ultimate Force (ITV1, Saturday) reminded me of. Different conflict, same themes - courage, cowardice, patriotism, bravery, dodgy foreigners, heroic Brits, enmity turning to friendship in the heat of battle, all that stuff.

The young daughters of a British diplomat are kidnapped in Uzer Baikal, a breakaway former Soviet state next to Ingushetia. Happily, SAS boots can be in the dirt in 90 minutes; Ross Kemp and the chaps - including one lady chap and "the Rupert" (posh person) - happen to be passing nearby in a Hercules transport aircraft. They grab their parachutes and their quad bikes and jump out to fetch those little girls back to safety.

At first there's a spot of bother with the Uzer Baikalian army, who think they should be involved. But being hopeless foreigners it's not long before they're all blown up in a booby trap, except for the ones who are moles for the kidnappers (foreigners are either incompetent or evil, that's the rule). And there's a spot - well, quite a lot - of tension between Ross Kemp and the Rupert. But there's a job to be done, so they knuckle down to it: "Zero alpha, zero alpha, this is romeo one. The heli is down, repeat, the heli is down ..."

And guess what: they get those girls back again, and the last remaining kidnapper is floored with a single bullet from half a mile. Job done. And the Rupert turns out to be not so bad after all, the real deal. Right, kit-up, get the hell out of here, get the beers in. Out.

A World Without Water (Channel 4, Sunday) starts off in a Bolivian slum, with Lino and his daughter Vanessa walking a mile to an unreliable well to fetch filthy water because they can't afford to connect to the privatised mains that run right by their house. They sit down for a rest and Lino points out a distant snowy peak to his daughter. "The Americans will buy that white mountain, and we will have no water any more. The ground will become dry, when you grow up there will be no water. We will have to drink artificial water."

But in parts of America it's not much better. In Detroit, Betty has to fetch water in a bucket too, as hers is one of 40,752 households in the city disconnected because of non-payment: 40,752 households in one city in the wealthiest country in the world!

This film was full of terrifying statistics. In other parts of America 800 litres of water is consumed per person per day. And 3,900 children die every day because they don't have access to clean water and adequate sanitation.

Meanwhile, water is running out. As the debate between water as commodity and water as human right continues, water tables fall and reservoirs dry up, and we head inevitably towards the first water war.

This documentary was excellent and terrifying, the best thing on over the weekend. It left me feeling thirsty, and angry - especially at the people moaning that their delphiniums won't survive the hosepipe ban.

A world without water wouldn't have been a good one for Monet, subject of the first of The Impressionists (BBC1, Sunday). No winter riverscapes, a dried-up riverbed below Westminster instead of the Thames, no water lilies of course.

This entire programme was pretty watery. It felt like reconstruction, not drama, and, as everyone knows, reconstruction is evil.

It was as if the people making it had taken Monet's pictures, plus a few records and letters, and threaded them together into some kind of life story. I'm sure it was accurate - well, apart from the Enid Blyton-like jollity of Monet's relationship with Renoir and Frédéric Bazille perhaps, and some of the laboured dialogue, attempting to explain the stages his art was going through using his words ("See how the light falls through the leaves on to the forest floor - no one can tell me there is no colour in shadow!"). But drama needs more than that - originality, passion - and this had neither.

And then there was old Monet's narration: it sounded like the voice-over for a Hovis advert. The more I think about it, the less I like it. This was not classy BBC drama, it felt like something that was made specifically to be exported to America.

Finally, after watching My Wedding Day Ruined My Life (Channel 5, Sunday), I'd like to warn David Cameron not to take his wife on a mini-break to Bredbury Hall, near Manchester. You won't get in, on account of Samantha's tattoo.

David and Kelly didn't know this when they booked the place for the wedding reception. And it meant most of their guests, including the best man, weren't allowed in. They had a big fight instead of the reception, so it wasn't so bad after all ·