UK TV Watch: 8th-14th May 2009

Welcome to the Family Relationships Magazine weekly roundup of family/relationships TV highlights for the coming week.

Please be aware that these are generally programmes about families and relationships, and are not necessarily suitable for all-age/family viewing.

Friday 8th May

Affecting everyone, the Tonight programme shows Credit Secrets Revealed, in which Martin Lewis reveals the secrets of how credit scoring works and explains how to improve the chances of getting the best financial deals.

Wife Swap is at 10pm on E4 – no celebrities this time. A career-oriented wife goes to live with a hunter-gatherer husband.

Sunday 10th May

The Cutting Edge film Madeleine Was Here (10pm, More4) reconstructs the night Madeleine McCann disappeared and the efforts of her parents to create a normal life for their other children.

Monday 11th May

Make My Kids Happy (8pm, ITV1) conducts a social experiment by taking away the material possessions of a group of teenagers for one month to see if breaking their cycle of excessive consumerism makes them happier. Second part airs on Friday at 8pm.

Alernatively, Dispatches: Lost in Care (8pm, Channel 4) reveals the scandal in the British system that condemns vulnerable children to lives of isolation. Thousands are taken into care every year but there’s a wait of two years or more for adoption.

Following this, Find Me a Family (9pm, Channel 4) follows three households as they attempt to find homes for children that no-one has come forward to adopt. Continues tomorrow and Wednesday at 9pm.

Thursday 14th May

Cutting Edge: The Homecoming (9pm, Channel 4) is a film exploring the effects of long-term care on kids and their families. Thirty years after she was placed in a Doncaster children’s home, Rachel Roberts goes in search of the other children who were there with her. Armed with just one old photograph and some distant memories, Rachel discovers some astonishing stories from her former housemates and meets a long-lost member of her family.

UK TV Watch: 1st-7th May 2009

Welcome to the Family Relationships Magazine weekly roundup of family/relationships TV highlights for the coming week.

Please be aware that these are generally programmes about families and relationships, and are not necessarily suitable for all-age/family viewing.

Friday 1st May

If spying on celebrity couples is your thing, and you’re not sick of them yet, then Katie & Peter: Stateside (ITV2, 10pm) is for you. This week, Katie meets her new horse which has just come out of quarantine after being flown over to America.

Alternatively, there’s sure to be some cringeworthy material in Celebrity Wife Swap (10.05pm, E4) as eighties pop star Sinitta trades places with Sandra, the wife of actor Bruce Jones.

Saturday 2nd May

Take on the Takeaway (11.30am, BBC1) sees Ken Hom trying to convince a busy couple that it is possible to cook quick and healthy food instead of relying on the local Chinese takeaway.

Family quizzes your thing? Try the new series of All Star Mr & Mrs (6.20pm ITV1) which sees Boyzone’s Keith Duffy and his wife Lisa, Brigitte Nielsen and Mattia, and Peter Shilton and Sue battle it out to see who knows the most about their other half.

Tuesday 5th May

The second part of the fourth series of Born to be Different (9pm, Channel 4) follows six disabled children who have features in the series since birth. This time, we see them aged nine. Each child has their own particular battle to fight; some face major operations, some require constant support and medication; and for one it’s a battle just to stay alive.

More celebrity following in Claire Richards: My Big Fat Wedding (9pm, BBC3). The former Steps singer sets out to shed some pounds from her size 20 frame in time for her wedding, a task which sees her face off with the paparazzi.

Wednesday 6th May

The World’s Strictest Parents (8pm, BBC3) continues as teenagers Lizzie Pol and Stefan Alvarez travel to Ghana to live with a middle-class Christian couple who prioritise chores and ban the pair from romantic relationships.

Thursday 7th May

A new four-part documentary series, Keep it in the Family (9pm, BBC2), follows the family of Gary Don, who has dedicated his career to the family auction house and has persuaded his 28-year-old son Jamie to pick up the mantle.

On Channel 4 at 9pm, Madeleine Was Here looks at how parents Kate and Gerry are dealing with the lack of knowledge about their daughter’s whereabouts, two years on from her disappearance.

Real-life wedding preps, under the camera of course, in Don’t Tell the Bride (8pm, BBC3).