Sea Of Souls (BBC1); Bug Attack (C4); Private Life Of A Masterpiece (BBC2); "IT'S a bit weird this," said one of the Gordons, and who would disagree as he'd just found out that his wife had an identical twin, also married to a chap called Gordon.

The trouble with Sea Of Souls was that what started out as an X-Files clone ended up as a more predictable and silly thriller involving identical twins, one good and one bad.

The admirable Bill Paterson bumbled about as the head of a parapsychological unit, although the plot was so predictable that viewers must have been several steps ahead of his investigation. He had a couple of assistants (male, female, assorted backgrounds, romance a possibility in later episodes) to explain the technicalities to viewers.

No matter how many times the director repeated a dream sequence involving red-headed twin girls watching a burning dolls' house, it didn't make it any more scary. This was the type of drama where if someone said, "Drive carefully" (they did), you knew that a terrible road accident would follow (it did).

Siobhan Redmond had a fine time playing both sisters but, quite frankly, Bug Attack was a lot of scarier as Phil de Vries unearthed the most deadly, disgusting and destructive bugs on earth.

The self-confessed bug fanatic went beyond the call of duty to test a pain index drawn up by a doctor. "Don't do this at home," he warned, as if anyone was likely to deliberately get stung by scorpions (bottom of the pain index) and harvester ants (second most painful).

Getting stung helps scientists understand why insects have stings and venom, but just seemed foolhardy after learning that a dozen stings from one of these ants can kill a four pound rat.

De Vries shared his pain as the ant struck ("it starts as a sting, then pulling and tearing and deep internal pain"). Thankfully, he drew the line at getting stung by a black widow spider (top of the pain index), whose venom is 15 times more powerful than a rattlesnake's.

I'm happy to take his word for that and look at a painting instead - Renoir's Dance At The Moulin de la Galette in Private Life Of A Masterpiece, which attempts to make art interesting for those who prefer pictures to be moving on screen rather than hanging in a gallery.

Like the twins in Sea Of Souls, there are two of these Renoirs, a full-size painting and an almost-identical half-size one. Both are dated 1876 and it's a mystery which was completed first.

The painting sold for a staggering $71m at auction in 1990. Later, the Japanese paper tycoon who bought it joked he wanted to be cremated with both the Renoir and an even more expensive Van Gogh when he died.

He later said he was joking. After his death, it was sold for the knockdown price of $50m. In a way, it might just as well have gone up in smoke as nothing's been seen of it since - the painting remains hidden away in a private collection.

Published: 03/02/2004