Supernanny (C4); The Long Firm (BBC2): TV programme-makers send people round to sort out buying and selling a house as well as decorating and cleaning. They'll change your size, your shape and find you a partner. So why not provide an expert to deal with your unruly children?

Jo Foster is no Mary Poppins but does have 15 years of no-nonsense nannying on her CV. Even she was alarmed at the Woods household, where two-year-old son Charlie ruled the roost. He screamed and shouted until he got his own way, and his parents didn't know what to do.

Watching Supernanny made me uncomfortable. Not just at the sight of the distressed child - along with his clueless parents and their two other, neglected children - but at the idea that the parents were desperate enough to ask a TV programme to help "cure" their tantrum-prone toddler.

If he wanted the TV or lights off, he turned them off. He wouldn't sit at the table and eat. He wouldn't have a bath. He wouldn't go to bed. Jo stated the obvious when she concluded, after two days' observation, that "Charlie is really out of control".

Looking after him meant the Woods' relationship was suffering, while the other children felt left out and neglected as Charlie took all the attention.

Of course, smacking the child isn't an option now. Jo's solution had to be psychological, making it clear to Charlie who was in charge.

The narrator talked of toddler-taming techniques and referred to Charlie as a "terror tot", but the situation hardly seemed a matter for levity. And how much, you wondered, did the presence of TV cameras help or hinder Charlie's progress?

After a week of instruction, Jo left Lucy and Steve to follow her routine. Within days, Charlie was back to his bad habits. Particularly horrifying was an hour-long rage by the youngster that Lucy was unable to stop.

It took a good talking to - to the parents as much as Charlie - for supernanny Jo to put them back on the right path. If smacking is outlawed, her services may have to be made available on the NHS to help parents at the end of their tethers.

I don't know what sort of upbringing gay gangster Harry Starks had but, as an adult, he knows how to establish his authority - with a red hot poker or blackmail.

Mark Strong makes Harry a menacing smooth-talker in the adaptation of Jake Arnott's novel, The Long Firm, set in the criminal underworld of 1960s London. The opening episode was also blessed by the wonderful Derek Jacobi, as a homosexual peer whose sexual inclinations put him in Harry's debt. The result was as slick and sleek a drama series as you're likely to see all year.

Published: ??/??/2004