The Second Quest (ITV1); England Expects (BBC1): THERE'S no doubt which of last night's big new dramas will have pulled in most viewers.

A David Jason vehicle versus a two-hour piece about racism - no contest for most people, I suspect, giving The Second Quest an undoubted ratings win.

It didn't really deserve it. The only reason for this sequel to the story of three young men trying to lose their sexual innocence in a bygone age was to exploit the success of the original. Dramatically and comically, it was all said in the first Quest.

This replayed the same tale in a different setting, the Isle of Man in 1960. Cue period cars, Sixties fashions and a Heartbeat-style soundtrack of old pop songs.

Jason the actor, together with Hywel Bennett and Roy Hudd, were hardly over-extended playing the older versions of friends Dave, Charlie and Ronno as they recalled their bikes-and-birds trip and romantic entanglements with contestants in the Miss Isle of Man beauty contest.

Jason's main task was directing, with the result ending up like a Carry On film with chaps trying to get their leg over and ending up caught with their trousers down.

It was light, undemanding fun where it didn't matter if you dropped off (okay, I admit it, I had a snooze) because you could wake up and not have missed anything important.

England Expects demanded rather more of the viewer. Steven Mackintosh played security guard Ray Knight, whose drug-abusing teenage daughter dragged him back into the world of racism and far right politics.

Coming at a time when immigration and asylum seekers are rarely out of the headlines, Frank Deasy's drama was timely enough. It was a slow-burning piece that inevitably climaxed in violence as Knight took a crossbow to those he figured were responsible for his daughter's downfall.

He felt aggrieved that his family couldn't get rehoused, while people he judged as outsiders did. His bigotry spanned a wide range of colour and religion. It would be good to feel that all viewers found Knight's attitudes towards a multi-cultural society abhorrent, but I suspect some will have sympathised with his views.

The piece didn't attempt to preach or convert, examining racism through one man. No easy answers were offered.

Mackintosh, as always, was excellent as the angry Knight, while Keith Barron was cast against type as the scheming leader of "The Party" with whom Knight hooked up to rid the community of who they classed as undesirables.

Published: 06/04/2004