Mission Africa (BBC1) Ugly Betty (E4)

DIY SOS presenter Nick Knowles is in charge of a makeover with a difference in Mission Africa.

The aim is to build a game reserve in just six weeks in one of the hottest places on earth where drought, danger and disaster lurk behind every tree.

We're told in advance this will be a life-changing experience. You might find it a channel-changing experience as it plays like a daytime series that's been scheduled in peaktime by mistake.

Fifteen volunteers recruited in this country have been shipped, under Knowles' leadership, to a remote part of Kenya. They have a plot of land, they have the plans for the reserve, now all they have to do is build it.

I say "plan" although no one seems to have thought about finding sufficient water to make concrete for the foundations. In temperatures of 50C, water is precious and, more importantly, not on tap. There's an underground well but every time the sun goes behind a cloud the solar-powered pump stops.

Eighteen-year-old Andrew draws the short straw and has to carry bucket after bucket after bucket of water from a well to a container. He gets blisters but not enough water.

The materials needed are on site. Timber is easily collected. But finding stones for walls proves more difficult than Knowles anticipated. He couldn't find the right kind of stone, which sounds like a variation on the wrong kind of leaves excuse offered by rail companies for late-running services.

The trouble is none of this is particularly exciting. There are no arguments, nobody walks off in a huff and no-one gets bitten by a scorpion. The biggest difficulty is using the lavatory when there's a big spider already occupying the toilet.

The sentiments behind Mission Africa are commendable but the execution doesn't add up to much of a programme.

The latest US comedy import Ugly Betty - E4 last night, C4 on Friday - is getting into its stride without yet making itself must-see television. More must see if there's nothing better on the other side.

Ugly Betty is, if truth be told, not that repulsive. Just a girl with glasses, braces and a permanent bad hair day. She's been hired by the publishing boss for her looks, or lack of them, so that his son isn't tempted to sleep with his assistant as he has in the past.

In the second episode, the magazine's book - the uncorrected pre-publication mock-up - went missing.

Betty, meanwhile, was being teased by her work colleagues who'd stolen her bunny, the stuffed animal that sat on her desk, and sent her photographs of it being tortured and mutilated.

"Who put the bunny in the toilet?," she asked, but remained defiant saying that "you can take my bunny but you can't take my spirit".

That won't, however, stop her fellow workers taking the mickey out of her.