Help! I've Got a High Maintenance Wife! (five, 10pm); A Boy Called Alex (C4, 9pm)

I LOVE it when men describe their wife as "high maintenance". Or even "low maintenance". It's like they're referring to a car, or a lawnmower. I thought men should love and cherish their wives. In fact, they should maintain them, like a tricky outboard motor. It's so romantic.

Vicar: Do you take this woman to be your lawful wedded wife? Do you promise to maintain her?

Man: I do.

Vicar: You may now service the bride.

Mind, after seeing the wives in tonight's show, I'd rather a tricky outboard motor. In Berwick, Neil's wife Donna is a bodybuilder.

She looks like every other female bodybuilder: fake tan, jaw like Desperate Dan.

She spends 40 weeks a year dieting. It's not lettuce leaves, skipped meals and low calorie soup, though. It's six eggs for starters, chicken for mains, protein shakes for pudding.

The show follows Donna as she trains for a contest in Nottingham. My heart sank. I knew what was coming. The scene directors can't resist: "Downtrodden Partner Applies Fake Tan The Night Before The Show".

Sure enough. A close up of Donna's backside, with Neil on his knees, smearing it with bronzer. It was as if he was varnishing a sturdy mahogany fence. He should get one of those spray things, like on the adverts. Done in minutes. Water-tight, too.

In between wives, so to speak, statistics flash up on the screen, such as: "22 out of 1,000 women suffer a phobia." My favourite was: "Women think about their body every 15 minutes".

Who on earth works that out? Do they get 1,000 women with a tally chart, marking it every time they think about their boobs or their belly? Or, in Donna's case, six pack and pecs?

Karen, from Carlisle, reckons she's dying.

Well, as my mum used to say, we all are, love.

Some are just closer than others.

"I always think I might not be here next week," Karen says. When she has indigestion, FREAK SHOW: Neil has to coat his wife Donna's bottom with fake tan before a body-building contest she think it's a heart attack. When she has a migraine, she thinks it's a brain haemorrhage.

And here's the best bit, when she's a bit dicky, she parks outside the doctor's. Just in case. What a ridiculous idea. Obviously, she should park outside accident and emergency.

When she's not outside the doctor's, she sits in her husband's van, at the building site. At least there's someone to make the tea.

The programme, though, isn't about the husband-wife relationship. It's just another Channel Five freak show. Which leads us nicely to Hayley, who has obsessive compulsive disorder. When she shuts the kitchen door, she stands in front of it, repeating: "Door is shut, door is shut, door is shut." When she's cooked her beans, she stands by the gas hob - often for hours at a time - chanting: "Gas is off, gas is off, gas is off."

At least her kitchen will never burn down.

Her husband, of course, provides emotional support. By filming her as she chants at closed doors. That's what I call maintenance.

Hayley reckons her disorder started seven years ago when her dog became ill and died.

Her fault, really. She should have taught it to sit outside the vet's. Just in case.

On C4, it's rather more inspiring. Alex Stobbs, 16, has cystic fibrosis. Life expectancy for sufferers is 31. He takes 60 tablets a day.

Despite this, he is a brilliant musician and has won a scholarship to Eton.

One night he is due for rehearsals, but is rushed to hospital after coughing up blood.

"All my fault," he says. "I should have spotted the warning signs and taken more rest.

Thing is, though, it's not my style. Once I've started a project, I find it impossible to slack off."

Here's hoping that Karen, from Carlisle, tunes in.