Last night's TV

Duncan Bannatyne has so far succeeded in stopping his own children from smoking. They have been made aware - I suspect succinctly, and with little opportunity for negotiation - that if he ever finds them sucking on a Silk Cut, their trust fund stops. Immediately. Bannatyne, the only genuinely fearsome beast in the Dragons' Den, is not a man much given to vacillation.

Alas, this is not a threat he can hold over Africa's youth, so he sets off across the continent to investigate how, and how effectively, British and American Tobacco is targeting the market it clearly hopes will keep the BAT profits flowing in years to come. Quite well, it turns out. For although the kids of developed nations are semi-protected from the effects of tobacco advertising and sales by (hypocritical) government legislation and (even more hypocritical) company codes of conduct, Bannatyne Takes On Tobacco (BBC2) finds the youth of Mauritius, Nigeria and Malawi have few such shields, and those that do exist are routinely and easily side-stepped by the men with the money.

So, despite an advertising ban on cigarettes in Mauritius, BAT paints newsagent shops, dishes out funky leaflets in schools and publicly celebrates the 45th anniversary of its arrival in the country, all tricked out in those crucial brand colours. In Nigeria and Malawi they hold branded music festivals and run competitions offering prizes seemingly designed to attract the teenage demographic. And they allow and encourage the "single stick sales" - newsagents breaking open packets to sell individual cigarettes at pocket- or lunch-money prices - that were outlawed here years ago.

Bannatyne discovers that the tactics seem to be working. In Mauritius, half of the 11- to 14-year-olds at the school he visits are smokers, and the cardiac centre is overwhelmed by patients suffering from smoking-related diseases. Although, to be fair, BAT has offered to paint the place in some brand colours, and sponsor a ward.

The evidence that the company is moving to exploit these more vulnerable countries was in itself compelling. It was made less so by Bannatyne's lumpen - though heartfelt - commentary, and insistence on labouring every point rather than allowing the plentiful material to speak for itself. He did, however, come into his own when it was time to confront shareholders assembling in London for BAT's annual general meeting. "Are you proud of how you market your product?" he shouted as they passed by, heads bowed, though you suspect not in shame. One mustered the nerve to retort, "Well, if they're stupid enough to smoke ... " which naturally endeared him to Bannatyne no end.

In a decidedly anti-climactic end to the programme, Bannatyne presented BAT's head of science, Chris Proctor, with some of the evidence amassed, and let his non-answers ("I think your criticism helps all companies like ourselves because we listen to those criticisms and we will be looking at these issues") pass virtually uncontested. This was a shame. If ever there was an opportunity to put Bannatyne's bullishness to good use, this was surely it, but, in fact, he gave a harder time to Apprentice loser Syed Ahmed when he tried to sell him a hot-air body-drier on Sky One last year.

True Stories: Our Year Without Oil (Recipes for Disaster) (More4) was - uh - the true story of John Webster and his family, who spend a year in their Finnish suburb living without oil. No petrol, no plastic, no nothing. At the beginning, the reek of smugness was overpowering. "You could say we were innocently happy ... Who was I kidding? Is that what I would tell my children?" Then his wife made her first appearance, and applied some much needed astringency to the project, telling him it was nothing but self-importance and exhibitionism.

As Mr Webster pondered the whys and wherefores of his decision, Mrs Webster tracked down a shop that sold non-polythene-wrapped loo paper, sneaked out for crisps for their five-year-old to take to a party so he wouldn't have to explain his father's oil-free decree and periodically asked him "which tree-hugger website" he had got his latest notion from.

As he became increasingly caught up in the project, they became increasingly at odds. She accused him of being dictatorial, while he struggled wordlessly with the fact that, while his way was undoubtedly right for the planet, it was wrong for his family. At the end of the year, pragmatist and philosopher both compromised on the lifestyle they would live thereafter, and equilibrium was restored. Or as Mrs W put it, "It's nice you're seeing things in shades of grey. It's like we have a new ruler."

As an eco-documentary, it was flawed and unoriginal. As a portrait of a marriage, it was brilliant.