Telly Today: 999 What’s Your Emergency?

November 27, 2017

A new week and ATV Today Editor Doug Lambert picks his telly highlights for November 27th 2017.

999: What’s Your Emergency?, Channel 4, 9pm

In this the fifth episode of the seires the documentary continues to examine the challenging work of the police, paramedics and fire service in Wiltshire. Average life expectancy in the UK has risen to 81, and the proportion of people who are elderly is growing faster in Wiltshire than almost anywhere else in the country, with a rapidly growing number of calls to 999 coming from over-75s.

In Warminster, the emergency services are called to a crash involving three cars, which has left one victim with life-changing injuries. The 75-year-old man responsible for the accident suffered a suspected heart attack at the wheel. It is his second heart attack in seven months but all the police can do is advise him to give up driving. PC Phil Bridge says ‘There’s got to be thousands of elderly people who shouldn’t be driving on the streets, that shouldn’t have a license. Anyone can be a ticking time bomb.’ Dementia has overtaken heart disease as the leading cause of death in England and Wales and the cruel effects of the illness are impacting even more on the emergency services’ resources.

PC Bridge is tasked with searching Trowbridge to find a 73-year-old woman who’s in the latter stages of dementia and has disappeared while out shopping with her son. And in Swindon, paramedics Katie Hall and Fran Mwangi attempt to save the life of a 74-year-old man who’s gone into cardiac arrest at home after enjoying a day with his family.

Employable Me, BBC Two, 8.30pm

Over six months this inspiring series follows the stories of eight disabled job seekers as they embark on a pioneering new scheme – one that brings people from across the spectrum of disability together, so that they can help each other take on the (seemingly impossible) challenge of finding employment.

Tonight fifty-two year-old Andy enjoyed a very successful career in the motorsport industry. But six years ago Andy had a stroke during a routine operation which left him partially paralysed with aphasia, making his speech muddled and communication a struggle while Ryan’s Tourette’s became so bad, when he was 21, he had to drop out of university. Having lost his job in retail after a severe tic episode at work, his Tourette’s has escalated to one of the most extreme cases in the UK. With his physical Tourette’s getting so bad that one episode left him with a broken arm, can he ever manage to work again?

Made In Chelsea, E4, 9pm

The latest series continues as Jamie tries to play peacemaker between Alik and Louise before Alik flies back to New York while Sam Prince’s friend James catches Frankie’s eye. Will he be the one to get Frankie back in the game?

Elsewhere in the scripted reality series Mark Francis and Victoria step in to plan an elaborate party for Toff’s birthday.

Family Guy, ITV2, 9pm

ITV2 presents another episode of the outrageous and scathingly satirical adventures of the Griffins – dad Peter, mum Lois, kids Meg, Chris and Stewie, and family pet Brian, as the 16th series continues.

In tonight’s episode, titled The D in Apartment23, Brian takes Stewie to the university library, where he creepily – and unsuccessfully – hits on college girls. After encountering a student protest, Brian starts tweeting his ill-thought-out political opinions. This escalates into him posting an offensive, racist tweet that goes viral. In the space of hours, outrage spreads, and Brian becomes an outcast pursued by an angry mob.

When the rest of the Griffins are also treated as outcasts and their lives in danger, Brian is forced to move out of the family home.

Sinkholes, Channel 5, 8pm

In Sinkholes: Buried Underground this Channel 5 documentary series looks at one of the most destructive forces known to man. Geologist Tom Backhouse investigates sinkholes and their causes.

In this the second episode of the three part series the progamme heads to Gosforth, where flatmates Deage and Nathan were stunned when a massive sinkhole ripped open right outside their house. They discovered they were next to a mineshaft that went straight down to an abandoned coal mine below. This was one of the biggest mineshaft
collapses the Coal Authority ever had to deal with, and Deage and Nathan were plunged into months of mayhem.

Brian has experienced an even longer sinkhole saga. When a sinkhole opened in Bury St Edmunds in 1967, it led to the discovery of a forgotten chalk mine below. As a multitude of sinkholes appeared, house after house was evacuated, until only Brian was left behind with a property that he couldn’t sell. Now, half a century on, he is still stuck there.