The Cave review - heroic Syrian hospital workers

★★★★★ THE CAVE A pediatrician's view of indiscriminate slaughter in Eastern Ghouta

A pediatrician's view of indiscriminate slaughter in Eastern Ghouta

War crimes are war crimes, irrespective of the victims’ ages, gender, or ethnicities, and no one’s torture or murder is more abhorrent than anyone else’s.

The Family Secret, Channel 4 review - lives destroyed by historic sexual abuse

★★★★ THE FAMILY SECRET, CHANNEL 4 Lives destroyed by historic sexual abuse

Revelations from 25 years ago wreak havoc in Anna Hall's devastating film

“Restorative Justice Practitioner” sounds like a euphemism for a Mad Max-style lone avenger, but in director Anna Hall's devastating film for Channel 4, it was a woman called Kate whose job was to bring together conflicting parties and help find a resolution.

Country Music by Ken Burns, BBC Four review - grand history of fiddlers on the hoof

America's great documentarian takes to the country road to explore a musical melting pot

Ken Burns is the closest American television has to David Attenborough. They may swim in different seas, but they both have an old-school commitment to an ethos that will be missed when it’s gone – the idea that television is a place to communicate information with a sober sense of wonder. Burns’s field is American history in all its breadth and depth. Last time round it was a lapidary decalogue of documentaries about the Vietnam War.

Arena: Everything is Connected - George Eliot's Life, BBC Four review - innovative film brings the Victorian novelist into the present

★★★★ EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED Artist Gillian Wearing captures George Eliot’s life & legacy

Artist Gillian Wearing captures Eliot’s life and legacy through the voices of the common man (and woman)

Gillian Wearing’s Arena documentary Everything is Connected (BBC Four) is a quietly innovative biography of an author whose works still resonate with their readers and the country within which she wrote.

Love and Hate Crime, BBC One review - Abel Cedeno was a killer, but was he also a victim?

★★★★ LOVE AND HATE CRIME, BBC ONE Abel Cedeno was a killer, but was he also a victim?

Punchy documentary probes controversial murder case and the US justice system

This series examines murders in the USA “with elements of love and passion as well as prejudice”, and the second season opened (on BBC One) with "Killing in the Classroom", the story of the fatal stabbing of New York school student Matthew McCree by bisexual teenager Abel Cedeno.

Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild, Series 10, Channel 5 review - living off your wits and below the radar in Sweden

★★★★ BEN FOGLE: NEW LIVES IN THE WILD, SERIES 10, CHANNEL 5 Living off your wits and below the radar in Sweden

Perceptive film about an astonishingly independent single mother

“I think we all dream of simplifying our lives and reconnecting with nature,” reckons Ben Fogle, and since this was the start of the tenth series of this show, he must have struck a chord with viewers. His first subject was 24-year-old Italian woman Annalisa Vitale, who’d dropped out of university in Italy despite her obvious academic potential and set out to build a life of self-reliance. “People say I wasted my brain, but I think I saved my brain,” she reflected.

The Troubles: A Secret History, BBC Four, finale review - peace at last, but at what price?

★★★★ THE TROUBLES: A SECRET HISTORY, BBC FOUR, FINALE Peace at last, but at what price?

Concluding part of shocking and sobering documentary series

This terrifying but gripping BBC Four series about Northern Ireland’s savage sectarian war reached its conclusion with a meticulously detailed account of how hostilities were eventually brought to a close by the Good Friday Agreement, which came into effect in December 1999.

Lenny Henry's Race Through Comedy, Gold review - illuminating account of TV's struggle to become multicultural

★★★ LENNY HENRY'S RACE THROUGH COMEDY, GOLD Illuminating account of TV's struggle to become multicultural

Dudley's most famous son delivers home truths about sitcom history

Sir Lenny Henry, PhD and CBE, is scarcely recognisable as the teenager who made his TV debut on New Faces in 1975. He’s been a stand-up comedian, musician and Shakespearean actor, and even wrote his own dramatised autobiography for BBC One.