KEY POINTS:
British women have ruled the airwaves these past few weeks. Some are even giving reality telly a good name. I approached Tribal Wives with trepidation, anticipating some kind of dreadful Wife Swap-Survivor scenario, with mud huts and a Western babe whining about missing her hair-straightener and designer heels.
What a relief. This show is the antithesis of the above. In the episodes I've seen, the women who leave their comfort zone to experience an often bewildering culture, do so with grace, openness and determination to muck in, and in living conditions that certainly look challenging to those of us used to indoor plumbing.
In last week's episode, Yvonne from Blackpool went off to live with the Himba people of Namibia for a month, watched her first meal being slaughtered, ate it and found it good, without all that Fear Factor screaming and gagging.
What is intriguing is the way the tribal peoples receive these puzzling, often slightly sad women in their midst, with genuine concern for their welfare. The show's strength is that both parties are treated equally. While the women search for their lost identities and deal with their emotional baggage, the tribal peoples are busy disabusing that stereotype, so beloved by the Western tourist, of the simple, happy native folk.
Yvonne quickly put all self-indulgence aside and ran the full gamut of emotions, through joy at the strength of bonds forged with the Himba women, to humiliation at being laughed at, to her horror at the enforced marriage of a 12-year-old girl. But far from sulking in her hut, she was determined to gain a deeper understanding of such practices. The result was a complex and insightful cultural exchange.
Reality telly that doesn't exploit or patronise its subjects, that is intriguing rather than gladiatorial entertainment. Who'd have thought?
Back in old Blighty, Trinny and Susannah, having completed their classifications of the female body shape - cello, egg-timer, Rubik's cube - are on a nation-storming mission to define the Great British Body.
This orgy of naked British flesh supposedly has some scientific purpose: to determine whether the fat gene actually makes a body fat. But it also came up with some more interesting national traits, such as an unshakeable respect for the monarchy, a la the bloke who was asked whether there was anyone he wouldn't like to see him naked. Answer, he would spare the Queen.
The show also seems to prove that whatever their body shape, the Brits can't be beaten for being barking. A prime example was the 90-year-old ballerina who treated us to her wild, contortionist act. Clothed, fortunately.
The purpose of this roadshow is to build a living sculpture out of thousands of naked Brits, a rather nasty breach of the international convention that a nation that doesn't get out in the sun much, loves an ale and fish'n' chips should stay safely repressed. However, what Trinny and Susannah will never strip down is the impressively high national battiness average.
Meanwhile, Mistresses' quartet of fine actresses seem to keep forgetting their mission to deliver yet another female-friends-have-much-illicit-sex-and-discuss-it show and lapsing into really quite watchable drama.
You can't help wondering what the Himba women would make of all the fuss. As they explained to Yvonne, a married Himba woman likes to keep a boyfriend or two on the side, no drama. Indeed if she doesn't, her husband might lose respect for her. You can see why some sensible cultures have never thought to develop the saucy female sitcom or soap.
