This Week's Telly: 24/05/08

Filth: The Mary Whitehouse Story Wednesday, BBC2, 9pm

Kiss of Death Monday, BBC1, 9pm

Eurovision Saturday, BBC1, 8pm

History being written by the winners, it's no surprise that the Mary Whitehouse story has been turned into a BBC comedy, with smutty jokes and even – as if just to spite her – a mild sex scene. Because, of course, her campaign to clean up TV failed utterly. She never really stood a chance.

The things she found so shocking in 1963 seem quaint now; it's easy to imagine how apoplectic she would have been made by virtually anything today. Sex and the City would probably have made her explode. And while the organisation she founded still exists, it's a spent force as the ethical debate about TV has moved on to other issues.

I can't say I'm unhappy about that, as Filth (though only half the drama it should have been) does remind us how narrow and authoritarian Whitehouse's vision was. Television wasn't something to open up the world, but shut it down, providing the approved version of how to live, in heterosexual, traditional Christian families only. A channel run on her intolerant principles would have been deadly.

To read the rest of this preview, click here: The Scotsman.