Last night's TV

It's the end of Life On Mars for Sam - but at least Gene Hunt gets a new series
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You can gauge the popularity of a programme by the number of people who say: "No, don't tell me!" Which is a bit of luck as I am not perfectly certain what did happen in the last Life On Mars (BBC1).

Every week Sam Tyler (John Simm) would asked himself: "Am I mad or in a coma or back in time?" The answer is probably a bit of all three, and now, to put the tin lid on it, he's dead. Listen very carefully for as Michelle of the Resistance said repeatedly, "I weel say thees only wance." Sam was in a coma (as evidenced by Jimmy Savile cheerfully reporting his progress on hospital radio), but in his fevered dreams he was in 1973, with Gene Hunt and his colourful, if unorthodox, crew.

Last night the ambivalent Frank Morgan, he of the shifty moustache, left Hunt, Ray, Chris and Annie fighting for their lives with a cop killer, career blagger and all-round bad egg called, surprisingly, Leslie, but he saved Sam's life and propelled him back into the present, where he belonged. Sam now found the present a curiously alien place, where detectives sat around glossy tables with laptops, discussing whether it is ethical to move for 48-hour custody without formal charge in violent cases that may require detailed psychoanalysis. Love, life, laughter and bluster were all somewhere else. He took a breathtaking leap from the roof of the station into the hereafter. Or, in his case, the herebefore, arriving in nice time to save his friends and polish off the balaclavaed bad egg.

Sam, a tortured soul given to extensive pauses, had never looked happier than now. As Stanley Holloway used to sing: "Ain't it grand to be blooming well dead."

What no one expected was the roaring success of Philip Glenister's Gene Hunt, who could have gone on without rehearsal as a rhino and had a line of banter like a swung shovel. It would have taken a saint with a soul above ratings to refuse a sequel. Gene Hunt, with Ray and Chris but without Sam and Annie, will move to the Met in a series set in 1981 called Ashes to Ashes. It is arguable that nothing on television is as truly in touch with its time as a cop show. It may not mean it; it cannot help it. Dixon of Dock Green in the 50s, Z Cars in the 60s, The Sweeney in the 70s. Life On Mars spoke of nostalgia for a time when PC did not mean politically correct and detectives were seldom mistaken, even in a poor light, for social workers.

If you prefer the idea of life on the moon, stick around. According to Horizon (BBC2), America, Russia, China, Japan, India and Europe are all interested in colonising the moon, which should leave a bit more room for the rest of us. The attraction is Helium-3, which offers a new, boundless source of clean energy. Two Apollo astronauts offered starkly opposing views. One has formed a company to strip-mine the moon. The other thinks we should learn first to live within our means on earth. The moon being the moon, it also threw up a couple of amiable loons. One sells plots on the moon for, I must say, a very reasonable $36.50 (£18.50), and the other, almost entirely swathed in whiskers and wrap-around glasses, trades as a space detective. Now there's a new detective series.

Three-Minute Wonder (Channel 4) is better than a weekend in the country. It lasts about as long as you can comfortably lean down and apply your eye to a keyhole. I will cheerfully waste three minutes without thinking, "That's a slice of my life gone, you swine!" Talking of swine, Radio Times describes the first of this particular set of short wonders, Nini Hunts Truffles, as a farmer and his pig truffling in the hinterlands of Sweden. I am unfamiliar with the Swedish hinterlands but I suggest that this is not it. For one thing, the pig was quite demonstrably French.

The farmer opened his van and a vast face with ears like wings looked out, giving the camera the most cursory glance. She was white with blue-black splotches. Farmer and pig strolled along companionably, he a few steps behind her with his hands behind his back like the Duke of Edinburgh ... well, I won't press the analogy. They seemed to converse in amiable matching grunts. Sometimes Nini stopped and burrowed in the soft earth. At the farmer's sharp "Là! Là!" she drew back, brown-snouted, while he retrieved the truffle. Then it was "Allez!", and off they went again.

These were the best black Perigord truffles, retailing in France at €22, say £15, a kilo. Never was a pig so gracious or less greedy. The farmer's smile was not greedy either, more shyly chuffed, as you might be with a clever child. Job done, Nini showed a skittish turn of speed, like an escaping balloon. Delightful.

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