Don't mention the war! But television seems unable to stop itself repeatedly mentioning war - especially the two world wars of the 20th century. This week both those wars received some attention.

Housewife, 49 (ITV1) was a play written by and starring Victoria Wood, based on the experiences of Nella Last, who kept a diary throughout the Second World War for the project known as Mass Observation. It traced how Nella's work for the WVS liberated her from the notion that she was 'merely' a housewife and helped her stand up to her chauvinistic husband (magnificently played by David Threlfall). Thankfully Victoria Wood avoided overplaying the role of Nella and there were some poignant moments - for example, when her uncommunicative husband suddenly said: "You're everything to me."

The drama caught the atmosphere of the time, especially the class divisions and the subjugation of women, as well as the agony of civilians having their homes bombed and endlessly worrying about the safety of relatives and friends. Despite a few anachronistic details (such as a Mass Observation employee using undignified rude words), this was a gripping evocation of an unsettling era.

Seeing the TV drama drove me to look at the extracts from Nella's diary on the BBC website and these are, if anything, more revealing about certain aspects of wartime life. Nella is surprised at a soldier's dislike of Winston Churchill ("He is not as popular as all that, and he has a good press agent") and she expresses her horror at the effects of war: "Kill kill kill, sorrow and grief and loneliness, senseless cruelty and hatred, drowning men, mud, cold and a baffling sense of futility - what a Hell broth."

The First World War affected many members of Queen Victoria's extended family, which included the ruling elites in nine European countries. Three Kings at War (Channel 4) told the story of three of these monarchs who were also cousins: King George V of England, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. George and Nicholas were good friends: for many years, "Georgie" and "Nicky" exchanged chatty letters about their hunting exploits and stamp collecting. But this friendship didn't lead George to offer asylum to Nicholas when the Russian Revolution forced the latter to abdicate. George was worried about revolution being imported into Britain.

Both George and Nicholas hated Kaiser Wilhelm, an arrogant and unpredictable bore who built a massive navy as "one in the eye for his British relatives". Wilhelm was the eldest grandson of Queen Victoria but he was demonised as the instigator of the war before he was exiled to Holland. The connections between the three men made for an interesting documentary but insufficient care was taken to find suitable images to illustrate the story, so we were shown the same photos and film footage over and over again.

Yet it was a salutary demonstration of how remote monarchs can be from their subjects and how the First World War led to disenchantment with royalty. "After millions of deaths in the war, kings and emperors were not so popular any more."

d=3,3,1If royal families have become an endangered species, so have many animals. Extinct (ITV1) purports to arouse our concern by sending "eight intrepid celebrities" to "hostile terrains" to encounter animals threatened with extinction. The celebrities include a fashion designer, two TV presenters (naturally) and Michael Portillo. In the first programme, David Suchet was sent to look at giant pandas, while Anneka Rice went to see polar bears. Anneka told us that us that the Arctic is "absolutely phenomenal" and (three times) that polar bears are "amazing".

The show uses an unnecessary studio audience to watch proceedings and, worst of all, it asks viewers to vote for their favourite animals (phone calls cost only an arm and a leg). This raises unbearable dilemmas. Shall we vote for the cuddly panda, even though it may mean dooming the orangutan and leatherback turtle to extinction?