Television: Today's pick

Prostitute (10.45pm BBC1) The title of this new series may be dressed in fishnets and soliciting bold as brass, but it doesn't really deliver anything new. A different prostitute each week is grilled by Esther Rantzen, starting with Talia, a beautiful if wounded-looking single parent, a former travel industry professional fluent in four languages, who moved into selling sex when she lost her job. She now owns a country house with paddock and horses, has moved into porno movies, and worries what her three children might think. So just how naive was she being in cosying up to la Rantzen like this?

The Force (9.50pm BBC2) Reporter David Rose spent six months with the Thames Valley Police trying to discover some of the reality of policing today. This first film finds the coppers heavily tied up at a local farm which breeds cats for vivisection, and which animal rights protesters are campaigning to close down. Can the police justify the cost?

On Air (11.15pm BBC2). TV dissects itself in this new magazine fronted by The Independent's David Aaronovitch. Under discussion are "docu-soaps" and news as info-tainment, and there's an interview with Kelvin MacKenzie.

THe film

Lethal Weapon 2 (9pm ITV) Patsy Kensit's finest moment, until Liam Gallagher got on the telephone, finds her murdering a South African accent in this tale of apartheid-era diplomats with a sideline in drug- running. She is nominally Mel Gibson's love interest, but, this smash- bang-wallop 1989 sequel being another buddy-buddy bonding session for Mel and mismatched cop partner Danny Glover, she doesn't really stand a chance. Fun, of sorts, with Joss Ackland enjoying himself as chief villain.