Pick of the week. The Secret. BBC1, Saturday, April 13 and Sunday, April 14, 9-10pm.

As children, Emma (played by Haydn Gwynne) and Nadia (Stella Gonet) were convicted of killing a child. Now, 30 years later, living under new identities, they meet again when Nadia breaks into Emma’s life and threatens to destroy her marriage. It’s not too hard to guess the news stories that suggested the theme of Lucy Floyd’s play, and the basic situation may seem contrived, but the details, for example, of the effect on Emma’s two children as her marriage runs into trouble, are convincing. The message of a well-constructed, well-acted drama is perhaps summed up in Nadia’s remark: “People don’t love you because you are good; you are good because people love you.” Anyway, that’s her excuse.

Best of the rest

Time Team Special

Channel 4, Monday, April 15, 9-10.30am

Tony Robinson, plus no fewer than 60 archaeologists, take a big slice through Canterbury. Working over nine months (instead of the programme’s usual three days), they excavate an area the size of a football pitch to discover part of the Roman city, some Saxon buildings, a medieval street and a friary, together with a number of bits and pieces from the past. Attempts to turn the whole thing into a tourist attraction are not so successful. Meanwhile, archaeologists all over the country cultivate their eccentricities and wait patiently for the Time Team researchers to dig them out. The programme has done wonders for the image of the profession.

Wild Weekend

Discovery Kids, Saturday, April 13 and Sunday, April 14, 6am-6pm

The satellite channel Discovery Kids is devoting the weekend of April 13 and 14 to wildlife programmes, including the stories of four tiger cubs born in captivity (better than it may sound from the title, “Awesome Pawsome”) and two polar bear cubs at Denver zoo. The underlying questions behind these, and other films being shown over the weekend, are about relationships between humans and wild animals, and the fact that for some species breeding in captivity may now be the best hope of survival. Should we feel proud or not?

Best on radio

The Reith Lectures 2002

Radio 4, Wednesday, April 17, 8-8.45pm

In the third of this year’s lectures, Dr Onora O’Neill considers the question of accountability. Over the past few years, in response to public demand, a host of initiatives have been introduced in an attempt to make public services and professional groups more accountable. These include teachers and lecturers, as well as doctors, police officers, care workers and others, the demand for accountability being driven, in some cases, by diminishing confidence in the services they provide.

On the face of it, it would seem reasonable and beneficial for the professions to operate more openly, so it is brave of Dr O’Neill to suggest that it may not, after all, be entirely a good thing.

She examines the regime of regulation, inspection, target-setting and auditing that accountability brings with it and suggests that, as well as putting professionals under strain and more centralised control, it can have the effect of further diminishing public confidence - a kind of vicious, descending spiral. Teachers may well have a view on this.

Robin Buss’s TV selection is back in Friday magazine from next week