What's on TV: Tuesday, June 2
by Melinda HoustonWho Do You Think You Are Australia: Cameron Daddo
SBS, 7.30pm
If you ever thought Cameron Daddo has had rather a charmed life, this instalment of Who Do You Think You Are will only confirm it. Convicts! Royalty! Duels! If you'd commissioned a Daddo-suitable script it'd look an awful lot like this.
The high drama in which Daddo's ancestors were embroiled – melodrama, some might say – is the kind of stuff you couldn't make up. And like all the best episodes of this long-running series, it offers a nice little history lesson too. The toughness and entrepreneurial spirit of Australia's first white settlers – especially the women folk – never ceases to amaze, and if the ghastly indigenous slaughter in which the Daddo progenitors were possibly involved is glossed over a little, at least it's not completely brushed under the carpet.
The only real downside here is that the Daddo history offers so little opportunity for weeping (although Cam does manage to tear up a couple of times at how awesome his ancestors were).
Outback Truckers
7Mate, 8.30pm
"It is warm. But I don't think it's gonna to get to 47," shrugs truckie Slick. That's the thing about Outback Truckers. Anyone who's ever spent any sort of time in remote Australia instantly recognises that the roads, the weather, the distances, the conditions – and the characters – really are like this. There's absolutely no need to slap on the mayo.
That said, there is always an effort made to provide some kind of narrative structure. Tonight, one thread involves the unflappable Slick trying to get home in time for Christmas. Elsewhere, another salt-of-the-earth type undertakes a monster run to take feed to one part of drought-ravaged inland NSW, and water to another.