DNA Family Secrets
BBC Two

If I were going to rattle the skeletons in my family’s closet on primetime television, there are few people I would rather do it with than Stacey Dooley. I know she gets up a few important noses who think her style of reportage is an example of dumbing down – but in BBC Three’s Stacey on the Frontline, it was the girly, cosy hugs she shared with young Yazidi women recently released from Isis captivity that gave them the confidence to share their stories. Not many reporters could have done that.

Social distancing put Dooley-style hugging out of bounds in DNA Family Secrets (2 March) but she still managed to lean over and squeeze a hand. Officially, she was in pursuit of what DNA can tell us of our genetic make-up – but really it was family stories with a DNA theme thrown in. Sometimes the ­science threw up some genuinely startling revelations (or at least, startling for the participants), but often it seemed only a thematic gloss on moving individual accounts of misunderstanding or reconciliation. For the big “reveals”, as much dramatic tension was cranked up as two office chairs positioned four metres apart can muster.