What's on the box this week?

'Who Do You Think You Are?" (BBC 1, Wednesday) - Actor David Suchet, star of the TV series 'Poirot", embarks on a journey around Europe hoping to sort out the confusion surrounding his family history, as the series in which famous names venture on a journey of discovery into their ancestors" pasts continues. Some relations think Suchet"s grandfather was German, others Russian, others Estonian. When and why was their name changed from Suchedowitz to Suchet? His mother"s side of the family is equally confusing. Was her grandfather called Jarché or Jarchy? He claimed to be a French photographer, but was he? Suchet has always loved boats, and his investigations reveal a master mariner in his past. Further investigation at the National Maritime Museum leads him to the coast of Suffolk and the story of a terrible storm, a shipwreck, tragedy and heroism. He then heads to London and Paris on the trail of his great-grandfather, Monsieur Arnold Jarché, a 19th-century photographer. Was he really the proprietor of the Eiffel Tower Studio, and was he really French? 'The Hunt For Moby Dick" (BBC 2, Saturday) - Filmed in England, America and the Azores over four years, this documentary follows acclaimed author Philip Hoare as he writes his new book and tackles man"s complex relationship with the whale, bringing it into startling new focus through one book: 'Moby Dick". Herman Melville"s 19th-century novel resounds with 21st-century relevance. Hoare draws an eerie parallel between Captain Ahab"s obsessive pursuit of the great white whale on the high seas and today"s 'war on terror". In precarious wooden boats, whalemen once faced the biggest animals on Earth with no more than hand-held harpoons. Their furious battles were grim and without mercy and the prize was the mighty sperm whale. Today, the whale is still regarded with awe - no longer a monster but a magnificent, gentle giant. In an epic journey which takes him from his home town of Southampton to the whaling ports of New Bedford and Nantucket, and finally to the islands of the Azores - where whales were still hunted with traditional harpoons up to the 1980s - Hoare enters a world haunted by a bloody and violent past and stands at the desk where Melville wrote his masterpiece and visits the last remaining whaleship, the Charles W Morgan, to see what conditions on board were really like. Hoare takes viewers closer than ever before to the truth behind the story of Moby Dick and the fear and awe it inspires. And what, indeed, does Moby Dick have to tell us about the modern world? 'Customs" (RTE 1, Sunday) - The second episode of this new character-driven six-part series following the working lives of Ireland"s customs officers can be seen on RTE this weekend. With unprecedented access to the daily operations of this little-known profession, the programme is an opportunity to see up close how the country is dealing with the increasing level of importation of illegal materials and substances. Twenty-four hours a day, the 10 men and women featured in the series work to protect the nation"s borders in an extraordinary job where the hours are extreme and no day is like another. In a game of cat and mouse, they try to out-think the criminals, and are sometimes successful, other times not. They find shipments of drugs in the strangest places: a doll"s house, picture frames, the bottom of a massive cargo ship. Large quantities of money, cigarettes and cars are regularly seized, as well as a myriad of other illegal goods and substances. And then there are the more bizarre finds like a Colombian snake. The officers work like a police force, conducting dawn raids, getting involved in car chases, going on stake-outs and investigating leads. And as the battle intensifies, their equipment is upgraded to include high-powered boats to patrol the coast, mobile x-ray trucks and highly sensitive scanners for use in the country"s ports and airports. The series presents a fascinating side of Irish life that has remained mostly hidden from the public gaze and which has never been filmed until now. Movie Of The Week: Kill Bill Volume 2 (RTE 2, Thursday) - Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Lucy Liu and Samuel L Jackson join swords and killing limbs for the sequel to Tarantino"s foray into martial arts and a whole lot more blood that you"ll have seen in Bruce Lee movies. Over-the-top action and cartoonish bloodletting dictate that you leave reality way outside the door on this one - sit back, enjoy the mayhem, and be careful not to get a squirt of fake blood on the carpet.