I must have missed the trailers for this, the first, apparently, of a BBC1 Sunday evening series fronted by hop skip and jump expert Jonathan Edwards about the lessons to be drawn from Greek myths.

Jason and the Argonauts came under the treatment this evening. I must say that on the whole I liked the programme, perhaps just because it was pleasantly old-fashioned. Whoever designed the reconstruction scenes obviously admired the film of J and the A, because the scene of the gods looking onto a miniature sea with miniature boat was borrowed directly from that film. A nice twist was to make the Olympians children, emphasising what we have been telling our students for years, that Homer's gods and Greek gods in general behave like spoiled children, on whims, and that the mortals are much better people than the gods.

Pleasantly old-fashioned, too, was the list of lessons to be drawn from the myth, which was seen as an object-lesson in progressing to manhood. I almost felt someone would start embroidering the numbered lessons on a sampler. Jonathan seems to have had some kind of veto as a very public Christian, because scenes between Argonauts and Lemnians, and between Jason and Medea, were acted with unfashionable restraint, and all the better for that.

I realise now, looking back after an couple of hours, that the programme had none of the controversy that seems to be a sine qua non of documentaries these days. The experts said their say, and what they had to say slotted in to an overall agreement.

I hope the good-looking actors, pleasant scenery and digital effects, and the attractive personality of Jonathan Edwards himself, will bring the viewers back next Sunday, when the topic is the Odyssey.