The Big Snow of 82, Saturday, 21.30, Channel 5

If you look at a list of the most watched programmes of the eighties, you’ll see a huge number of them come from January 1982, including pretty unexceptional editions of shows like Play Your Cards Right. That’s because it was the coldest winter since records began, and while it didn’t last as long as the famous big freeze of 1963, the temperature plunged to previously unheard of depths and huge parts of the UK, especially in Wales, ended up totally cut off. All great fun for kids, of course, and weather like this is certainly a lot more fun in the years before you have to pay heating bills and get to work, and we’re sure if you were around at the time you have fond memories of that period, which is in distant but living memory for so many of us and so a perfect subject for nostalgia. That said, these docs are usually a bit disappointing with a few bits of footage and various facts repeated ad infinitum for an hour and a half, interspersed with talking heads failing to convince us they actually remember what they’re saying and aren’t just repeating what the researchers have told them. But with judicious use of the fast forward button this should pass the time, we think.