British Gardens in Time, SBS, 7.30pm 

‘‘The greatest conceit about modernism is that it can do better than nature,’’ former PM Paul Keating harrumphed in a recent interview. Keating’s wisdom springs to mind watching this series, which delves into the history and lore of four of Britain’s greatest gardens. Tonight, it’s the exquisite gardens surrounding the Arts and Crafts mansion of Great Dixter, made famous by revered landscape gardener, author and eccentric Christopher Lloyd. It’s as much a primer in garden design and changing traditions – one of Lloyd’s most radical ideas was to replace an 80-year-old rose garden with tropical plants – as it is a portrait of a turn-of-the-century upper-middle-class family. Lloyd died in 2006 and those who knew him are on hand to provide often- colourful anecdotes. Mostly, though, it’s the spectacular gardens and landscapes that make this a feast for serious gardeners, historians, aesthetes and at least one former PM, who aren’t always well-served by TV.

Counting Cars, 7Mate, 9.30pm 

A spin-off of Pawn Stars, the misleadingly titled Counting Cars is about Danny ‘‘The Count’’ Koker and his fellow automobile enthusiasts, who seem to like buying, restoring and flipping classic American cars and motorbikes as much as high-fiving each other and other dudes that they supposedly happen upon on the streets of Las Vegas. It’s terribly contrived – the colourful characters they meet look like they’re straight  out of Central Casting – but it is imbued with  feel-goodness. In ‘‘Size Matters’’, the first of two episodes tonight, the team modify a three-wheeled motorbike for a man with dwarfism who wants to ‘‘get in the wind’’, and the tables are turned on Danny when he is pulled over while driving his 1973 Plymouth Satellite.

Chicago Fire, Seven, 11.15pm 

The fire-station setting may be new, but little else is in this cookie-cutter procedural from the Dick Wolf hit factory. Tonight’s episode milks the causticity of chief Pat Pridgen (Matthew Del Negro), whose boss-status promises to keep heart-throb Casey (Australian Jesse Spencer) in the dateable but single category for a while longer. With its far-fetched story lines, heavy handed exposition and soap-opera digressions, Chicago Fire doesn’t ask much of its audience.
Paul Kalina

PAY TV

Outback Wrangler, National Geographic, 8.30pm

Crocodile catcher Matt Wright is back to help protect the good folk of the Northern Territory from the big old salties that keep  turning up where they are least wanted. Tonight, he is off to a mate’s cattle farm, where a 3.6-metre monster has just eaten one of his mate’s dogs. Wright’s offsider observes that a beast of that size would ‘‘definitely give you a tune-up’’ if you were inthe water with it. But this is one job that isn’t going to go according to plan. Nor is job two, which is to remove another big croc from a tourist operator’s airboat landing spot. When Wright and his team show up to inspect their cage trap, they find not one but two crocs inside, making things much more dangerous. Wright is a pleasant sort, and crocs are always compelling creatures – especially when they’re trying toshake apart metal cages suspended beneath helicopters. It’s a pity that Wright won’t be having any overseas adventures this season, but it’s still good stuff. 
Brad Newsome 

MOVIES

Mrs Miniver (1942) TCM (pay TV), 12.25pm

William Wyler’s Oscar-winning MrsMiniver stars Greer Garson asan upper-middle-class lady, running the perfect household in wartime for her husband (Walter Pidgeon) and children. She even handles a German soldier found in her garden with admirable calm. One may  rail against the fates of some characters but they and the end sermon helped galvanise the British nation against the Germans.

A Dangerous Profession (1949) 7Two 1.15am (Wednesday)

Few people alive today would have seen Ted Tetzlaff’s A Dangerous Profession and most would have forgotten it even if they have. ItisaB-movie drama about bail bondsmen, the guys who cough upthe dough to spring from the slammer anyone caught in the grip of the law. If the criminal doesn’t turn upfor trial, the bondsman hasto carry the can.Although bondsmen appear in countless crime movies, they are usually peripheral characters, a bit of fun with low-rent accents and ill-fitting suits. A Dangerous Profession is one of the few films that moves them centre stage, which makes a lot of dramatic sense, because their milieu represents a jeopardous environment for moral dilemmas.Here, for example, a bondsman named Vince Kane (George Raft) has the hots for the wife (Ella Raines) of a client who has disappeared. Vince decides to investigate, but are his actions supportive of the missing criminal, or is he doing a King David and trying to get rid of a rival? It’s a fabulous premise, even if the film isbudget poor, listlessly directed and uninspiringly performed.A much better film with a similar angle is Mitchel Leisen’s Remember the Night (1940), in which a prosecutor (Fred MacMurray) convinces a bondsman to free a young woman (Barbara Stanwyck) who is to be held in jail over Christmas after being caught stealing a bracelet. Isthe prosecutor guaranteeing the bondsman just to get closer to the girl, or is he, subconsciously at least, trying to subvert justice and even his career? The subtleties are incredible, the film a masterpiece and the free-spirited homage by Robert Bresson, Pickpocket (1959), close to the best film ever made. A Dangerous Profession, made midway between these two, is no jewel in the cinematic crown, but it is playing at something great, mining, if never fully understanding, a sub-genre of crime stories that ought to be explored more often. It is not a film that deserves to be forgotten.
Scott Murray