By Sian Brewis

I always thought the medical student who faints at the beginning of Quincy was, frankly, a bit of a wuss – until the first few minutes of Inside Nature’s Giants (C4, 9pm).

It’s a suitably softly, softly title for an animal autopsy which, on Channel Five, would surely have been called Chopping Up Dumbo.

Yep, a euthanised elephant being sliced open in front of an audience of students at the Royal Veterinary College. It seemed to hark back to Victorian days when operations were carried out in lecture theatres.

It’s as shocking as it sounds. Nothing is spared: we see everything, from guts pouring out across the floor – “stand back please!” cries one biologist – its trunk sliced in half and even its giant ears butterflied to ribbons.

Squeamishness reached its height when they took a lopped-off foot and put it on to a car jack to test how much weight it could hold.

But it would be wrong to dismiss this as a freak show.

Slowly, the shock factor disappeared and what was left was an interesting science programme.

Every anatomical discovery was explained: how elephants breathe, why their lungs are like nothing else found in nature and most bizarrely how they walk around like they’re wearing high heels.

They discover that the elephant they are examining died of crippling arthritis: you can actually see the bones poking through where they would have rubbed together.

Fascinating stuff. Richard Dawkins popped up to talk about how elephants evolved, while presenter Mark Evans flew off to South Africa to see them in the wild.

Back in the studio, he made desperately sincere speeches about celebrating the elephant’s “tragic death”.

It didn’t quite chime with his enthusiasm for the autopsy.

But the elephant had its revenge. Holding up its guts to the camera, he was treated to a blast of methane gas in his face. Ha.

Crimewatch may tell you not to have nightmares, but there was no such reassurance after the chilling Real Crime: Murder on the Doorstep (ITV, 9pm).

It was the story of teenage model Sally Anne Bowman, killed yards from her door by psycho Mark Dixie – who, it emerged, had calmly left his friend’s house after a birthday party, committed the murder, and returned with nobody any the wiser.

You could sense the anger from police and Sally’s family as they talk about Dixie. Police finally caught him when his DNA was taken after a pub fight.

“England v Trinidad: terrible football game, but one of the greatest results,” said Det Supt Stuart Cundy.