By Jeremy Clay

It's Charlotte's birthday. She's two today. There's a party, with balloons and pressies and ice cream and whatnot. And out in the garden, kids are scoffing sugary or salty stuff and boinging around merrily on a bouncy castle.

Everything is just as it should be, then. Or so it seems.

But back in the kitchen, by the mounds of sarnies for the kids' tea, Charlotte's mum is wondering whether her daughter will live to see a third birthday.

Extraordinary People: The Tiniest Girl in the World (9pm, Five) was the story of a girl who'll never grow up, and a family who were waiting on tenterhooks to discover if she'll grow old.

It was startling from the very first frame, when Charlotte filled the screen in close-up: teeny, fragile and otherworldly; a stop-motion animation of an alabaster doll, slipped into a live action film.

There are very few occasions when TV produces a surprise, but even given the title, this was one. For a moment or two it just didn't seem possible.

Charlotte, who was born with primordial dwarfism, is only 22 inches tall.

Her mum dresses her in the clothes of a newborn baby. That's a milestone, she said: it used to be outfits for a premature baby.

The cameras followed Charlotte's mum and dad as they endured the quiet anguish of uncertainty about her precise condition.

Was it the rare kind that spelled a short tragic life? Or the sort which meant a jumble of medical ills, but a lifespan that seemed kind by comparison?

The cameras were there when they found out. It was happy news, but the film dragged out the suspense for effect, like the voting result in a TV talent show.

Crass editing aside, this was a moving film which lived up to the boast of its yahoo-ing title.

And that Extraordinary People bit could refer to Charlotte's family. "I think she's perfect and I wouldn't change her," said her sister.

Like the tomatoes on their shelves, the sisters who run Fosters greengrocer's in Merseyside bruise easily.

So when retail force-of-nature Mary Portas rolled up and started criticising pretty much everything they do, they were put out, to say the least (Mary Queen of Shops, 9pm, BBC Two)

Portas, naturally, turned out to be bang on the money. And not just about Fosters.

She's given the show a small but significant tweak. Before, it was Kitchen Nightmares with fashion outlets instead of restaurants.

But it's acquired a Jamie Oliver-style mission. This time round, Portas is going after the supermarkets, sticking up for independent bakers, greengrocers and the like while trying to turn Tesco, Sainsbury's and the rest into this year's Turkey Twizzlers.

It's not just watchable, it's rather admirable too.