TODAY'S TELEVISION

They have an endearingly old-fashioned idea of the artist in Kazakhstan. Arran-sweatered men and henna-haired women sit around in shacks, duetting on guitars, knocking back vodka and discussing the writer's "integrity". It would never do at an EastEnders script-conference.

In fact, these are the drop-outs from an experiment recorded in this week's Omnibus (Sun BBC1), whereby British soap writers/producers/make- up artists were sent to the former Soviet republic (Stalin had his gulags here) to try and create an indigenous Kazakh television soap opera. This was all paid for by the British taxpayer, a strange caper for HM's Government to become mixed up in, you think, until you realise the soap was a sort of primer on capitalism - market forces for beginners. Never mind that the title chosen, Crossroads, belonged to a famous British victim of market forces.

Anyhow, Jemma Jupp's film documents a darkly funny culture clash between sleek BBC Elstree professionals and hung-over set-builders and said idealistic writers (what about the spiritual element, asks one, who was experiencing the sort of rude awakening usually reserved for people who smoke in bed). The bit players in all of this are the soap's disgruntled Kazakh producer, who dies in a car crash, a mad accordion player, who Frederico Fellini would have snapped up, and a would-be actor, who gets his revenge for not being cast in Crossroads by inviting two of the Brits to share a freshly slaughtered sheep in his family village. "The head is for the honoured guest," he explained, as the village looked proudly on.

The Works (Sun BBC2) documents a lesser culture clash - that between Peter Greenaway's favourite composer, Michael Nyman, and the Mazda motor corporation, which commissioned Nyman to write a concerto embodying the Japanese company's philosophy of "Kansei". Until I saw it written out, I thought they meant "can say", which seemed a good motto for a car salesman. Anyhow, Nyman, who has presumably been handsomely paid for the work, is keen that his concerto stands by itself; the company, it transpires, is just looking for a posh jingle. All pretty predictable really, which is more than can be said of Soviet nuclear submarine K219, which, in October 1986, as Reagan and Gorbachev prepared to decommission nukes in Iceland, was in danger of melting down just off the eastern seaboard of the United States.

Hostile Waters (Sat BBC1), an exciting Screen One presentation directed by Troy Kennedy-Martin, documents the accident that nearly led to the extinction of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, and the setting off of the Third World War in the process. There isn't a great deal of space for characterisation amid the steaming pipes and flashing lights, but Rutger Hauer, as the captain of the Soviet vessel, and Martin Sheen, as his American counterpart, manage some.

The Dynasty: the Nehru-Gandhi Story (Sat BBC2) is an interesting, four- part series telling the story of the family that has ruled India for 40 of the nation's 50 years of independence. The first part sees Jawaharlal Nehru change from being a dandified barrister into a shawl-wearing freedom fighter. Nehru was an ex-Harrovian, Winston Churchill's Alma Mater, and you wonder if some terrible fagging incident didn't finally work itself out in Indian independence. Actually, they weren't contemporaries, and it took the Amritsar Massacre (imagine Bloody Sunday in Londonderry to the power of 10) to make Nehru realise that he wasn't British after all.