The museum and the bride

This week's eye opener (we couldn't stop talking about it at work) was a VARA programme called 'De Filippijnse Bruid'. The maker, Michiel van Erp, follows a Dutch half-wit from Brabant, Willie, during his search for a Filipino bride. It was almost too embarrassing to watch this fumbling, stupid man trying to court his much smarter, sadly determined wife-to-be, Layla.

There were many moments worth talking about. The image of a middle-aged, smug modern-age slave trader talking about his own wife sticks: "What's the difference between a Dutch wife and a Filipino wife? When we have dinner, my friends get up and get their own food. When they get back, I'm already having mine. That's because she got it for me. They like to please their man."

And then there's the scene where Willie asks the girls he meets: "How you vin my?" He wants to know if they like him, if they think he's handsome. But he's hardly able to articulate it in Dutch (his mumbled words are subtitled), let alone in English. Amazingly, the woman understands the question. 'OK.'

Tonight I viewed the BBC's 'Dan Cruickshank and the raiders of the lost art'. Cruickshank visits the plundered Iraqi museum in Baghdad and tries to find out what really happened to the lost treasures. Who exactly looted the artifacts? Was the museum staff involved? It looks like it, but we get no answers.

As a TV show, I preferred the first documentary. Cruickshank seems a little condescending towards the viewers and is more concerned with artifacts than he is with people. Van Erp's more human and genuine, even when it would be so easy to humiliate both bride and groom. He never asks after the money involved.

Let's look at what the two networks do with their content on the web:

• Cruickshank: return to Baghdad
• De Filippijnse Bruid

That's eight pages for the museum, a couple of paragraphs for the bride. The BBC focus on text - an image here or there would have livened it up while the only redeeming factor for VARA is their archived video stream, which allows me to view the show in full whenever I want to. But what I want is background information. What happened to Willie and Layla?

Van Erp's documentary is one of a series and identified as such. Unfortunately the image heading the series' page is confusing - it relates to another show in the series. There is no added information, no links and no context.

The BBC have archived the information thematically. Although Cruickshank's piece doesn't even refer to its TV counterpart, it puts the information in its historic context.