'Hunters of the South Seas', BBC 2

Any guest in a strange house who has groped through darkness in search of the bathroom will sympathise as Will Millard nervously picks his way along a walkway above the ocean in search of the requisite hole, down which he promptly drops his glasses. This patch of seabed, it transpires, houses swarms of fishy life all processing waste: sewage works and fishery in one. Sunday's Hunters of the South Seas (BBC2 9pm) again illustrates the BBC's obsession with southern oceans - Sunday also shows Tatau and Coast Australia but Hunters is by far the best.

Millard stays with the Bajau people who, until the Indonesian government decreed otherwise, lived in boats, more at home in water than on land. Even now most build their houses on stilts above their beloved element. Traditional spear fishermen, some now use nets. Their life is simple, selling an increasingly pathetic catch to a nearby market for rice, fresh water and kerosene. Underpaid and despised, the Bajau are licensed to fish in this national park but they find outsiders illegally emptying the waters on an industrial scale. Sweet-natured and unassuming, they are unable to grasp the concept of finite resources and are convinced the sea will always provide. Young men in crash helmets regularly visit - loan sharks, to whom many are in uncomprehending debt. Some pupils of the Islamic school on dry land intend to take up new careers.

What makes this more than a travelogue is Millard's passionate concern for his friends and for their future. A fluent Indonesian speaker, he shares their jokes, stories, hopes and (to him, infuriatingly shortlived) worries. His special friend is his host family's disabled child, beaming Lobo, who will never fish and will probably be unable to walk in a few years, diagnosed as a family curse. Before he leaves, Millard gives the boy a moving pep talk, encouraging him to live fully and ignore what cruelties may come. There are tears as Millard leaves his generous, resigned friends to their depleted ocean, day-to-day struggle, and a future that looks uncertain.

Photograph: Sam Mansfield

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