TV: Wonderland - Virtual Adultery and Cyberspace Love

What if your partner spent anything up to 16 hours a day living in a virtual reality world on the Internet, spending all her time with someone from the other side of the world, and neglecting you, your kids, and all other duties in the process? That's one of the fundamental questions behind this documentary in the BBC's new Wonderland series, which is apparently something to do with the weirdnesses of modern life but seems more like an excuse to lump together a collection of unrelated documentaries under a heading that isn't Horizon.

Anyway, this particular episode is about Second Life, which most people have heard of by now; more specifically, it's about relationships in Second Life. Far from being the vitriolic criticism of such things that you may have expected from the programme's blurb -- or, indeed, it's first ten minutes -- it winds up showing a fairly balanced portrait of the effects of such things. Yes, there's the American couple whose life is being destroyed by the wife's obsession with the game and relationship on it with a British man, but there's also the pair from Nuneaton who are now happily married and expecting a child, after having met on Second Life.

This latter couple are the Positive Side: the game allowed the woman to escape an oppressive relationship, the man left his former partner as soon as he realised what he had in the game was actually something serious. They may be a subplot beside the Negative Side of the main 'love triangle', but the unreserved success of their pairing goes a long way to combat any accusation of bias. As for that American-Brit thing, after ruining their lives for 10 months the American finally meets the Brit, they don't get on as well, and that's that. She returns to America intending to give her marriage another go. It's not as happy an ending, but considering how poorly she's been treating her husband for nearly a year it's hard to feel any sympathy for her.

It's a wonder he stuck by her for so long -- and, in this case, there's the answer to the question. In a modern age where divorce can be all too easy, it's almost miraculous to see a partner prepared to stick by their spouse for so long and through so much. Whether she deserves such care is another matter.