Who Needs Fathers?, BBC Two

Take two sets of separated parents and observe their opposing response to sharing the children. Colin and Alison haven’t involved lawyers, and divide childcare equally and amicably. Sandy, on the other hand, has spent tens of thousands of pounds on legal fees in order secure access to his four children with Rose, a woman who was so inured to being dragged through the family courts by her ex-husband that not until fairly late on in the quietly excellent Who Needs Fathers? did she notice that she had now been pulled into the court of public opinion - and a trial by television. It gave a whole meaning to the term “in camera”.

By the time “She” (as Sandy inevitably referred to Rose) did allow herself to be filmed, much of the damage had already been done – not least because her only active involvement until then had been a belated reply to Sandy’s countless text messages demanding that he be allowed to take their children on holiday to France. “You really are thicker than I thought,” she finally texted back, presumably unaware that her undisguised vitriol was being relayed to the production team. “Your sister did warn me.” The couple, who met in their mid-30s, seemingly got together deafened by the ticking of their biological clocks. Job done, they woke up to the fact that they didn't actually like each other (to put it mildly).

Who Needs Fathers?, made to mark the 20th anniversary of the Children’s Act, which states that a child should have access to both parents after a divorce, is everything that the superhero-dressing pressure group Fathers 4 Justice is not (perhaps understandably); it was subtle and self-effacing and very effective in shedding a dispassionate light on the various complexities involved in this often traumatic (for the children, at least) imbroglio. The camera knew when to hang around and keep filming – not, as is so often the case, in the hope that someone will crumple into a tear-sodden mess, but to catch a fleeting look on a child’s face and other telling gestures.

That doesn’t mean it lacked a point of view - a cause, even. Starting with the bald opening caption that read “One in three British children have parents who are separated”, Stuart Mitchell and Clare Johns’ film added that the well-meaning spirit of the Children’s Act is not being followed in practice, with devoted fathers giving up the unequal struggle for access. Many lose contact completely with their children. For a while it looked like Sandy was also going to throw in the towel, as Rose refused to hand over the boys’ passports. He managed to tap some inner reserves of bloody-mindedness and obtain a court order demanding the release of his four boys for the French camping trip, although you could see that this was only going to be one victorious skirmish in a long war of attrition.

But just as the film seemed to be about to deliver a rather pat moral (involving the lawyers is destructive and expensive; keeping out of court is civilised and cheaper), Colin and Alison’s more amicable arrangement started to unravel - once again over the details of a holiday. Having taken his two children for a week in Portugal, Colin didn’t telephone as he had promised, leaving Alison muttering darkly about never again giving such opportunity to take the kids abroad – a hint at the anger and caprice that can dictate arrangements not nailed down with a court order. There were more serious problems on the horizon, however, as Colin began to run into difficulties paying two mortgages, but after a tense stand-off around the dining-room table instead of across a family court, they managed to muddle through somehow.

As for Sandy, a man you sensed early on was perhaps destined to end up chained to the London Eye dressed in a Batman costume, it seemed that his recourse to the courts had finally delivered some sort of justice as he was given access to his boys for one third of the year. Not that the film was aiming to allow us a little crow of triumph (for, intentionally or not, your sympathies went out to Sandy). It was instead a valuable insight into the sorts of negotiation that each day must be being hammered out up and down the land by countless separated parents. And it could be worse. Next week, what happens when the mother decides to move abroad with the children.

• March 2011: Names have been changed as this programme is the subject of a dispute between one of the parties involved and the BBC