It ill-behooves a man who writes about television to refer to the medium as “the boob tube.” Generally I don't. But it happens that, sometimes, television is all about boobs. It just is.

I draw your attention to Without Breasts There Is No Paradise (TLN, 6 p.m.), an international TV sensation that has finally arrived in Canada. Thank goodness it has. The show, part of the Latin telenovela genre, is astonishing viewing.

Not just because it lingers long on female breasts. You expect that. (The promo on TLN declares, “Be warned, your eyes may have trouble staying focused on the subtitles.”) It's a show driven entirely by men's interest in women's boobs. It's astonishing because, although it might appear to be trash, it isn't. It's high-minded in its way, a lurid cautionary tale of Dickensian vintage with a message – it indicts the forces that compel the main character, a teenage girl named Catalina (Maria Adelaida Puerta), to sacrifice everything in order to get the money for a breast implant operation.

Without Breasts comes from Colombia and has already been seen in dozens of countries. It's a hit everywhere. Two years ago, when Ben Silverman was installed as head of NBC Entertainment, his first act was to purchase the rights to develop an English-language version of the show. It was in development for some time, but nothing came of it.

It's easy to see why. Unlike Ugly Betty , a Spanish-language telenovela which Silverman had previously turned into a hit for ABC, Without Breasts is provocative and a story clearly headed for tragedy from its first episode.