Bettany Hughes’s three-part series profiles three very different thinkers – Buddha, Socrates, and Confucius – and assesses the major contribution they have made to different philosophical and religious traditions.      Content-wise, the programs are extremely good: Hughes interviews several experts in Buddhism, classical philosophy, and Confucianism; and visits several of the ancient sites associated with all three of them. Although the arguments are sometimes difficult to follow – especially in the Buddhist program – they are crisply advanced by a presenter who possesses an obvious enthusiasm for her subjects. And yet there is a strange feeling of similarity