This week’s best TV
FRIDAY WILL & GRACE (C5, 10pm)
THE old favourite sitcom about the titular platonic friends kicks off a new 16-part series with a politically themed episode that thrusts Will and Grace (Eric McCormack and Debra Messing) into the heart of American political society, Washington DC, where they iron out their ideological differences.
As Will and Grace attempt to hide respective political shames from one another, it’s their friends Jack and Karen (Megan Mullally and Sean Hayes) who come to the rescue.
SATURDAY HARD SUN (BBC One, 9.35pm)
THIS new pre-apocalyptic drama series centres on detectives Robert Hicks and Elaine Renko (Jim Sturgess and Agyness Deyn), who have very different approaches to their job. He’s a devoted family man and a committed copper, but he’s also profoundly corrupt, while she’s difficult and damaged but completely ethical.
However, they must put their differences to one side when they investigate an inner-city murder and uncover evidence that the world will end in five years’ time – news that the authorities don’t want to get out.
SUNDAY DANCING ON ICE (ITV, 6pm)
AFTER a four-year break, this old favourite is back on our screens, with returning hosts Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby.
Olympic gold medalwinning duo Torvill and Dean are returning to the fray as well, but rather than acting as mentors, they will be the show’s joint head judges.
Jason Gardiner also returns to add an acerbic edge to the judging panel, while Ashley Banjo offers his opinions from a dancer’s point of view.
MONDAY NEXT OF KIN (ITV, 9pm)
NEW six-part drama starring Archie Panjabi as London-based doctor Mona and Jack Davenport as her political lobbyist husband Guy. Their lives are changed forever by the abduction and murder of Mona’s brother Kareem in Pakistan, on the same day as a terrorist bomb goes off in the UK capital.
When Mona discovers Kareem’s student son Danny is implicated in both the bombing and his father’s death, she sets out to find him before the police do – but how far is she willing to go to keep her family safe?
TUESDAY WORKING CLASS WHITE MEN (C4, 10pm)
ABANDONED by both of his parents and raised by his nan on a council estate in Hackney, 33-year-old rapper and documentary maker Professor Green (real name Stephen Paul Manderson) is proud of his working-class, low-income background.
In this two-part film, he takes a look at a subject close to his heart – why many working-class white men in modern Britain feel demonised, forgotten and angry.
Green explores what life is really like for this marginalised group, asking why so many underprivileged white youngsters feel abandoned – and what the possible consequences could be for Britain if we continue to look away.
WEDNESDAY KIRI (C4, 9pm)
THIS four-part drama, by Bafta-winner Jack Thorne, centres on the abduction of a young black girl who is about to be adopted by her white foster family.
Sarah Lancashire stars as Miriam, a social worker who is passionate about her job, but prefers to follow her instincts rather than the rules.
She arranges for Kiri (Felicia Mukasa) to have an unsupervised visit with her birth grandfather and his second wife before she is officially adopted. But during the meeting, Kiri disappears – and Miriam finds that the police, press and even her colleagues hold her responsible.
THURSDAY TRANSFORMATION STREET (ITV, 9pm)
FROM firemen to soldiers, railway workers to writers, this three-part series follows the extraordinary transformations of men and women who believe they were born into the wrong body, as they approach and undergo life-changing transgender surgery.
Cameras have been given unprecedented access a private London clinic run by renowned plastic surgeon Christopher Inglefield, a specialist in transgender procedures.