Sure to melt your heart
DID you ever see the 2017 Christmas special of Victoria? The one where Prince Albert nearly came a cropper, the dozy so- and- so, after crashing through the ice while skating on a frozen pond in the palace grounds?
The royal couple’s ITV compatriots Torvill and Dean clearly didn’t, or they’d surely have thought twice about their latest documentary idea.
To be fair, DANCING ON THIN ICE WITH TORVILL & DEAN (ITV, 9pm) where they plan to skate outdoors together for the first time in their 45- year partnership, does revolve around a trip to Alaska, where dependably thick ice is traditionally more commonplace than in London.
But actually it’s not as straightforward a challenge as you might expect.
They arrive in what they discover is Alaska’s hottest year on record ( honestly, you’d think they’d have checked before setting out), so finding somewhere that will tick both crucial boxes ( namely, is it a suitably spectacular setting and can they avoid their health and safety people having kittens?) is far from easy.
Talking of Victoria, one of the reasons we’ve yet to see a fourth series of that rather fine royal saga is that its star, Jenna Coleman, has been working on an altogether darker, grittier drama.
And no, I don’t mean she’s back in Emmerdale. Set in the 1970s and based on a true story, THE SERPENT ( BBC1, 9pm) finds her as the accomplice to a serial killing fraudster, Charles Sobhraj ( Tahar
Rahim). You can watch the whole lot on the BBC iPlayer, should you so wish, once tonight’s opening episode is over.
And talking of Jenna brings us semi- neatly to DOCTOR WHO
( BBC1, 6.45pm), on the admittedly tenuous grounds that she used to be in it.
This latest New Year special sees the return of the Daleks, and I don’t think I’m giving too much away when I tell you they plan to conquer planet Earth and destroy the human race, bearing in mind that’s pretty much all they’ve wanted to do since 1963.
How the squawky little wheeliebins intend to go about it
– and how they’re in any position to do so, since it looked as if they’d finally been expunged ( golly, what a satisfying word that was to type, remind me to use it more often) – I’m not at liberty to reveal.
But it’s a fun episode and, despite the odd clunking analogy, feels less exhaustingly woke than of late.
Also, John Barrowman’s Captain Jack is back, being all, you know, Captain Jacky.
Unfortunately, the Doctor herself is still languishing in the space prison where the Judoon banged her up back in March.
I must say she’s kept her hair nice.