CRITICS' CHOICE
BUYING GUIDE
How To Spend It Well At Christmas, 8pm, ITV DON’T go anywhere near the High Street until you have watched Phillip Schofield’s essential three-part guide to Christmas shopping. From food and drink to gifts and gadgets, Phillip (pictured with wife Steph) and a gang of celebrity friends will be finding out what you should buy — and what you should avoid.
AT THE CHALKFACE
School, 9pm, BBC2 THE bad news keeps coming in the fourth episode of this depressing look at the state of education in Britain today. Castle School has the largest proportion of pupils with special educational needs in the Trust. But with budgets being cut, what does the future hold for some of the most vulnerable pupils in South Gloucestershire?
POLICE WORK
999: What’s Your Emergency?, 9pm, Ch4 MORE than 1.5 million Brits are registered with learning disabilities, and police are increasingly called on to help. This week’s episode follows Wiltshire officers as they deal with a young man with Down’s syndrome who often gives his carers the slip and a man with Asperger’s suspected of making hoax calls.
ARCHAEOLOGICAL FINDS
Egyptian Tomb Hunting, 9pm, Ch5 ‘ THERE’S always been one part of human history that has captured my imagination. I’m talking about ancient Egypt.’ And so, over the next two nights, amateur archaeologist Tony Robinson (pictured) will be in the land
of the Pharaohs to explore the ancient tombs, some of which have not been opened for 2,000 years.
FILM CHOICES
The Martian, 9pm, Film4 MATT DAMON (pictured) is the botanist stranded alone on the Red Planet, using all his guile — and whatever else he has to hand — to survive. It’s a gripping story, grounded in science fact as well as science fiction.n Back on Earth, Earth not everyone gives up hope. Kristen Wiig is among those at mission control.
Earthquake, 1.55am, Ch4
LIKE The Towering Inferno, this epic disaster movie puts an impressive ensemble cast in peril — Ava Gardner, Charlton Heston and (briefly) Walter Matthau, to name a few. Los Angeles is under threat when tremors weaken the Mulholland Dam ahead of a far more devastating quake to come.