CHRISTMAS CLASSIC Satellite choice
FAST-PACED FUN Sonic The Hedgehog, 12.25pm, 8pm, Sky Premiere
SPIKY-HAIRED and blue, the popular computer game character bursts on to the big screen. Jim Carrey is the dastardly bad guy trying desperately to keep up.
It’s A Wonderful Life, 3.15pm, Film4
FRANK CAPRA’S life-affirming drama withstands repeated viewing, especially at this time of year. James Stewart is the suicidal man who is shown — by an eager rookie angel — what the world would be like had he never lived.
SEVENTIES SITCOM The Good Life: When I’m 65, 4.20pm, Drama
THIS last-ever episode with the Goods (Felicity Kendal and Richard Briers), from 1978, was recorded in the presence of the Queen and Prince Philip. There’s another festive special at 5.20pm, with Victoria Wood’s Midlife Christmas at 6pm.
SCI-FI SAGA The Mandalorian, Disney+
THE bounty hunter’s quest to find safety for Baby Yoda concludes in a second season that has been rather like the first, but with bigger effects, more style and a better script. It’s been a blast, and it’s not the end — there will be a season three.
TOP SCORES The Sound Of TV With Neil Brand, 9pm, BBC4
THE final part deals with how the scores of British TV dramas started to rival those of Hollywood films, through the likes of Brideshead Revisited and The Jewel In The Crown. Neil Brand also looks at the use of music in wildlife documentaries — it will make you watch them with fresh appreciation.
ROCK LEGEND Freddie Mercury: The Great Pretender, 9pm, Sky Arts
EMMY-winning documentary about Freddie Mercury’s public and private personae, directed by Rhys Thomas. One of the many highlights is when Michael Jackson’s pet llama wanders into the studio where he and Freddie are working.
JAZZ DRAMA Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Netflix
CHADWICK BOSEMAN, who died in August, gives a performance of serious power in his final screen role as Levee, a musician with hidden rage, in a story of racial tension set during a recording session in Chicago, 1927. Viola Davis (pictured) co-stars as the real-life blues singer Ma Rainey.
COCKNEY COMEDIAN Micky Flanagan: Peeping Behind The Curtain, 9pm, Sky One
A RAW look at the life of the comic, filmed during his An’ Another Fing tour. That was the biggest comedy tour of 2017, selling 600,000 tickets, and this is also a reflection on his rise from East End pubs to the O2.
CAR CRAZY
The Grand Tour Presents: A Massive Hunt, Amazon Prime
JAMES MAY,MAY Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond (pictured) are on the islands of Madagascar and Reunion, where they race absurd cars in incredible settings. These include a ‘ring road in the sea’, which cost £112 million a kilometre to build, and looks so impossible that you’d swear it’s a special effect.
FESTIVE FEAST Big Zuu’s Christmas Eats, 10pm, Dave
THE rapper treats comics Phil Wang, Desiree Burch, Ed Gamble and Rosie Jones to a personalised festive meal. To prepare, Zuu visits a field of turkeys, where his attempts at jokes are given hilariously short shrift by bird expert Ella. She should have been invited to the meal.