Satellite choice
FESTIVE MOVIE Jingle All The Way, 11am, Film4
CHRISTMAS comedy set in the days before internet shopping and Black Friday megasales. Arnold Schwarzenegger (pictured with Verne Troyer) is the dad on a hunt for the season’s must-have toy for his son. But this stressed-out father has left it too late, and with the toy store shelves bare he has to resort to desperate measures . . .
FAMILY FILM Moana, 5.40pm, Sky Disney
SET in the exotic Polynesian islands, this vibrant musical animation features a plucky heroine embarking on a marvellous mythical quest, with a colourful mix of helpers.
NATIONAL TREASURE Beatrix Potter With Patricia Routledge, 6.55pm, More4
LAST year, it was the 150th anniversary of Beatrix Potter’s birth and, in this film, Patricia Routledge — patron of The Beatrix Potter Society — explores the inspiration for Potter’s enduring stories. These include The Tale Of Peter Rabbit, which began as a letter to a sick boy.
THINKING ALLOWED Royal Institution Christmas Lectures 2017, 8pm, BBC4
THE last of Sophie Scott’s riveting trio of talks deals with a big topic — how we developed language, and the huge amount of brainpower required to use it with subtlety. Do birds that mimic human language, such as parrots, actually understand any of its meaning?
SCI-FI PARODY The Orville, 9pm, Fox
IN TONIGHT’S new episode of this gloriously precise Star Trek spoof, the crew use their ‘shoving beam’ to alter the trajectory of a rogue asteroid. But — in true Star Trek style — they must wrestle with a moral dilemma at the same time. Should macho alien crew member Bortus (pictured) be allowed to change the sex of his baby?
COMEDY SHOW Stalag Luft, 8.30pm, Forces TV
THIS jolly, rarely repeated 1993 comedy from Reggie Perrin creator David Nobbs is full of familiar actors. Some — such as Nicholas Lyndhurst, Stephen Fry and Hugh Bonneville — play escaping World War II PoWs. (Freeview 96, Freesat 165, Sky 264, Virgin 277)
NEW TRAVELOGUE Ride With Norman Reedus, 9pm, AMC
THE actor Norman Reedus (pictured) has a huge passion for motorbikes and is totally at ease in this pleasant series, which follows him riding around and talking to people. A back-to-back showing for season two opens in Spain with his Walking Dead co-star Jeffrey Dean Morgan. (Sky 192, BT TV 332)
CRACKING DRAMA Madam Secretary, 10pm, Sky Living
EVEN the most dramatic moments in this U.S. series can look tame compared to the actions of the Trump administration, but it remains a very watchable mix of political and family drama. Here, Bess’s spymaster husband clashes with the President.
FREEVIEW FILM Slow West, 11.25pm, Film4
MICHAEL FASSBENDER plays a bounty hunter and Kodi SmitMcPhee a lovelorn youngster in a different breed of western. It has all the familiar ingredients, including a climactic shoot-out, but also has strange twists and turns.