PICK OF THE DAY MasterChef

BBC1, 9pm

It’s easy to mock MasterChef for the virtually unchanging format, the bizarrely awkward camera shots and, most of all, the easily lampooned personalities of judges John Torode and Gregg Wallace (right). But the proof is in the pudding, and there’s a good reason the show’s been a consistent ratings success, providing easy drama with a spicing of hyperbole.

As the 17th series begins, we meet the first five contestants out of the 40 amateur cooks picked from thousands of applicants. There are two places in Friday’s quarterfinal up for grabs, with the opening test of a signature dish followed by a new round, the Favourite Ingredient Challenge, before the cooks must serve up two courses for the approval of last year’s champion, Thomas Frake, and 2014 winner Ping Coombes.

You may mock but you’ll soon be hooked all over again. Continues Wednesday.

Sky Atlantic, 9pm

On paper, Bryan Cranston’s new role sounds similar to the part that made him a star in Breaking Bad as chemistry teacher turned drug kingpin Walter White, who entered a life of crime after he was diagnosed with lung cancer in order to provide for his family after his death.

Cranston again plays an upstanding member of the community forced to turn to his dark side, this time as judge Michael Desiato. His life is turned upside down when his son Adam (Hunter Doohan, right) is at the wheel in a hit-and-run, and it turns out the victim was a member of a crime family now intent on bloody revenge.

As the judge breaks the law to hide the incriminating evidence, he seems to be a less megalomaniacal character than White, but you wonder how far into the depths he will be dragged in this promising psychological thriller.