The very best of the week ahead
Today Bloodlands BBC ONE, 9PM
There are shades of both Line of Duty and The Fall in this excellent thriller from newcomer Chris Brandon; pitched as it is in a world of gang crime, police corruption and post-Troubles Northern Ireland. Yet while its predecessors used the sectarian conflict mostly as a colourful backdrop, for Bloodlands it is central to the story: James Nesbitt is DCI Tom Brannick, who, alongside partner DS Niamh McGovern (Charlene McKenna), investigates the apparent kidnapping of a dodgy local businessman and former IRA stalwart Pat Keenan (Peter Ballance). A routine manhunt takes a grim turn when Brannick finds a connection to Goliath, an assassin and suspected police insider whose targeted murders nearly disrupted the Peace Process two decades earlier, and also claimed the life of his wife. Nesbitt once again proves what a fine actor he is, given the right script, here summoning grief and desperation with fierce conviction. Tightly plotted and darkly funny, Bloodlands makes a virtue of its environment without ever exploiting it. With peace in Northern Ireland ever more fragile (Brexit goes unmentioned), it carries an ominous sense of “what if?”. Gabriel Tate
Chris Packham’s Animal Einsteins BBC TWO, 8PM; NOT WALES
The first instalment of this six-parter doesn’t want for memorable sequences highlighting the mental capacity of certain animals, whether it’s baby meerkats catching scorpions, cuttlefish performing light shows or one of the Great Barrier Reef ’s lowlier creatures demonstrating a sense of self. GT
Monday Unforgotten ITV, 9PM
After three years ars TV’s most likeable eable detective duo is back heating up cold ld cases. But wait! it! As the fourth series opens, DCI Cassie Stuart (Nicola a Walker) has been off work k for a year on medical grounds, having come unglued after her last case, and is applying for early retirement. Her erstwhile sidekick, DI Sunny Khan (Sanjeev Bhaskar), has paired up with an underling and in tonight’s opener they visit a metal refuse site at which a discarded fridge has coughed up a headless torso. Happily, events conspire to force Stuart back to work. Writer Chris Lang paints his leads with empathy, giving them intriguing inner lives while stopping well short of hackneyed maverick-cop territory. The series’s USP kicks in when a selection of disparate characters is introduced. As usual they’re played by respected actors including Life L On Mars’s Liz W White as a therapist an and Susan Lynch as a an academic who tends to her h bitter mother (Sheila (S Hancock). Hancock) Multilayered plo plots and strong per performances from Walke Walker and Bhaskar a add up to a British murder myster mystery that’s as sou sound as a pou pound.
Vicki Vick Power
Into the Storm: Surfing to Survive: Storyville BBC FOUR, 9PM
For four years Adam Brown filmed Jhonny Guerrero, a teenager from the barrios of Lima, Peru, as he tried to develop his talent as a surfer. The result is this visceral, beautiful story of a struggle to overcome class and financial disadvantages to compete at a world-class level. VP
Tuesday Blitz Spirit with Lucy Worsley BBC ONE, 8.30PM
This thought-provoking film uses the mass observation project (people documented their experiences from 1937 to the 1950s) and diaries kept in London’s Imperial War Museum to tell the stories of six Londoners during the Blitz, to mark the 80th anniversary. These range from the privileged – Chelsea artist Frances Faviell writes giddily of her early nursing challenges – to working men such as firefighter Frank Hurd and porter Robert Baltrop. We hear too about actor turned air-raid warden Barbara Nixon and Ita Ekpenyon, a Nigerian law student who put his studies on hold to volunteer. Meanwhile, Romford teenager Nina Masel provides the most relatable moment, writing that while she was “horrified by the idea of war generally, personally I wanted it to happen [simply] to get out of [her parent’s] shop”. While parallels with the current pandemic are hinted at, Worsley wisely resists spelling them out. Sarah Hughes
Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild CHANNEL 5, 9PM
Ben Fogle heads to Pembrokeshire to reunite with Emma Orbach, whom he describes as “the wildest person I have met”. He’s not wrong given that Orbach lives in a remote wattle and daub cabin, getting food and water from the land. It’s an extreme life but Orbach seems very content. SH
Wednesday Gordon Ramsay’s Bank Balance BBC ONE, 9PM
Famed for his blistering, foul-mouthed series such as Hell’s Kitchen, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares and The F Word, Ramsay’s domestic TV career seemed to stall in the wake of the global financial crisis, though he continued to flourish on American television. More recently he re-emerged in ITV’s Gordon, Gino and Fred travelogues, but now he takes on the unlikely role of gameshow host for the next three weeks. It’s a high-stakes show that challenges contestants to win £100,000 by answering questions against the clock while stacking piles of ingot-shaped bricks on a precariously pivoting balance board. It’s all-or-nothing – one slip and you’re out – with as much entertainment from Ramsay’s interactions with contestants as the fickleness of the balance board. You’ll be holding your breath. Continues Thursday and Friday. Gerard O’Donovan
The Bay
ITV, 9PM
Now we know who pulled the trigger. But who organised the murder of Stephen Marshbrook? In the final part of this much-improved second series, Morecambe’s DC Armstrong (Morven Christie) unlocks the secret at the heart of the Marshbrook family and sorts out her home life. Good job too – a third series has been announced, but Christie has left the show. GO
Thursday Stand Up & Deliver CHANNEL 4, 9PM
The premise behind this fundraiser is simple but effective as five comedians are given two weeks to teach five celebrities how to perform a live set. Happy Mondays’ Shaun Ryder, vicar Richard Coles, former Coronation Street actor Katie McGlynn, dancer and Love Island star Curtis Pritchard and Tory peer Baroness Sayeeda Warsi – are initially nonchalant about the task but that changes pretty quickly after they perform. There’s a lot of fun to be had as the comedians – David Baddiel, Jason Manford, Zoe Lyons, Judi Love and Nick Helm – realise who is mentoring a star and who has a probable dud, but there are some surprises too. Chief among those is the relationship between the anti-Tory Helm and his protegee Warsi, which culminates in a passionate rant from the latter. Can she be persuaded to repeat it on stage? Sarah Hughes
Coronavirus: A Horizon Special: What We Know Now BBC TWO, 9PM
Virologist Dr Chris van Tulleken, his brother Dr Xand van Tulleken look at why viruses mutate and how this can effect vaccines, before trying to predict when, and indeed if, our lives will return to normal. SH
Friday Bruno v Tyson SKY DOCUMENTARIES, 9PM
On the surface it’s the story of a gentle giant and a brilliant brute. But the lives of Frank Bruno and Mike Tyson inside and outside the ring prove rather more complex in this frequently gripping if overstuffed documentary from Kevin Macdonald ( The Last King of Scotland) and Benjamin Hirsch. The footage that makes up the majority of the film, most of it narrated by acquaintances and boxing experts, is irresistibly evocative and the in-ring clashes still thrilling. A climactic reunion chez Tyson is the only time we see them as they are now and the runtime is too short to fully explore many of the issues raised, not least over mental health, the pair’s contrasting treatments by the media and their communities, and a rush through the last quarter-century. GT
Grayson’s Art Club CHANNEL 4, 8PM
Boy George is the first guest on the second run of Grayson and Philippa Perry’s insightful, art-based assessment of the state of the nation. The theme of this first episode is devoted to family. GT