The very best of the week ahead Today
Red Eye
ITV1, 9pm
PICK OF THE WEEK
Fans of schlocky conspiracy thrillers will find much to enjoy in this odd throwback to a time when Britain’s diplomatic relations with China were less icy. Richard Armitage stars as British doctor Matthew Nolan, detained upon arriving home from a conference in Beijing, and despatched back to China – on the basis of trumped-up murder charges – without question by a UK government keen not to derail an imminent nuclear energy deal. The one glowering light on Nolan’s horizon is DC Hana Li (Jing Lusi), the Met Police officer reluctantly assigned to escort him on the flight back, who just happens to have a sister, Jess (Jemma Moore), who’s a rookie investigative reporter. For an action-packed thriller, tonight’s opening episode (of six, boxsetted) – played out in featureless Border Force offices and on a cramped airline passenger deck – is decidedly earthbound despite efforts to milk jeopardy from every unlikely moment. Gerard O’Donovan
Our Changing Planet: Restoring Our Reefs BBC One, 6pm
The excellent series looking at the world’s most endangered ecosystems turns to coral reefs and the extraordinary efforts being made to halt their decline, including IVF programmes in the Maldives, reef construction in Cornwall and Florida, and a bizarre – but effective – “Live Aid for reefs” that involves playing fish-song to attract baby corals. GO
Monday The Jinx Part Two Sky Documentaries, 3am & 9pm
When Andrew Jarecki released The Jinx back in 2015, no one could have predicted the consequent boom of true-crime media. What was once a fringe genre has uncomfortably become our dominant source of entertainment, largely thanks to streaming services such as Netflix (whose true-crime hits include Making a Murderer, American Conspiracy and
The Murdaugh Murders). The Jinx told the story of New York real-estate heir Robert Durst, who stood accused of murdering his first wife, Kathleen, and two friends. As any viewer of that series will recall, The Jinx’s collection of interviews (with Durst, police and psychologists) culminated in a stunning – if slightly dubious – “confession”: “What the hell did I do?” he asked himself. “Killed them all, of course!” This follow-up, released two years after Durst’s death, revisits the case aided with new evidence, including his phone calls from prison. Poppie Platt
Blue Lights BBC One, 9pm
Series two of the Belfast-set cop drama is shaping up to be just as thrilling as the first. Rookie officers Grace (Siân Brooke), Annie (Katherine Devlin) and Tommy (Nathan Braniff ) must contend with worsening tensions following a spate of Loyalist attacks, while Jen’s (Hannah McClean) digging leads her firmly to the door of retired bobby Robin (Casualty’s Derek Thompson). PP
Tuesday Glitter: The Popstar Paedophile
ITV1, 9pm
Erica Gornall’s documentary about Paul Gadd, who sold more than 20million records as comical glamrock figurehead Gary Glitter before being convicted of a string of child-sex offences decades later, makes for a skin-crawling, distressing watch. Yet it is also an important one. The story of Gadd’s perversions, often hidden in plain sight by dint of his outrageous alter ego, is in one sense familiar. Compared to Jimmy Savile, however, whose depravity was exposed after his death, the most shocking realisation from Glitter is how long Gadd’s was known in the public domain. Key figures in his prosecutions both here and in South-East Asia carefully and sensitively relate Gadd’s downfall (victims who came forward remain anonymous, their testimony taken from past films). As with Savile, occasional intimations of his activities (most notably with Paula Yates on The Big Breakfast in 1992) were missed. Even a 1993 tabloid splash was more interested in Gadd’s baldness than the fact that he had “schoolgirl sex” with a 14-year-old. Operation Yewtree saw his behaviour treated with long overdue severity, but lessons clearly remain to be learnt. Gabriel Tate
Michael Palin in Nigeria Channel 5, 9pm
Having lost none of his appetite for new experiences or easy manner with
strangers, Michael Palin begins the second leg of his journey in northern Nigeria where, among many absorbing encounters and acute observations, he meets a survivor of the schoolgirls kidnapped by Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram in 2018, and engages in a lively debate over colonial legacy with a visual artist. An absolute pleasure. GT
Wednesday The Red King Alibi, 9pm
There’s an impressive cast in this six-part mystery thriller created by Being Human’s Toby Whithouse (the man who will soon be rebooting Bergerac). Anjli Mohindra plays police sergeant Grace Narayan, once a high flyer but now posted (as a punishment, it appears) to the remote – fictional – Welsh island of St Jory, which has more than a touch of The Wicker Man about it. She is handed a cold case – the disappearance of local teenager Cai – but soon butts heads with the islanders, including Marc Warren as Ian Prideaux, Cai’s father and the local GP, Adjoa Andoh as Heather Nancarrow, the lady from the Big House, and Mark Lewis Jones as Gruffudd Prosser, Narayan’s bullish predecessor. The story is a tantalising mix of procedural and supernatural drama, as Narayan soon becomes suspicious that the island’s past devotion to a pagan god called the Red King is not, in fact, ancient history. Veronica Lee
The Big Door Prize
Apple TV+
We’re back in Deerfield for the second series of David West Read’s (Schitt’s Creek) excellent fantasy-comedy. The Morpho machine is now asking if people are “ready for the next stage” as Dusty (Chris O’Dowd) and Cass (Gabrielle Dennis) decide to separate, while Hana (Ally Maki) and Father Reuben (Damon Gupton) try to find the machine’s real purpose. VL
Thursday Johnson & Knopfler’s Music Legends Sky Arts, 10pm
It’s legends all the way as AC/DC frontman Brian Johnson and Dire Straits’s Mark Knopfler – who have sold more than 300million records between them – sit down with some of their musical heroes. The format is pleasingly stripped back: three chairs arranged in a semi-circle and an invitation to chat for an hour – with Knopfler wielding his acoustic guitar like a fifth limb, making it clear that impromptu warbling will be accommodated. The guestlist over the coming weeks is eclectic enough to appeal to all tastes: Emmylou Harris, Cyndi Lauper, and even the comparatively youthful Sam Fender. But it is the one and only Tom Jones who gets things rolling tonight. Expect reminisces about the good ol’ days with Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis in Las Vegas, as well as a few songs. GO
GPs: Treating Rural Britain
More4, 9pm
There’s a surprising dearth of waiting lists in this new series looking at life for doctors working in rural practices. Lochgilphead, Cartmel and Looe are the idylls visited first, where GPs still have time to chat and enjoy abundant resources. GO
Friday Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story
Disney+
Forty years after forming, Bon Jovi look back over a long career in this authorised four-part documentary. That the band had a more successful
career than their peers in 1980s stadium rock is largely thanks to the formidable drive and ceaseless professionalism of their frontman, although the presence of at least half-a-dozen of pop-rock’s most indelible anthems doesn’t hurt either. Yet the slick persona of Jon Bon Jovi makes him inherently less intriguing for the same reason, even if he cuts a more vulnerable figure these days. Their journey from bar-band chancers to globe-conquering behemoths is intercut with coverage of Jon’s present struggle to regain full range after surgery on his vocal cords. Despite running to an indulgent five hours, there is still much to enjoy for casual fans and, to its credit, dissenting voices are embraced (including sideman Richie Sambora). The archive footage of hair-metal silliness is also glorious, while Jon’s late-life bond with fellow New Jersey icon Bruce Springsteen proves genuinely touching. And his greatest regret? That Livin’ on a Prayer key change. GT
Beyond Paradise
BBC One, 8pm
Concluding a series that has managed to counterbalance the knowingly daft mysteries with a surprising amount of emotional depth, Humphrey (Kris Marshall) and Martha (Sally Bretton) are finally getting married, only for the grandiosity of the day and – naturally – some opportunistic criminals to threaten their happy ending. GT