Satellite choice
TENNIS
Italian Open, 10am, BT Sport 2
THE second day of live action from this WTA Tour event. Reigning champion Serena Williams is both the top seed and the hot favourite to retain her title.
MUPPET MOVIE Muppets Most Wanted, 12.50pm, 8pm, Sky Family
TINA FEY, Ricky Gervais and Ray Liotta add sass to this sequel to 2011’s reboot. This time, Kermit is mistaken for his evil doppelganger and thrown in a Russian Gulag.
FILM COMEDY Life Partners, 6.15pm, Sky Premiere
CAN friendships outlast relationships? That’s the question posed in this easy-going piece of fluff. Leighton Meester and Gillian Jacobs (pictured) are the lifelong pals who find their friendship under fire when one of them decides to get married.
ZOOLOGY EXPERIMENT The Girl Who Talked To Dolphins, 9pm, BBC4
ANOTHER chance to catch a oneoff documentary about a strange tale of animal science. During the Sixties, John Lilly and Margaret Howe began researching ways to communicate with dolphins — they were trying to understand them and trying to teach them how to talk. The Nasa-funded experiment started out innocently enough, but became something else entirely.
TRAUMA MEDICS
Critical, 9pm, Sky1
THE penultimate episode of Jed Mercurio’s intensely procedure-focused medical drama, and the team’s attentions are split by the victims of a traffic incident. Fiona’s attentions are further split by keeping her engagement a secret.
CYCLING Tour Of California, 10pm, British Eurosport
THE tenth year of the U.S.’s most prestigious stage race continues in the hills around San Jose. Britain’s Bradley Wiggins triumphed in this event in 2014, having beaten Australian Rohan Dennis into second place in the Californian sun.
FLYING ACE Britain’s Greatest Pilot, 10pm, BBC4
A REPEAT for this documentary about the remarkable Captain Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown (pictured), who flew for the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm. Here, he recalls his extraordinary life story from his first flight — at the age of ten.
GOTHIC HORROR Penny Dreadful, 10pm, Sky Atlantic
DORIAN GRAY returns in this new episode of the eerie Victorian horror thriller, while the Creature (an excellent Rory Kinnear) begins work at the promisingly creepy waxwork museum. What terrible secrets does it hide?
OUTBACK DRAMA The Thorn Birds: The Missing Years, 11pm, True Entertainment
RICHARD CHAMBERLAIN is the sole returning cast member in a sequel — concluding tomorrow — that picks up the missing 19 years in the original. It’s not for purists — deviating significantly from the book — but features a spirited performance by Amanda Donohoe as the priest’s forbidden love.
SCI-FI ACTION FLICK
The Matrix, 11pm, ITV2
FIRST in the trilogy that introduced new levels of exhilarating visual effects. Keanu Reeves is the possible chosen one, a human who is shown that his life is a computergenerated illusion. As he flees the machines that would keep the human race enslaved, there’s sci-fi philosophy as well as action.