PICK OF TODAY’S TV
MAYFAIR WITCHES, 9PM, BBC2
KITCHEN TECH
The Secret Genius Of Modern Life, 8pm, BBC2
WHAT jolly japes will Hannah Fry have with the microwave? It’s a device she introduces as the ‘box in your kitchen that uses highend particle physics to beam invisible radiation around’. Right. As she helps us to get to grips with the history and science of this modern marvel, in the latest of her fascinating series, Professor Hannah
(pictured) takes us from Second World War radar technology through frozen hamsters and an early 19th-century physics experiment as she tells the story of the famous ping. Will knowing what a cavity magnetron is make your dinner taste any better? Probably not, but at least you’ll know how it gets so hot so quickly.
HOT on the Cuban heels of Interview With The Vampire comes another series from the pages of author Anne Rice, based on her trilogy Lives Of The Mayfair Witches. The White Lotus’s Alexandra Daddario (pictured), with her extraordinary eyes, is ideal casting as Rowan, a doctor who — after an explosively grisly scene in this opening episode — starts to suspect that she might have supernatural powers. As with Interview . . . , this eight-part series is largely set in New Orleans, by way of medieval Scotland, and those who have read Rice’s books will find it a lot easier to keep up, especially in the early episodes. Essentially, it’s a story of dark family secrets — in a family which, as the title suggests, is one fully immersed in the dark arts. The whole thing looks ravishing, but it often feels that we’re as in the dark as Rowan is about where it is all headed. Stick with it though, as it really starts to pick up around the midway point and the word is that there will be a second series. All episodes are available to watch on BBC iPlayer (as is Interview With The Vampire).
AND THE KILLER IS . . .
Shetland, 9pm, BBC1
THE trail starts and ends with the Bains, and we always knew something wasn’t quite right with that family. They’re already broken by Ellen’s death, and the truth for them will be even more painful. There’s still the matter of the missing money Ellen brought to the isles from London — and there’s also the burning question: Does Tosh still consider herself a ‘temporary’ DI?
FILM CHOICE
Kindling, 11.15pm, BBC2 THIS could have been a dull and mawkish weepy — the story of a young man’s final summer after a terminal cancer diagnosisagnosis — but insteadinstead, the emphasis is on friendship and the small pleasures to be found in everyday life. The up-and-coming cast, headed by Sex Education’s George Somner (pictured with Mia McKenna-Bruce), brings its best.