Satellite choice
HITCHCOCK MATINEE
Lifeboat, 1.40pm, Sky Select
POSSIBLY the smallest set in movie history provides the stage for this nervy World War II drama, in which the survivors of a sinking ship are set adrift in a lifeboat. As clever as you’d expect of Hitchcock.
ELIZABETH I’S SPIES Elizabeth I’s War On Terror, 8pm, National Geographic
THERE’S a good story behind this new documentary’s clangingly ‘relevant’ title — that of Sir Francis Walsingham and his spy ring’s efforts to shield Elizabeth I from Catholic plots. Double agents, a sting operation, codes and invisible handwriting are all part of that story.
ON-DEMAND FILM Exhibition, Virgin Movies
ANOTHER challenging film from talented British director Joanna Hogg (Archipelago). A study of a marriage, it follows the domestic and inner lives of two wealthy artists.
SPACE EXPLORATION Voyager: To The Final Frontier, 9pm, BBC4
AN INSPIRING look at the results of the Voyager missions, as the probes fly ever farther away. (They are now reaching the edge of the solar system.) Incredibly, both craft are still sending back information 37 years on, despite being designed to function for just five years.
U.S. COMEDY DRAMA
Devious Maids, 10pm, TLC
MARC CHERRY’S glossy Latina maid mystery (pictured) continues its second season in appealing style, and seems to resemble his old show — Desperate Housewives — more all the time. Here, Adrian is enjoying his post-nervous breakdown time at the spa, possibly too much to guess what’s going on between Tony and Evelyn.
SCI-FI CRIME DRAMA
Almost Human, 9pm, Watch
KARL URBAN’S gruff detective is pretending not to be angry at an anger-management meeting — to great comic effect — as this futuristic crime-solving drama continues. He’s clearly supposed to be genuinely upset underneath it all and, while the script doesn’t quite know how to deal with that, Urban is charming enough for it not to matter.
CHILLER DRAMA
Hannibal, 10pm, Sky Living
ANOTHER bracingly weird new episode of this stylised prequel to The Silence Of The Lambs. Will is back in therapy with Hannibal as a means of catching him and, more incredibly, is out in the field helping Jack to solve gruesome murders. This is an episode of disjointed highlights, the best of which is the verbal dance of Hannibal and Will’s therapy sessions.
ON-DEMAND PREVIEW EPISODE Banshee (Season 2, episode 1), Sky On Demand, NOW TV
A PREVIEW for the pulpy and visceral small-town U.S. drama, nearly two weeks before it arrives on Sky Atlantic on July 7. The episode starts slowly, as everyone recovers from the gun battle, but swiftly shifts gear.