Satellite choice
MOVIE DRAMA
St Vincent,, 6pm,p, Skyy Premiere
QUIETLY quirky life-lessons fare, which just about manages to keep the schmaltz at bay. Bill Murray (pictured with Naomi Watts) is on form as the grumpy chap who has a strange effect on everyone around him.
MOVIE ADVENTURE Master And Commander: The Far Side Of The World, 6.10pm, Film4
PETER WEIR’S gung-ho adaptation of Patrick O’Brian’s Napoleonic novels, with Russell Crowe surprisingly nuanced in the lead as ‘Lucky’ Jack Aubrey.
FOOTBALL Ipswich Town v Birmingham City, 7pm, Sky Sports 5
BIRMINGHAM’S Clayton Donaldson has made a strong start to the season, having fought off interest from Leeds and Reading and deciding to stay on at St Andrew’s. Tonight, the Blues travel to Ipswich, who are riding high in the Championship.
THE MASTER RETURNS
Doctor Who, 7pm, BBC3
AHEAD of the start of the new, ninth series on BBC1 tomorrow night, here’s a reminder of how Peter Capaldi’s grizzled time lord and Jenna Coleman’s pushy assistant bowed out the last time we saw them. In a final showdown with Missy the Master (played with twinkly evil glee by Michelle Gomez), the Doctor wonders if he is a good man . . .
MUSICAL TALENT Leeds International Piano Competition, 7.30pm, BBC4
FOUNDED in 1961, this competition to find the world’s most promising young pianists has launched the careers of luminaries such as Andras Schiff and Mitsuko Uchida. Petroc Trelawny presents the first of three programmes covering this year’s final.
COMEDY DRAMA
Mount Pleasant, 9pm, Sky1
THE fifth series of the soapy but tidy drama continues, and tensions are still festering between Lisa and new neighbour Jenna. Elsewhere in the cul-de-sac, Denise (Ainsley Howard, pictured) gives her modelling career a boost, and the Dawsons get a surprise visitor.
MOVIE SCI-FI Independence Day, 9pm, E4
ARGUABLY Roland Emmerich’s best filmfilm, this big-budget B-movie is gloriously over the top. Bill Pullman, Will Smith (pictured with Harry Connick Jr) and Jeff Goldblum are the likeable trio playing Space Invaders for real.
EDGY COMEDY South Park, 10pm, Comedy Central
EXCEPTIONALLY naughty schoolboys Cartman, Stan, Kyle and Kenny return for a new, 19th series of their sweary animated comedy. Never for the easily offended, their imaginative style and crude wit will see them through to their 20th anniversary next year.
SKETCH SHOW
People Time, 11pm, BBC3
LIVELY sketch show pilot starring seven comedy rising stars (including Claudia O’Doherty and Ellie White, left). The skits cover a range of modern issues, big and small, from online dating and workplace sexism to mobile phones and junk email — the shouty man in the street manages to be both silly and subversive.