MUST-SEE SHOWS
THE GREATEST DANCER Tonight, BBC1, 8pm
STRICTLY Come Dancing ended a few weeks ago and was another ratings winner for the BBC, and now the broadcaster’s bosses are hoping to capitalise on its popularity by launching another dance contest, this time featuring amateurs.
Alesha Dixon and Jordan Banjo are the presenters, while Strictly pro Oti Mabuse, singer Cheryl and ex-Glee star Matthew Morrison, form a panel of Dance Captains. Their job is to lead the charge to uncover the winner, although it’s the studio audience that controls who goes through.
MANHUNT
Tomorrow, ITV, 9pm DESPITE the Sunday-night slot and the presence of Martin Clunes in the lead role, there’s nothing cosy about this new three-part drama.
It focuses on the investigation that led to the capture of killer Levi Bellfield, who was eventually found guilty of the murder and abduction of Milly Dowler, and Clunes plays real-life former Detective Chief Inspector Colin Sutton. It opens in August, 2004, as French student Amelie Delagrange is found on Twickenham Green with fatal head injuries. With no forensic evidence or apparent motive, there is little for Sutton to go on.
BREXIT: THE UNCIVIL WAR Monday, Channel 4, 9pm
JUST when you think there can’t possibly be anything new to be said about Brexit, along comes Benedict Cumberbatch in this drama from award-winning writer James Graham, which offers a compelling look at the referendum campaign.
It explores the run-up to the vote from the perspective of the strategists on different sides of the debate, including Dominic Cummings (Cumberbatch), campaign director of Vote Leave, and Craig Oliver (Rory Kinnear), Prime Minister David Cameron’s director of communications, who oversaw Remain.
SILENT WITNESS
Tuesday, BBC1, 9pm EMILIA Fox returns for her 14th series as Dr Nikki Alexander, and she’s straight into the thick of the action tonight after her trip to the States.
The Lyell unit is called in to investigate an attack against a trans man, and when two further crimes are reported, one leaving a potential witness, it becomes clear that the team is dealing with an outbreak of violence targeting the trans community.
With the Lyell under increasing financial scrutiny and frustration growing between the team and
the acting DCI, can they pull it together to find the killer before they strike again?
THE UNDATEABLES
Wednesday, Channel 4, 9pm EMILY, who has a learning disability, is determined to find her first proper boyfriend, but she has to overcome her nerves and her tendency to talk too much. Poetry lover Michael, who has Asperger’s, has been single for 14 years and hopes he can one day find love, and dance teacher Tobi is fearless on the dance floor, but a novice when it comes to romance.
DEATH IN PARADISE
Thursday, BBC1, 9pm
MUCH as viewers love this Caribbean-set crime procedural, it does have a tried-and-tested formula. Each episode begins with a pre-credits sequence showing the events leading up to a murder on Saint Marie, while also introducing us to the latest batch of guest characters.
Eventually, the British detective (in this case, DI Jack Mooney played by Ardal O’Hanlon) unravels the mystery in a dramatic denouement that revisits the murder in flashback, and afterwards, the team will all toast a job well done. GRANTCHESTER Friday, ITV, 9pm IT’S the end of an era as James Norton prepares to bow out of the gentle crime drama inspired by James Runcie’s stories.
The first episode begins as he and Leonard hear civil rights activist Nathaniel Todd speak in Cambridge.
There is obvious chemistry between Sidney and Todd’s daughter Violet, but any thoughts of romance are soon shattered by a tragic event, and it’s up to the clergyman an old pal Geordie (Robson Green) to get to the truth of the matter.