The very best of the week ahead
Today Line of Duty BBC ONE, 9PM
Six weeks of breathless drama has brought us to tonight’s tantalising sixth series swansong. We can’t give away any secrets, but writer Jed Mercurio is rarely accused of going out with a whimper. The twists that he’s delivered so far have shredded fans’s nerves, with shootouts and car chases and prison murders. The big hope is that AC-12 gets the break it deserves and brings down the organised crime group that’s been running circles around it and has caused the deaths of bad apples and good guys. But it’s a desperate race against the clock: Supt Ted Hastings (Adrian Dunbar) is being elbowed out as anti-corruption is scaled back, and DI Steve Arnott (Martin Compston) must face a reckoning with Occupational Health. DI Kate Fleming (Vicky McClure) is surely on her last life after that showdown with Ryan Pilkington (Gregory Piper). The urgent questions are whether James Nesbitt’s cameo ended as a fly-ridden corpse or if DI Marcus Thurwell is alive and is the elusive, corrupt “Fourth Man” known only as “H”. And can Mercurio tie up all these loose ends? Mother of God, we hope so. Vicki Power
This Call the Midwife
BBC ONE, 8PM
More heartfelt stories as Cyril (Zephryn Taitte) struggles for Lucille’s (Leonie Elliott) attention when she becomes preoccupied by a tricky patient, and Dr Turner (Stephen McGann) frets about a young woman with bewildering symptoms. VP
Monday
Beat the Chasers
ITV, 9PM
Back for another nother five-night run, this is one of the he more exciting new ew quiz shows, s, with its nail-biting g countdown n format and d the possibility ility for contestants tants to win serious ious money. A top prize of between
£50K and £100k is up for grabs three or four times per show. Hosted by Bradley Walsh, it features a panel of five of that show’s pro-quizzers (Anne “The Governess” Hegerty, Mark “The Beast” Labbett, Jenny “The Vixen” Ryan, Shaun “The Dark Destroyer” Wallace and Darragh “The Menace” Ennis). Contestants undergo a spurious “cashbuilder” round before making a bid for a prize the size of which depends on how many Chasers they are brave, or foolish, enough to take on at once, against the clock. It makes for edge-of-seat entertainment with a format that leaves enough room for luck, or misfortune, to tip the balance eithe either way. Gerard GerardO’Donovan O’Donovan
Great British Railway Journeys BBC TWO, 6.30PM
Michael Portillo explo explores “East Anglia between the wars”, beginning a at Sutton Hoo. He also explores the Essex vil village of Dedham and its links with som some of the UK’s best-loved artists. GO
Tuesday
The Violence Paradox
BBC FOUR, 9PM AND 9.55PM
This two-part film takes as its starting point Steven Pinker’s superficially startling claim first advanced in his book The Better Angels of Our Nature: that we may be living through the most peaceful era in human existence. Pinker cedes the floor to a procession of scientists and historians, not all of them in agreement with him, and the result is a stimulating couple of hours. The first half is a persuasive history of violence, whisking us from prehistory through ancient Egypt, the Middle Ages, Enlightenment, colonialism and mechanised warfare, interspersed with neat experiments which all too often underline the weakness of humans. After that, there are heartening case studies examining ways in which seemingly intractable violence has been alleviated, even as too much of the world backslides into poisonous brands of authoritarianism or nationalism: the “violence interrupters” patrolling the streets of Baltimore, or the use of football to integrate the divided communities of
one Iraqi city. Ultimately, it serves to underline Pinker’s mission statement: “Ideas matter”. Gabriel Tate
The Money Maker
CHANNEL 4, 9PM
Eric Collins, an investor who worked with Barack Obama, makes an
appealingly urbane focal point for this new series in which he brings his expertise to enterprises in need of money and advice. Yet this blend of Dragons’ Den, The Secret Millionaire and The Apprentice is a little too slight to compel, despite the clash of styles between Collins and Jasen, the no-nonsense CEO of a Manchester repair and restoration company. GT
Wednesday The Battle for Britney: Fans, Cash and a Conservatorship BBC TWO, 9PM
Back in 2008, pop megastar Britney Spears had a breakdown that resulted in her being placed under a “conservatorship”, a US legal mechanism whereby the courts put every aspect of someone’s life, finances and welfare, under the control of another person – in this case Spears’s father, James. Over a decade later, Britney, now 39, still tours and records, but she remains trapped in that arrangement, and a growing #FreeBritney movement is campaigning vocally to bring it to an end. Here Bafta-winner Mobeen Azhar sets out to explore the case, meeting with campaigners, legal experts and former friends of the singer – all of whom have plenty to say but have little authoritative knowledge of the singer’s own feelings on the matter. There are certainly one or two jaw-dropping moments, notably an interview with Britney’s nemesis, celebrity blogger Perez Hilton. GO
Bloods
SKY ONE, 10PM
Samson Kayo assembles a terrific cast for his winningly silly new comedy set in the high-stress world of ambulance crews. He plays accident-prone south London paramedic Maleek who finds himself partnered with northerner Wendy (Jane Horrocks). GO
Thursday
Ian Wright: Home Truths
BBC ONE, 9PM
Ian Wright, the footballer-turnedpundit, opens up about the trauma he endured as a child growing up in southeast London. He describes a lonely, loveless childhood due to the severe physical and emotional abuse meted out by his stepfather and mother, who told him every day that she hated him. During a visit to his childhood home, he breaks down in tears recalling the violent incidents that took place there. Unsurprisingly, says Wright, the ordeal left him with emotional scars and anger issues that played out on the football pitch. This documentary is his call to action for the authorities to take more seriously the lifelong effects of domestic abuse on children, both as sufferers and as witnesses (in 90 per cent of cases there is a child present). He talks to other victims, including broadcaster Charlie Webster, as well as to a psychiatrist. Then, going beyond the victims, Wright meets a man who perpetrated domestic abuse himself, sought treatment and turned his life around. This film really packs a punch, and all credit to Wright for laying so bare the trauma he has lived with for half a century. Vicki Power
The Abduction of Milly Dowler
CHANNEL 5, 9PM
This thorough 90-minute film re-examines the investigation into the
2002 murder of Milly Dowler. It asks why it took Surrey Police two years to speak to her killer, Levi Bellfield, despite his record and proximity to where Milly disappeared.
Friday
Revealed: Cleopatra’s Lost City
CHANNEL 5, 9PM
This accessible, intriguing Britishmade film follows a three-decade long project to learn about ancient Canopus. This sunken city a few miles off the coast of Alexandria was of significance to the Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and Byzantines. Our conduit into this little-understood past is Franck Goddio, a doughty archaeologist and diver, whose initial discovery of a stunningly preserved sphinx on the seabed is only the beginning. Soon, a giant temple and statue of a woman draped in silk indicate a connection to Cleopatra, before the most astounding finding of all: Naos of the Decades, a shrine containing perhaps the first-ever depiction of the creation of the world.
Emmylou Harris Night
BBC FOUR, FROM 9PM
A serial collaborator and seminal figure in country music in her own right, Emmylou Harris is profiled in classy fashion this evening, including a pair of contrasting concert performances from 2007 and 1977. GT