The very best of the week ahead
Today Close to Me CHANNEL 4, 9PM
An enjoyably grippy six-part, domestic-noir drama about a woman who loses a year’s worth of memory when she suffers a severe head trauma – after apparently falling down the stairs at her home. Danish actress Connie Nielsen does an excellent job as Jo Harding, conveying the bewilderment, frustration and fragile grasp on the reality of a woman struggling to recover from serious physical injury while also trying to piece together the fragments of a shattered memory. Christopher Eccleston as her husband Rob, meanwhile, manages to be spectacularly creepy just by being nice. He’s clearly hiding something, but is it guilt or loving concern that’s motivating him? It’s all very stylishly done, though you might find yourself wondering why more people aren’t asking questions about the circumstances of her fall, especially when the accepted explanation – drinking – is so very out of character. Ultimately, though, even that becomes another reason to keep watching. Gerard O’Donovan
On the Edge CHANNEL 4, FROM 10PM
The Bafta-nominated series for emerging film-makers returns with three superb dramas exploring mental health: Mincemeat, an edgy coming-ofage comedy; Cradled, a heart-stopping, grounded-in-reality horror; and Superdad, an emotionally charged road trip taken by a father and son. Worth a look. GO
Monday The Tower ITV, 9PM
This cop thriller opens with a bang. DS Sarah Collins (Gemma Whelan, best known for portraying ortraying Karen Matthews hews in The Moorside) e) arrives at a crime scene ene to a shocking sight ight – the bodies of a police officer cer and a teenager ger splattered on n the ground at the e foot of a tower block. ock.
Up on the roof she finds a cop (Tahirah Sharif) and a young boy, badly shaken. Over the next three nights writer Patrick Harbinson – a scribe on ER, 24 and Homeland – unspools the story, adapted from a novel by former Metropolitan Police detective constable Kate London, by scrolling back and forth in time. DS Collins and DC Steve Bradshaw (the reliable Jimmy Akingbola) investigate the deaths but are hindered by obstacles presented by a colleague, DI Kieran Shaw (Emmett J Scanlan), whose motives are unclear. Whelan gives a nuanced performance in her first TV lead after impressive supporting su turns in Game of Thrones Thro and Gentleman Jack –s she conveys DS Collins’s rigid attention to detail at work that masks a sadness in her personal life, which seems seem to be represented by a signature signatur anorak that is the t colour of a dying dy autumn leaf. Harbinson H is a first-rate fi storyteller story and Collins Colli a cop we’d like to seem see more of. Vicki Vick Power
Dexter: New Blood
SKY ATLANTIC, 3.05AM AND 10.05PM
Straight after the back-stabbing of Succession, there’s stabbing of the more literal sort in Dexter, resuscitated after eight years. Having eluded justice in Miami, serial killer Dexter Morgan (Michael C Hall) has relocated to upstate New York and quelled his homicidal urges – until his son turns up. New location, same old Dexter. VP
Tuesday Who Do You Think You Are?
BBC ONE, 9PM; WALES, 10.35PM
Singer Pixie Lott hasn’t released a new album for a while and many viewers will know her only from Strictly Come Dancing, which she took part in back in 2014. You might think she must have an exceptional ancestral story to tell, to merit a place on the veteran genealogy show, then. But no, all signs point to Lott’s forebears being quite ordinary folk. Even a romantic family notion that one bloodline hailed from Verona is brutally quashed within minutes of climbing out that branch of the tree. The big question is: will she get to
uncover the thing she most keenly desires – proof that music is in her genes, despite having no musicians in her immediate family? It all adds up to quite a touching journey. GO
The Great British Bake Off CHANNEL 4, 8PM
It’s quarter-final week and the five remaining bakers face some unfamiliar challenges, with every round involving a “free from” element. The signature demands a dairy-free ice-cream sandwich, the technical a meat-free sausage roll and the showstopper a gluten-free “celebration” cake. Cue steam coming out of ears and a tough decision for the judges. GO
Wednesday Life at 50°C BBC TWO, 8PM
As COP26 nears its conclusion, a reminder once again, drawn from the excellent work of the BBC World Service, of how lethally high the stakes are for many around the world, as 2021 is set to be one of the hottest years on record. Taking documentaries shot across the continents, the picture of a planet on the brink of disaster is unignorable. Among the most impactful stories is that of Farouk in central Nigeria, forced to dig ever deeper wells over many days to find water in once-fertile lands now turned into deserts, while climate migrants in Mauritania jockey for a few jobs by the coast, their inland work as farmers or salt miners now unviable in the blistering heat. Even those betterdocumented. It is not a wholly despairing compilation: the ingenuity and adaptability of human beings remains humbling, but as so often it is those on the margins who are both most blameless and most at risk. We cannot continue like this. Gabriel Tate
Life and Rhymes SKY ARTS, 9PM
Benjamin Zephaniah’s recently Bafta-winning celebration of the spoken word will have plenty of extra attention on its second series; it seems unlikely to wilt, with poets including Henry Beckwith and Bex Gordon holding forth on carers, misgendering and veganism in front of a live studio audience. GT
Thursday The Trial of Louise Woodward
ITV, 9PM
In October 1997, British au pair Louise Woodward, then 19, went on trial for the murder of Matthew Eappen, a nine-month-old she had been hired to care for in a wealthy suburb of Boston, Massachusetts. But the trial of Cheshire native Woodward remains controversial to this day, dividing opinion about her culpability, the expert testimony about the cause of Eappen’s death, and the levelling of a second-degree murder charge against Woodward. The case also sparked a debate about a childcare system that allowed inexperienced teenagers to look after babies. Woodward was convicted, although her conviction was swiftly downgraded to involuntary manslaughter and she served less than a year in prison. Here, lawyers and expert witnesses from both sides comment on the troubling case. VP
Mary Berry: Love to Cook BBC TWO, 8PM
Doyenne of dough Berry is back at the cooker for a new series, although the first episode, soaked in sunshine and featuring allotment-grown veg, feels oddly timed for darkest autumn. Still, Berry’s courgette and carrot cake comes up a treat. It’s followed by
Nadiya’s Fast Flavours, in which Nadiya Hussain rustles up comfort food with bold new twists. VP
Friday Keith Jarrett: The Art of Improvisation BBC FOUR, 9PM
A good night for jazz aficionados as BBC Four celebrates the opening of the London Jazz Festival with a documentary about a jazz great and a thrilling live broadcast from the Royal Festival Hall. As a portrait of a virtuoso, this 2005 profile of Keith Jarrett captures the essence of why he made such an impact in both jazz and classical music. Made by Mike Dibb, the man behind the acclaimed Ways of Seeing with John Berger, the film meets this wholly committed and
exceptionally gifted pianist (his gave his first concert aged eight). His particular devotion to jazz improvisation is explored, mixed with revealing interview footage and an array of archive material that, somehow, manages to convey the vastness of his musical breadth, ego, and achievements. On an utterly contemporary note, it’s followed by a live broadcast of Jazz Voice 2021 (also on Radio 3). Guy Barker and the specially formed London Jazz Festival Orchestra are joined by a fabulous line-up of vocal talents (among them Ayanna Witter-Johnson, Aynur, Ego Ella May and Sachal Vasandani) mixing jazz standards and originals, and a celebration of the greatest jazz scores written for the silver screen. GO
The Shrink Next Door APPLE TV+
Will Ferrell and Paul Rudd are perfectly cast in a satisfyingly offbeat series that distils comedy from a sad, true-life story of an unusually close 30-year relationship between a New York psychiatrist and a desperately dependent patient. The first three episodes drop today, continuing weekly. GO