The very best of the week ahead
Sunday
RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2022
BBC One, 6pm
It feels like the world is back on its axis as, after a two-year absence, the greatest gardening show of them all will return to the Chelsea showground, bursting with everything we have always loved about it: surprising garden designs, countless innovations and a spectacular floral marquee. In this opening programme, Sophie Raworth and Joe Swift invite us for a sneak peek of the show gardens as they’re being set up (we’re particularly looking forward to seeing Gardeners’ Question Time’s first-ever Chelsea garden, designed by GQT regular Matthew Wilson) and the biggest new plant trends. They are joined by Adam Frost, Carol Klein, Rachel de Thame, Arit Anderson and Toby Buckland, who talk to the event designers and take a look at some of the best blooms.
As ever the BBC offers us extensive additional coverage Monday through Friday: a daily afternoon show on BBC One (3.45pm) with Nicki Chapman and Angellica Bell, and an hour-long evening review on BBC Two (8pm) with Monty Don and Joe Swift, and an extra half-hour BBC One show (7.30pm) on Wednesday and Friday with Raworth. Gerard O’Donovan
Hunted
Channel 4, 9pm
The nail-biting series returns as 11 ordinary mortals try to outwit a 30-strong squad of police and ex-army trackers to win £100,000 – if they can evade capture for 18 days. This time there’s a new obstacle to complicate things: the Isle of Wight, which they have to get off undetected before going on the run. GO
Monday
Silent Witness
BBC One, 9pm
Good news for fans of the forensics drama. Pathologist Professor rofessor Sam Ryan (Amanda Burton), on), who abandoned the Lyell laboratory in 2004, returns to mark the world’s longest-running ning crime drama’s 25th series.
Ryan now runs a global medical data company ny with her husband, Jomo Mashaba (Hugh Quarshie), rshie), and they are on the cusp usp of signing a lucrative, e, though controversial, l, contract with the UK K government for the introduction of medical ical passports. However, when Jomo is injured in a fatal attack on the health secretary (cue great use of Liverpool’s rejuvenated dockside locations), Sam must ask for the Lyell’s help – and discover who was the real target, the minister or Jomo?
What follows is a nicely convoluted drama with meaty forensics facts aplenty, plus a bundle of complex plot twists. Just about everybody – including Ryan – appears shifty, while furtive looks are exchanged between Lyell colleagues Nikki (Emilia Fox) and Jack (David Caves) as they continue their flirtation from last series.
The pathologists pathologis discover things quick smart, as always (if only police work pr proceeded at the same pace in reality); the gripping story concludes on Tuesday. Veronica Lee
Prehist Prehistoric Planet
Apple Appl TV+
Sir David Attenborough At n narrates this sumptuous s fi five-episode series (shown on successive days) about the time when dinosaurs roamed. Made by the producers of Planet Earth, it combines palaeontology and wildlife filmmaking to paint a picture of Earth 66million years ago. This episode includes the mighty Mosasaurus, the ocean’s deadliest predator. VL
Tuesday
State of the Union
BBC Two, from 10.00pm
The first series of Nick Hornby’s drama, featuring Rosamund Pike and Chris O’Dowd, was a brief-but-exquisite look at of the cracks that form in a long marriage, doled out in 10-minute chunks in 2019. Hornby has moved the plot to affluent California for series two, where his new warring couple is played to a tee by Brendan Gleeson and Patricia Clarkson.
This time he includes bystanders, such as the barista in the coffee shop where they meet before therapy. That way we can observe Gleeson’s curmudgeon, Scott, arguing about the variety of coffees on offer like it’s 1995; he’s a golf club regular who finds modern mores and his yoga-loving wife Ellen irritating enigmas. The first three episodes spell out just how deep the chasm is between these two; indeed, it’s difficult to imagine them ever on the same page. As pretty much a two-hander these marvellous actors hold our attention expertly and make wry observations about middle age and marriage. But the piece doesn’t do enough to make us truly care what happens to its central characters, and that’s a real shame. Vicki Power
Bake Off: The Professionals
Channel 4, 8pm
Stacey Solomon replaces Tom Allen as co-host in a shake-up to the cooking series where six teams of pastry chefs whip up sweet treats. These opening rounds deliver drama when desserts fall flat with judges Cherish Finden and Benoit Blin (in one case, literally). VP
Wednesday
Cathy Come Home
BBC Four, 10pm
As a recession looms, homelessness soars and single mothers remain as much a societal punchbag as ever, the currency of this powerful 1966 drama is what perhaps feels most grimly striking about it, alongside Carol White’s complete commitment in the lead role and the marriage of verité documentary and kitchen-sink drama. A collaboration between director Ken Loach, producer Tony Garnett and writer Jeremy Sandford, it aired as part of the BBC’s Wednesday Play strand and is a fitting opener for BBC Four’s new season of archive dramas showcasing pioneering brilliance.
Among the other dramas will be Peter Flannery’s excoriatingly bleak state-of-the-nation piece Our Friends in the North, Hanif Kureishi’s influential, Bowie-scored coming-ofager The Buddha of Suburbia, and The Billy Plays, a trilogy featuring Kenneth Branagh in his first screen role using the Troubles as a backdrop for utterly compelling domestic strife. And tonight, Cillian Murphy also interviews Loach at 11.20pm – their exchange dates back to a hugely successful collaboration on The Wind That Shakes the Barley. Gabriel Tate
The Hermit of Treig
BBC Four, 9pm
Following an incident of shocking violence that left him unconscious for 23 days, Ken Smith defied his doctors and walked again – all the way to the Scottish Highlands, where he built a cabin and settled down for four long decades in isolation. Lizzie McKenzie’s affective, elegiac and uplifting documentary finds him contemplating both past and future as old age begins to have an impact on his wellbeing. GT
Thursday
Who Do You Think You Are?
BBC One, 9pm; not Scotland
Sue Perkins can’t stop crying in tonight’s opener of a new series of the show that digs up a celebrity’s roots and puts them in context with social history. It was the death of her father in 2017 that prompted Perkins to sign up, but she soon finds that her family’s story takes several devastating turns involving some of the most significant historical events of the 20th century. Her first stop is the house of former Bake Off presenting partner Mel Giedroyc, but investigating her grandparents and great grandparents takes Perkins on a tear-drenched journey across south-west England and to Eastern Europe. Subsequent episodes feature Richard Osman, Matt Lucas and Ralf Little, but Perkins’s story will likely be a tough opening act to follow. VP
Art That Made Us
BBC Two, 9pm
The last in this ambitious cultural series brings us to the recent past, when the Sixties heralded an explosion of young and diverse British voices. It cherry-picks intriguing artistic moments of the past 60 years, with the high points discussed including Trainspotting, Tracey Emin and Michael Sheen’s The Passion. VP
Friday
Stranger Things
Netflix
In the fourth series of the teenage sci-fi horror created by Matt and Ross Duffer, we are back in 1980s Hawkins, Indiana – the sort of place where nothing happens. Well, other than the discovery of a Russian laboratory, a pack of Demogorgons led by a Mind Flayer, children with telekinesis and the Upside Down – an entire terrifying parallel universe – in their midst.
Alongside supernatural goings-on, the story harks back to a pre-digital childhood in the lovingly recreated 1980s, with a small-town aesthetic and terrific soundtrack to boot. The story picks up six months after Hawkins’ mall was destroyed, when yet another supernatural threat surfaces, endangering Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) and his gang of high-school friends. Can sheriff Jim Hopper (David Harbour) come to the rescue again? No spoilers, but he’s alive, imprisoned in the wasteland of Kamchatka, where his Russian captors have plans for him. VL
Obi-Wan Kenobi
Disney+
Good news for Star Wars fans as Ewan McGregor returns as the Jedi Master. The story begins 10 years after Revenge of the Sith where Obi-Wan Kenobi faced his greatest defeat, the downfall of his Jedi apprentice, Anakin Skywalker (aka Darth Vader). Hayden Christensen is back as Vader for this double-bill, setting us off for the six episodes. VL