Friday
Pick of the day: The Cleaner
9.30pm, BBC One
Greg Davies returns with the third series of the sitcom in which he plays crime-scene cleaner Paul “Wicky” Wickstead. Rather like Inside No 9, which it resembles in that the show is essentially an anthology with a different story and set of characters (Wicky aside) each week, it’s hard to reveal much about the plot. Suffice to say that, in the opening episode of this new series, Wicky arrives at the house of old school friend Justin. The house in question happens to be a huge mansion (“that is too much house”) with Wicky tasked with cleaning up after an accident involving a grand piano. Rosie Cavaliero and Ben Willbond (Ghosts) guest star.
Gardeners’ World
8pm, BBC Two
Monty Don gives his top tips on how to keep lawns looking their best throughout autumn, tidies up the pond, and plans ahead for a colourful spring display by potting up some hyacinths. Meanwhile, Rachel de Thame visits a collection of asters near Worcester.
Auschwitz: The Inside Man
8.15pm, PBS America
The extraordinary story of Witold Pilecki, a Polish army officer who joined the resistance against the Nazis and managed to infiltrate the Auschwitz death camp to smuggle out information – in the process becoming the first man to inform the Allies about the reality of the Holocaust. He also had an audacious plan to start an uprising from inside the camp to free the prisoners.
Elizabeth Taylor: Rebel Superstar
9pm, BBC Two
This welcome reappraisal of Elizabeth Taylor (produced by Kim Kardashian, who also contributes as a famous woman who identifies with Taylor) continues where it left off last week: with the tragic accidental death of her “soul mate”, Mike Todd. Todd’s friend (and Debbie Reynolds’ husband) Eddie Fisher offered the shoulder to cry on, with predictable results before their marriage was obliterated when Taylor met Richard Burton on the set of Cleopatra.
Charlie Cooper’s Myth Country
9pm, BBC Three
A new series in which the writer and actor best known for This Country tours the UK in his campervan, exploring local legends, myth and folklore. He begins by heading in search of Black Shuck, the demon dog of East Anglia. He attempts an overnight stakeout – with some unexpected consequences…
First Dates
10pm, Channel 4
After suffering a life-threatening illness, 29-year-old Georgina is looking for a rugged man. She meets 36-year-old heavily tattooed security guard Seb. Meanwhile, Ashleigh, 37, is looking for someone to share her love of Dungeons And Dragons and meets 34-year-old Hailey, a scholar of Shakespeare who hasn’t had a relationship with a woman since she came out.
The Graham Norton Show
10.40pm, BBC One
Hugh Grant, scarily brilliant as a demented religious scholar in the new horror movie Heretic, chats to Graham alongside Hollywood star Sebastian Stan, who talks about his roles in A Different Man and as Donald Trump in The Apprentice. Actor Greg Davies promotes his new series of The Cleaner and singer-songwriter Neneh Cherry reflects on the writing process of her new album, A Thousand Threads.
Saturday
Pick of the day: Peter Sellers: A State of Comic Ecstasy
10.55pm, BBC Four
Britt Ekland breaking a lifetime’s silence over her marriage to Peter Sellers garnered all the pre-broadcast headlines of John O’Rourke’s 2020 documentary about the Goon-turned-movie star. Ekland’s testimony is the meat of the film (along with input from Sellers’ daughters, Victoria and Sarah, Michael Palin and Steve Coogan) and what she has to say seems to pertain to all four of Sellers’ marriage – starting with the recklessly quick engagement (three weeks in Ekland’s case). Calling her former husband “a tormented soul”, Ekland adds that, “He had no personality… there was no Peter Sellers as a human being.”
Strictly Come Dancing
6.25pm, BBC One
Was the relative dearth of female celebrities in this year’s contest the reason behind the alleged “fix” to save Toyah Willcox in last week’s dance-off? Anyway, it’s back to the competition and, as they say, “keep dancing…”
Abandoned Railways from Above
8pm, Channel 4
This week the drone cameras travel along the Yorkshire coastline, on the line that once connected Scarborough and Whitby. The railways transformed Scarborough, Britain’s first seaside resort, while Robin Hood’s Bay became popular with tourists.
Kirsty MacColl at the BBC
8.40pm, BBC Two
A selection of performances that highlight the wit and intelligence of the singer-songwriter, who would have turned 65 this year had her life not been tragically cut short in December 2000 when she was hit by a powerboat while diving in Mexico. Included here are such hits as “A New England” and “Days”, plus the Christmas staple “Fairytale of New York” alongside Irish band The Pogues.
Glamis Castle: A Royal Residence
8.40pm, Channel 5
The castle in Angus, Scotland, was the childhood home of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, and playground for her daughter Elizabeth, the future queen. One of the oldest royal residences in Britain, this pink-painted fairy-tale fortress has been the family home to the Lyons, one of Britain’s oldest aristocratic families, for more than six-and-a-half centuries. Paul Burrell and Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen are once again our guides.
Apples Never Fall
9.25pm, BBC One
The focus in this ongoing mystery thriller shifts to Amy (Alison Brie), who organises the community into something called a “hope circle” that aims to bring home her missing mother, Joy. Meanwhile, a bloodied shirt is found in a neighbour’s garden, but husband Stan’s car is suspiciously clean. “Sounds like destruction of evidence to me,” says the detective.
Chimp Crazy
2am, Sky Documentaries
A new docuseries from the makers of Tiger King looks at the bonds between pet chimpanzees and their owners, as well as the risks humans take when they raise these animals as members of their families (and vice versa). The series begins with nurse-turned-exotic animal broker Tonia Haddix.
Sunday
Pick of the day: Showtrial
9pm, BBC One
Remember the first series of writer Ben Richards’ legal drama? It was rather good but never mind if you don’t, because it has been turned into an anthology drama with a completely new cast and storyline. This new series concerns a cocky policeman (played by Michael Socha from This is England) accused of murdering a climate-change activist. The eco-warrior had allegedly been mown down by a car driven by this so-called “Officer X”. The dependably watchable Adeel Akhtar plays his maverick lawyer.
Paddy and Chris: Road Tripping
8pm, BBC One
Paddy McGuinness and Chris Harris sail to the rocky Greek island of Ikaria, a longevity “Blue Zone” where one in three locals live well into their nineties. On their itinerary are milking goats, rock-climbing, playing backgammon and fishing with a 75-year-old local. They also share an al fresco meal at a self-sufficient farm. “The Good Life with Penelope Keith,” as McGuinness puts it, “but with more lemons.”
Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing
9pm, BBC Two
Bob Mortimer and Paul Whitehouse angle this week for wild brown trout in the historic chalk stream of Driffield Beck at Mulberry Whin in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Scene-stealer Ted, meanwhile, is obsessed with rolling in the mud on the riverbank, leading Bob to book an appointment at a luxurious doggy spa not far from their fishing spot.
Joan
9pm, ITV1
More ups and downs for our gutsy if morally dubious 80s jewel thief (winningly played by Sophie Turner). On the plus side, she successfully pulls off the theft of a valuable painting, having inveigled her way into the stately home of its drunken owner. On the downside, a visit from the social worker (Mum’s Dorothy Atkinson) reveals that her daughter Kelly’s foster mother has asked to adopt her.
Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins
9pm, Channel 4
Imagine being in a helicopter that has crash-landed into freezing water and sunk 5m beneath the waves. Well, imagine no longer as the remaining 11 celebrity recruits are put through a simulated version of the above.
Eddie Mirzoeff Remembers – 40 Minutes
9pm, BBC Four
Veteran TV producer Eddie Mirzoeff introduces six films from the hallowed BBC documentary strand that ran between 1981 and 1994 – what was once a ground-breaking font of idiosyncratic observational documentaries now important as a time capsule. It begins with the 1989 film Heart of the Angel, which documented 48 hours in the life of London’s Angel tube station.
Big Brother: Live Launch
9pm, ITV2
The pioneering reality show is back as AJ Odudu and Will Best return to present its latest reiteration on ITV2 (last year it was ITV1, so this is something of a downgrade). The Big Brother house has undergone another makeover, but you more or less know what to expect of the contestants.
