Wednesday 10 July
Sunny
Apple TV+
Resembling a Black Mirror episode spun out to the length of a series, Katie Robbins’s 10-part fable is, on the basis of its opening two episodes, something of a curate’s egg. Flirting with futureshock horror and conspiracy thriller, laced throughout with mordant humour, its protagonist is Suzie (Rashida Jones), an American in Kyoto whose husband and son are seemingly killed in a plane crash. Thanks to her husband’s job in robotics, she is gifted a “HomeBot” named Sunny by way of consolation. Initially less than impressed and indeed irritated by its solicitousness, she comes to rely increasingly on her new friend. Yet, as indications mount of foul play regarding her family and with stories appearing of malfunctioning HomeBots, her new attachment could prove perilous.
With its themes of technology gone wrong and the inherent dangers of a surveillance society, Sunny has a few familiar plot beats. Yet it rides these out with some well-judged moments of culture clash and very persuasive world building: tech is present and admired without being flaunted. Jones, meanwhile, offers a low-key masterclass in grief, confusion and the stubborn refusal to give in to either. GT
Receiver
Netflix
Davante Adams, Justin Jefferson, George Kittle, Deebo Samuel and Amon-Ra St Brown are household names in the US as five of the NFL’s leading pass catchers. This follow-up to Netflix’s series on quarterbacks follows their lives.
Melissa Etheridge: I’m Not Broken
Paramount+
The link between troubadour and outlaw has been present for centuries, and was made explicit by Johnny Cash when he played to the inmates of Folsom Prison. This powerful, mournful two-part documentary sees Melissa Etheridge crafting a song out of letters written to her by five prisoners in a Kansas prison, all of them affected in various ways by addiction – as indeed was Etheridge herself, her son having died from opioid addiction in 2020.
Mike
UKTV Play
Mike Tyson denounced this 2022 biopic series from Steven Rogers (I, Tonya) for not seeking his involvement, but also, perhaps, for the deeply unflattering portrayal of a gifted, troubled man capable of unspeakable behaviour both inside and outside the ring; Mike’s primary interest clearly rests on the latter. It begins with his hardscrabble formative years before cycling through his rapid rise, shocking fall, conviction for rape and ongoing rehabilitation in the public eye; Moonlight’s Trevante Rhodes is as sensational as the material is sensationalist.
Loyalty Cards: Are They a Rip Off?
Channel 5, 7pm
Alexis Conran – a loyalty card naysayer – considers whether supermarkets’ canniest promotional wheeze is simply a ruse to access our data, and if so what precisely becomes of the information we so willingly offer up in exchange for discounts.
Battle of the Bagpipes
Sky Arts, 9pm
This surprisingly gripping series steps up a gear with the World Pipe Championships just one week away, and the leaders of our three featured piping groups intensify the demands on their bands.
GF Newman Remembers Law and Order
BBC Four, 10pm
Not to be confused with the venerable US procedural, GF Newman’s magnificent 1978 miniseries took four interlinked perspectives of a police investigation and its aftermath: the detective, the villain, the brief and the prisoner. The first three air tonight, preceded by the writer recalling its creation.
Hidden Figures (2016) ★★★★
Film4, 6.25pm
Theodore Melfi’s life-affirming film highlights a trio of black female Nasa employees’ contributions to the Space Race via a heavyweight line-up of Taraji P Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe. Henson tops the bill as Katherine G Johnson; Spencer plays “computer” Dorothy Vaughan, and Monáe holds her own as engineer Mary Jackson. You’ll certainly be doffing your hat to the women they’re playing, too.
Gravity (2013) ★★★★★
BBC One, 10.50pm
Alfonso Cuarón’s film is a heart-aching reflection on the miracle of motherhood, and the billion-to-one odds against any of us being here, astronauts or not. It’s also a totally absorbing, often overpowering spectacle – a $100 million action movie (whose production was littered with disasters) in which Sandra Bullock and George Clooney play two spacefarers, fighting for their lives 375 miles above the Earth. Also on Tuesday, same time, same place.
The Rolling Stones: Rock and Roll Circus (1996, b/w) ★★★★
Sky Arts, 11.35pm
In 1968, the Rolling Stones staged a TV concert in a circus tent and invited their best mates, including John Lennon and Eric Clapton. Mick Jagger dressed as the ringmaster and they even hired a trapeze artist. The result is this bunch of sensational live performances, as well as circus interludes that are positively Fellini-esque in their weirdness. Michael Lindsay-Hogg directs.
Thursday 11 July
The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning
W, 9pm
Swedish Death Cleaning – or dostadning – is a variation on the ongoing decluttering craze, its founding principle concerning why one should keep only truly valued possessions to avoid burdening your heirs in the event of your death. Although, as Amy Poehler’s pathologically perky narration underlines: “This is not a show about death, it is a show about life.” Sending three empathetic but unsentimental Swedes into the frequently sappy world of US reality television (this is made by NBC’s streaming spin-off Peaco*ck) is a smart move, and the culture clashes prompt both jovial humour and frank, emotional truth-telling.
First up for designer Johan, psychologist Katarina and organiser Ella is 75-year-old Suzi, a brashly charming “turkey vulture” (20 years older than a “cougar”) who is finding her attachment to the past is stopping her from engaging with the present or imagining a future. Yet who else, she wonders, could possibly want her many photos from her past as a singing waitress, or walk-in wardrobe of sequins and gold lame? The Swedes find answers to all the above and more over the course of a genuinely life-affirming hour. GT
Mastermind: to Think Like a Killer
Disney+
The FBI’s pioneering behavioural science specialist Dr Ann Burgess – the inspiration behind Netflix’s psychological thriller Mindhunter – is profiled over three gripping episodes, which reveal how her focus on the victims as much as the perpetrators helped the former find closure and the latter be brought to justice.
Tom Kerridge Cooks Britain
ITV1, 8.30pm; UTV/Wales, 10.45pm; not STV
Having long ago taken his role of good egg seriously enough to start resembling one, Tom Kerridge is back on the road in his food truck to champion British ingredients. This week he visits the Pennines in search of British beef to make a lip smacking steak Diane. His next stop is Lancashire for tomatoes to help comprise a tomato and feta flatbread – another appealing combo of technological boundary-pushing and down-home cooking.
Los Angeles: Stories from the City
PBS America, 8.55pm
Hollywood, with its promises of escape and riches, is as good an emblem as any for the illusions and realities of the American Dream. This solidly informative two-parter explores how the myths underpinning LA were established centuries earlier when it was just a dusty outpost, seized from Spain by Mexico after the latter won its independence.
Douglas Is Cancelled
ITV1, 9pm
After two episodes of sharp satire, Steven Moffat’s comedy-drama takes a gut wrenching swerve into the latter with a flashback: three years prior to Douglas’s (Hugh Bonneville) gaffe, Madeline (Karen Gillan, superb) has an encounter in a hotel room which does much to explain what we have seen so far.
So Help Me Todd
Alibi, 9pm
The second and final series of CBS’s amiably unchallenging legal procedural begins with wily attorney Margaret (Marcia Gay Harden) and her firm’s loose-cannon PI, Todd (Skylar Astin), dealing with the unexpected reappearance of her ex-husband (Mark Moses) and a murder on the local morning news.
Coupling
BBC Two, 10pm
While Steven Moffat’s latest series continues on ITV1, BBC Two shows an episode from the second series of his most successful sitcom. Dismissed by some as a watered-down “British Friends”, this episode, with Richard Coyle’s Jeff to the fore, is a reminder of its excellence.
Vanished into the Night (2024)
Netflix
Renato De Maria’s Italian crime thriller follows a desperate father (Riccardo Scamarcio) as he embarks on a dangerous mission following the abduction of his children. Annabelle Wallis is his American ex-wife who is convinced a shady group of loan sharks is responsible. What ensues is a tale of how far ordinary people will go to protect those they love; like Taken, with the spires of Paris swapped for Puglia’s sprawling green hills.
The Lodge (2019) ★★★
Film4, 10.50pm
Richard Armitage stars in the sort of knotty, atmospheric thriller that has made him a mainstay of British TV (Fool Me Once, The Stranger). When his ex-wife Laura (Alicia Silverstone) kills herself, he and new girlfriend Grace (Riley Keough) are handed custody of their kids. But then an idyllic Christmas getaway goes horrifically wrong, and Grace’s murky past threatens to wreck all of their lives.
The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) ★★★★
ITV1, 11.15pm
Christopher Lee steals the show as Scaramanga in this classic Bond film, director Guy Hamilton’s last. Roger Moore’s 007 must pursue him with the help of sidekick Mary Goodnight (Britt Ekland); they head off to the villain’s island to prevent him harnessing the power of the Sun. Moore and Lee’s duels are crackling; this certainly isn’t the pinnacle of Bond, but Lulu’s theme song is still great fun.
Friday 12 July
SisterS
UKTV Play
Sunny Canadian optimism meets pitch-black Irish cynicism in this charming, if slight sitcom (all episodes available now). It follows the unrelentingly upbeat Sare (Sarah Goldberg), who has just found out that her late father was not her actual father. The real deal was an Irish busker who her mother met while backpacking around Ireland. Cue a flight from Toronto to Dublin to track him down – a trip that brings her into contact with Suze (Susan Stanley), the hard-drinking half-sister she never knew she had.
It is fairly broad stuff. Ireland is introduced to the sounds of Dirty Old Town by The Pogues. While Suze’s mother, Sheryl (Sophie Thompson), is the quintessential caricature of the eccentric Irish “mammy”. Take the scene in which Sare turns down a sausage roll because she’s Jewish, leading to Sheryl sighing: “Haven’t the Jews suffered enough?” SisterS’ strength is the chemistry between Goldberg (best known for Barry) and Stanley, both of whom are co-creators. There is a wit and warmth in their characters’ unlikely relationship, which thaws over the course of a road trip from Dublin to Galway – undertaken, of course, in the crumbling wreck of an ice cream van. SK
Dolly Parton at the BBC
BBC Four, 9pm
From 9 (but sadly not to 5), it’s Dolly Parton night. First up is this collection of BBC archive performances, which is then followed by a re-airing of 2019 documentary Dolly Parton: Here I Am. Make sure to stick around for Parton’s euphoric 2014 Glastonbury set. Another BBC archive compilation, Country at the BBC, is at 12.40am.
Sister Boniface Mysteries
Drama, 9pm
Great Slaughter Cricket Club are facing rivals Stowington in the county final, which obviously means that there’s been a murder – their star player has been found dead, crushed by a fallen sight screen. Lorna Watson’s sleuthing nun suspects foul play – the kind that is just not cricket.
The Sommerdahl Murders
More4, 9pm
Tonight’s double-bill of the Danish detective drama is a two-part mystery about a playboy millionaire who is found dead in his hot tub. Could it have been a misadventure? Not likely, considering that his accountant has also been reported missing. The brooding Detective Sommerdahl (Peter Mygind) and his partner, Flemming (André Babikian), must track them down if they want to solve the case.
Extras
BBC Two, 10pm
BBC Two’s classic comedy repeat tonight is a hilarious 2006 episode of Ricky Gervais’s showbiz sitcom. It features a teenage Daniel Radcliffe playing a womanising parody of himself – a gag which inevitably leads to the former boy wizard accidentally flicking a condom onto the head of unimpressed acting great Diana Rigg.
Celebrity I Literally Just Told You
Channel 4, 10pm
Jimmy Carr hosts this special edition of TV’s most chaotic game show – the memory quiz where the questions are written in situ. The contestants tonight are Jonathan Ross, Josie Gibson, Oti Mabuse, Chico Slimani and Rylan Clark. Can you guess which one is eliminated for not being famous enough?
TRNSMT Festival
BBC One, 12.10am; BBC Scotland, 10pm; not Wales
Shereen Cutkelvin hosts highlights from the first day of the music festival, taking place on Glasgow Green. Liam Gallagher is tonight’s headliner, but you will also be able to catch performances by alt-rockers Garbage, pop royalty Sugababes and current indie darlings The Last Dinner Party.
The Iron Claw (2023) ★★★★
Amazon Prime Video
Who would’ve thought that the star of Disney’s 2006 smash-hit High School Musical had this much gravitas as an actor? All-American boy Zac Efron plays wrestling champion Kevin Von Erich, part of the Texan wrestling dynasty plagued by tragedy and unmanageable pressure from father Fritz (Holt McCallany). The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White and British actor Harris Dickinson star alongside Efron as the other brothers.
Descendants: The Rise of Red (2024)
Disney+
The fourth instalment in the mega-successful, musical franchise, which follows the dastardly offspring of Disney villains such as Maleficent and the Evil Queen. This latest spin-off follows the daughters of the Queen of Hearts and Cinderella as they enrol at fairytale boarding school Auradon Prep. Kylie Cantrall and Malia Baker take the lead, while China Anne McClain and Melanie Paxson resume their roles from the original films.
The Nun II (2023) ★★★
Sky Cinema Premiere, 8pm
Internationally, the biggest hit to date in the Conjuring franchise is a spin-off: The Nun (2018), which was the fifth film, and one of the silliest. It grossed $366 m worldwide from a mere $22 m budget, proof that scary nuns drum up cracking business overseas. This sequel involves much of the same demonic terror and religious allegory, with Taissa Farmiga as holier-than-thou Sister Irene and Bonnie Aarons as her demonic counterpart.
I Give It a Year (2013) ★★★
BBC One, 10.40pm
This cheerfully abrasive British comedy (directed by Sacha Baron Cohen’s regular writing partner, Dan Mazer) offers a fresh twist on a tested format, starting with a happy ending and asking what comes next. Rose Byrne and Rafe Spall crackle with chemistry to play two newlyweds whose first year of marriage is more testing than the whirlwind romance that preceded it. In support are Olivia Colman and Minnie Driver.
Television previewers
Stephen Kelly (SK), Veronica Lee (VL), Gerard O’Donovan (GO), Poppie Platt (PP) and Gabriel Tate (GT)
