From David Attenborough’s latest maritime marvel, to David Tennant starring in phone-hacking drama series The Hack, to the arrival of Steven Knight’s bombastic series House of Guinness, here’s what to look forward to, and catch up on, this week.
What’s on TV tonight?
Deep Ocean: Kingdom of the Coelacanth
BBC One/iPlayer, 8.10pm
It’s hard to believe that in less than a year, David Attenborough will turn 100, yet is still regularly lending his familiar and authoritative narration to projects like this fascinating one-off documentary. It feels an important film that is shedding light on a mysterious fish thought to be the missing link between fish and all land-living backboned animals, including humans. The coelacanth (pronounced seal-uh-canth) is a fish whose fossilised skeletons have been found in rocks that are 400 million years old. It was believed that coelacanths had been wiped out with the dinosaurs until, in 1938, a living one was found.
Now, cameras follow a team of academics and experts on high-tech submersibles as they explore the deep sea near the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia in search of living coelacanths. The mini-submarines creep along the ocean floor searching out these unusual creatures, as scientists explain how their bony fins – which no other fish have – propel them in a way reminiscent of the way limbs work. Experts speculate that from coelacanths evolved animals with arms and legs, eventually crawling out of the sea and evolving into terrestrial life. It’s a blue-chip project about a gripping subject – and it’s got the Attenborough seal of approval.
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Tulsa King
Paramount+
The third series of this Sylvester Stallone vehicle reveals who abducted Dwight “The General” Manfredi (Stallone) and what they want, which leaves the mobster with a dilemma. He breaks ties with his girlfriend (Dana Delany) and considers a new venture, all with the slow-moving swagger and wisecracks we expect of Stallone.
Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams: Ultimate Test
BBC One, 8.15pm; all episodes are already available on iPlayer
Flintoff hits a sticky wicket in the penultimate episode of his engaging series, when low turnouts at Manchester and Liverpool threaten the viability of the new clubs. The girls’ team is overwhelmed by their first opponents, private school pupils with top-notch facilities. The show benefits hugely from Flintoff’s charisma and heart.
Rob and Rylan’s Passage to India
BBC One, 9pm; all episodes are already available on iPlayer
Rob Rinder and Rylan Clark’s odyssey continues with a trip to Rajasthan, where the pair are dazzled by castles and jewels, including some explicit statuettes. The travelogue comes alive thanks to the pair’s offbeat banter, with Clark divulging his unusual habits and the men having poignant chats about love.
Coldwater
ITV, 9pm; all episodes are already available on ITVX
Tonight’s third episode of this unsettling thriller sees Tommy (Ewen Bremner) and Rebecca’s (Eve Myles) son Cameron disappear, and their reaction sheds new light on secrets in the creepy Christian couple’s relationship. Tommy continues to reclaim his debt from John (Andrew Lincoln), pushing the latter into more bad decisions. An engaging if preposterous suburban thriller.
The Covid Contracts: Follow the Money
ITV/ITVX, 10.15pm
A documentary to make your blood boil; it takes a critical look at the Johnson government’s “VIP lane” created during the pandemic to award contracts for PPE and Covid tests. It alleges that many contractors recommended by party members made a killing during Covid, despite selling substandard products, and how that wastage has left Brits with an onerous tax burden. VP
What’s on TV this week?
Monday 22 September
Chris van Tulleken (c) explores the current risk of another pandemic – BBC
Disease X: Hunting the Pandemic
BBC Two/iPlayer, 9pm
The consistently alarming content of this hour-long Horizon documentary is to some extent mitigated by the involvement of Dr Chris van Tulleken, a reassuring and sensible presence throughout his investigation into the next pandemic – something considered more or less inevitable by WHO virologists. It could, he explains, be a variant on a known virus or something entirely new, something more or less harmless to humans, or something lethal. Fortunately, there are experts monitoring, analysing and preparing, and van Tulleken travels to Geneva, Malaysia and Bangladesh to watch their work.
After considering Japanese encephalitis and Nipah – the impact of which leaves even van Tulleken visibly shaken – H5N1, otherwise known as bird flu, is identified as a leading contender. While not yet transferring to humans to any effect, despite suspected infections of cow’s milk in the United States, it is ripe with possibility for mutation. The most arresting sequence comes as three scenarios for a new pandemic are tested, depending on the pathogen’s fatality levels. The results are sobering if not downright terrifying, but it’s further evidence that knowledge is power, science is worth following, and experts remain an essential commodity.
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British Open Snooker
ITV4/ITVX, 12.45pm & 6.45pm
Mark Selby will begin the defence of his title in a 32-strong field against rank outsider David Grace, while Judd Trump, Ronnie O’Sullivan and world champion Zhao Xintong will also be in action today. Coverage continues across the week.
Panorama: Gaza – Dying for Food
BBC One/iPlayer, 8pm; NI, 8.30pm; Scot, 11.40pm
Jeremy Bowen reports on the food shortages now affecting millions of displaced Palestinians as Israel intensifies its military campaign, the motives and competence of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation are called into question and several nations, the UK among them, prepare to recognise a Palestinian state at the United Nations.
The Guest
BBC One/iPlayer, 9pm
This enjoyably ludicrous thriller comes to a suitably intense climax, as Ria (Gabrielle Creevy) has to dodge the police and the increasingly deranged Fran (Eve Myles) in the hunt for evidence to clear her name.
Ancient Autopsy
More4, 9pm
Professor Susannah Lipscomb begins her ambitious four-part survey of famous historical deaths with Cleopatra, considering whether her demise came about from a snake bite. Forensic pathologist Dr Richard Shepherd is on hand to apply some modern techniques to a mystery enduring for millennia in a solid if low-key affair.
Anthony Wall Remembers… Arena
BBC Four/iPlayer, 10pm
With Alan Yentob gone, Anthony Wall is the last remaining custodian of Arena’s glory years, when the style of the arts strand was as idiosyncratic as its subject matter. The series editor here introduces three classics from the archives as proof: a consideration of the legacy of Paul Anka’s My Way at 10.15pm, a profile of William Golding at 10.50pm, and a piece on the cultural significance of the banana at 12.20am. GT
Tuesday 23 September
Jon Richardson joins the cast of Waterloo Road – BBC
Waterloo Road
BBC One, 9pm & 10.40pm; all episodes will be available on iPlayer
The arrival of new headteacher Dame Stella Drake (Lindsey Coulson) at the beginning, and the return of ex-head Mr Rimmer (Jason Merrells) at the end, were two of the most successful developments last series. So it is to major new characters that the long-running schoolroom drama looks again, as it returns for a 16th run. The star appointment is comedian Jon Richardson – familiar from years as a team captain on Channel 4’s 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown – who comes on board as the school’s charismatic new media studies teacher, Darius Donovan, and quickly starts shaking things up in the staffroom. Just as important, though, are newcomers Fintan Buckard and Savannah Kunyo, who play Ben and Hope Drake, Dame Stella’s entertainingly spirited grandchildren, whom she’s taken in since their mother (an occasionally-appearing Christine Bottomley) suffered a breakdown.
It’s a promising set-up for another incident-packed series, though less promising is Waterloo Road’s new double-tap format, which sees a second episode air after the News, at 10.40pm. An acknowledgement that younger fans are far likelier to watch on iPlayer (where the series is available as boxset from 6am today).
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Crime Scene Zero
Netflix
A South Korean variation on the murder-mystery weekend. In a unique twist, every player takes on the roles of both suspect and detective, engaging in mind games, misdirection and battles of deduction to outsmart the competition and uncover the truth about who’s guilty. A bit shouty, but fun.
Michael Portillo’s 200 Years of the Railways
BBC Two/iPlayer, 8pm
The pastel-hued railway enthusiast begins the concluding part of his bicentennial tribute in Derby, joining the 40,000-strong crowd admiring the largest-ever gathering of historic locomotives, before heading to Manchester to step back in time on the world’s first intercity line.
The Great British Bake Off
Channel 4, 8pm
A first-ever “back to school” themed week finds the bakers put to the test by flapjacks, a school-cake Technical with a catch, and a school-fete Showstopper overflowing with nostalgic tuck-shop treats.
Michael Palin in Venezuela
Channel 5, 9pm
From enjoying a deserted idyllic beach resort to being detained by heavily armed government agents, our most venerable TV traveller (and pioneering comedian; his response to an encounter with an anaconda: “Are there any pythons here?”) continues his tour, gently highlighting the extreme contradictions of a country that’s breathtakingly beautiful yet ruled by a ruthless autocrat.
Romesh: Can’t Knock the Hustle
Sky Max/NOW, 10pm
In the first of four shows – part stand-up, part comedy travelogue – Romesh Ranganathan performs his Hustle stand-up tour gig in full at the O2 in London, before heading off to India, the US, South Korea and Canada to debunk all the claims he made in it (but failed to fact-check) about the modern obsession with work, self-improvement and success. GO
Wednesday 24 September
David Tennant stars as journalist Nick Davies – ITV
The Hack
ITV1, 9pm; all episodes will be available on ITVX
You are likely familiar with the broad strokes of the phone-hacking scandal. The revelations that News of the World journalists had been illegally hacking into the voicemails of celebrities, royals, politicians and vulnerable members of the public led to the closure of the paper in 2011.
This tremendous seven-part drama tells a more complex story, however. It follows tenacious Guardian journalist Nick Davies, played by David Tennant, as he investigates a tip-off about invasions of privacy on Fleet Street. There are shades of Mr Bates Vs The Post Office in how deftly it dramatises an ostensibly dry topic. Not to mention Toby Jones’s appearance as Davies’s editor, Alan Rusbridger.
But The Hack, written by Adolescence’s Jack Thorne, is far more stylistic affair. The irreverent Davies, for instance, often breaks the fourth wall to talk us through the details, his narration chopping and changing like rewritten copy. This playfulness can tip into indulgence (such as a cameo-laden gag about anonymous sources), but it is rare to watch a drama so alive with ideas and anger. As tonight’s episode argues, this is not just an inside baseball story about the press, but a scandal extending into police corruption, government judgment and even murder.
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Slow Horses
Apple TV+
Gary Oldman’s profane, farting MI5 pro Jackson Lamb is as hilarious as ever. Yet the fifth series of this sublime spy thriller belongs to Christopher Chung’s obnoxious hacker Roddy, who finds himself tied up in a terrorist conspiracy. The biggest clue that something is wrong? He has a date.
Hotel Costiera
Amazon Prime Video
Handsome ex-marine Daniel de Luca (Jesse Williams), a fixer for an Italian luxury hotel on the Amalfi Coast, solves mysteries ranging from kidnapped dogs to murdered guests. Yes, that’s right – another cosy Death in Paradise-esque crime drama! This one is big on budget but lacking in spark.
Sneaker Wars: Adidas v Puma
Disney+
In 1948, two feuding brothers from Germany set up two competing sportswear companies, Adidas and Puma. This lavish three-part documentary (featuring interviews with David Beckham and Usain Bolt) goes behind the scenes of both brands and tells the story of how a sibling rivalry became a battle for dominance.
Shakespeare and Hathaway: Private Investigators
U&Alibi, 8pm
The fifth series of this whimsical murder mystery finds Shakespeare (Jo Joyner) and Hathaway (Mark Benton) having gone their separate ways. The reasons why are a mystery. But it does lead to a delightful plot involving each of them being hired by a different side of a feuding married couple.
The Shadow Scholars: Fake Essay Scandal
Channel 4, 10pm
This fascinating documentary follows Oxford professor Patricia Kingori as she investigates the shadowy business of highly educated Kenyans being hired to write academic essays for students in the US and UK. Unsurprisingly, it is yet another industry feeling the threat of artificial intelligence.
Thursday 25 September
Anthony Boyle and Louis Partridge star as the heirs to the Guinness brewery – Netflix
House of Guinness
Netflix
House of Guinness starts with a ruck. Of course it does. It’s a Steven Knight drama and as such shares with Great Expectations, A Thousand Blows and Peaky Blinders many of his enduring fascinations: the fires of industry; family dynasties operating on the margins of legality; hot-headed men and pragmatic matriarchs; urgent, anachronistic soundtracks; and rucks. It takes as its premise a succession struggle following the death of Sir Benjamin Guinness in 1868, the brewing baron whose children now aspire to take his creation global against opposition from both Fenians and the temperance movement. The future of the firm and, it is implied, of Ireland herself, depends on their ability to work together.
Thus, the four siblings must resolve their own differences: Anthony Boyle is contained Arthur to Louis Partridge’s ambitious Edward; desperate, drunk Benjamin Jr (Fionn O’Shea) is the loose cannon, while Anne’s (Emily Fairn) cautious wisdom could yet be derailed by a liaison with James Norton’s family enforcer. As you’d expect from a Knight series, hardscrabble Dublin is persuasively realised and its roaring swagger and confidence is powered by Kneecap, Fontaines DC and other leading lights of modern Celtic music. Loads of style, but a fair bit of substance too.
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Alice in Borderland
Netflix
Netflix’s most-watched Japanese series returns for a third run and proves as hectic as ever, with Usagi (Tao Tsuchiya) and Arisu (Kento Yamazaki) mysteriously separated and Arisu forced to play the most dangerous game of all to locate her.
Wayward
Netflix
If Mae Martin’s Feel Good was the acme of semi-autobiographical sadcom, new eight-parter Wayward is another inspired genre mash-up of procedural, coming-of-ager and dark thriller, in part drawing on Martin’s own past as a “troubled teen”. When Martin’s cop takes an interest in a small-town academy aimed at “solving the problem” of adolescence and led by Toni Collette’s ominously charismatic tyrant, all manner of grim secrets are disinterred.
The Newsreader
BBC Two, 9pm; all episodes are already available on iPlayer
Helen (Anna Torv) is shocked to find her past mental health struggles on a newspaper front page, as this excellent Aussie melodrama continues, meanwhile Dale (Sam Reid) is cracking under the pressure of Lindsay’s (William McInnes) pitiless blackmail.
All Creatures Great and Small
Channel 5, 9pm
It’s 1945 and the war is drawing to a close. But while Mrs Hall (Anna Madeley) is still absent, Tristan’s (Callum Woodhouse) return cannot drag Siegfried (Samuel West) from his funk as his dissolute behaviour causes increasing concern. Meanwhile, a sickly sheepdog is making life hard for a local farmer in another irresistible slice of Yorkshire charm to launch a welcome sixth series.
Brassic
Sky Max, 9pm; all episodes will be available on NOW
This seventh series will bring the curtain down on Joe Gilgun’s joyously anarchic comedy-drama, with former foes, estranged relations and the law presenting ever sterner – but somehow never insurmountable – challenges to the gang’s dubious methods of scratching a living. GT
Friday 26 September
Jessica Chastain stars as an amateur investigator – Apple
The Savant
Apple TV+
Jessica Chastain’s new thriller, about a hate-crime investigator’s descent into the crazed world of right-wing extremism in the US, is a very slow-burn to begin with. But it’s worth sticking with because there’s nothing else quite like it on television. Much of tonight’s opening two episodes (of eight) are spent trying to pin down who, precisely, the elusive main character Jodi Goodwin (Chastain) is, what she does for a living, and why she deserves as admiring a sobriquet as the “Savant” of the title.
That’s possibly because the plot is based on a 2019 Cosmopolitan article about a domestic-terrorism plot that was foiled by a real-life digital vigilante known only as K, who spent her life tracking dangerous men online – racists, misogynists, violent extremists – and had a gift for telling the FBI when angry message-board ranting would spiral into real-life violence. Here, Jodi works obsessively for an anti-hate charity, spending her days and nights secretly tracking social media and chatroom posts for signs of violence to come. When one of her colleagues accidentally draws the attention of right-wing nutters planning a terrorist “spectacular”, she’s drawn into a deadly – and nail-bitingly atmospheric – game of cat-and-mouse.
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Live Ryder Cup
Sky Sports Main Event, from noon; highlights on BBC Two, midnight
Live coverage, from Bethpage Black golf course on Long Island, of the first day’s play of the fiercely contested biennial showdown between Team Europe and Team USA. Last time, in Rome, Europe notched up a decisive victory, so expect the Americans to come out fighting.
MasterChef
BBC One/iPlayer, 8pm
It’s bye-bye Gregg Wallace and John Torode tonight, as well as the climax of the globally successful cookery competition they presided over for two decades. As ever, the closing act of finals week challenges the contestants to cook a three-course meal that’s as inventive as it is technically perfect – and deserving of the title MasterChef Champion 2025.
Stranded on Honeymoon Island: The Final Flare
BBC One/iPlayer, 9pm
The BBC’s imagination-free mash-up of every other dating show on air limps to its conclusion. Tonight, with the honeymoon phase over and their bags packed, the contestants face one last surprise – a visit from host Davina McCall and an unexpected final “flare-out”.
Sister Boniface Mysteries
U&Drama, 9pm
The convent-based cosy crime drama embarks on a fourth series with Lorna Watson back in the habit as TV’s only Vespa-driving crime-fighting nun. This time Boniface investigates when a TV star’s zipline stunt goes fatally wrong. There’s also an earlier episode, from season two, on BBC One at 2pm.
The Graham Norton Show
BBC One/iPlayer, 10.40pm
The nation’s favourite chat show is back and, as ever, attracting the biggest names on the promo circuit. This week: film stars Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt, Oscar-winner Matthew McConaughey and White Lotus star Aimee Lou Wood, plus Raye provides the music. GO
Television previewers
Stephen Kelly (SK), Veronica Lee (VL), Gerard O’Donovan (GO), Vicki Power (VP) and Gabriel Tate (GT)
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