What’s on TV tonight: The Last of Us, Mayor of Kingstown and more

Monday 16 January

The Last of Us
Sky Atlantic, 2am & 9pm
After the bewildering tedium of Halo and with The Walking Dead having run the post-apocalyptic zombie genre into the ground, could The Last of Us revive both cannibal holocausts and video-game adaptations? This opener (the first of nine) is encouraging: John Hannah, of all people, plays an urbane scientist explaining to a sceptical 1968 talk-show host the terrifying prospect of global fungal infection. We then move to 2003 and a gripping depiction of society unknowingly on the precipice (co-creator Craig Mazin bringing his experience on Chernobyl to bear) as Pedro Pascal’s Joel scrapes a living in Texas with his brother (Gabriel Luna) and daughter (Nico Parker). News reports of “something” happening in Jakarta play in the background, fighter jets buzz and all hell breaks loose, horrifyingly. 

The rest of the episode is devoted to a familiar but efficiently realised picture of American dystopia: 2023, and Joel is in a quarantine zone in Boston, run by a brutal military and peopled with survivalists, revolutionaries and misfits – among them Bella Ramsey’s enigmatic, spiky Ellie, who holds a crucial secret and a shared destiny. Tense, grim, vivid and not just for fans. GT

Mayor of Kingstown
Paramount+
As Jeremy Renner recuperates from injury following a snowplough accident, the series which makes the most of his contained charisma returns: Renner’s compromised small-town official is dealing with the aftermath of a prison riot, the ramifications of which rumble on in the outside world.

Junior Bake Off
Channel 4, 5pm
After an underwhelming main series, the unblemished junior version returns for a fourth run, with Harry Hill the perfect host and Liam Charles and Ravneet Gill sympathetically critical judges. The first batch of bakes includes a sponge classic and a showstopper reflecting what they would do if they became Prime Minister.

Silent Witness
BBC One, 9pm
The venerable policier takes on social media, as the police ask the Lyell team, led by Dr Nikki Alexander (Emilia Fox), for help in a case where they have become lost in the smoke and mirrors of influencers. The story continues tomorrow.

Maternal
ITV1, 9pm
Parminder Nagra, Lara Pulver and Lisa McGrillis make a formidable trio at the heart of this six-part medical drama, respectively playing a paediatrician, surgeon and registrar in acute medicine, all of them returning to work after maternity leave and finding the challenges of family and work close to irreconcilable. It is not This is Going to Hurt, by former doctor Adam Kay, but Jacqui Honess-Martin’s script digs deeper and skews darker than first impressions might suggest.

999: On the Front Line
Channel 4, 9pm
It’s hard to think of a more apt time for this immersive series with the emergency services past breaking point; although these episodes were filmed last spring, they offer compelling evidence of the extraordinary efforts of those on the frontline. Tonight, the West Midlands Ambulance Service paramedics respond to cardiac arrests, an epileptic seizure and a broken hip.

Love Island
ITV2, 9pm
Already? The ninth series – the first of two in 2023! – begins as another group of photogenic romantics start their journeys towards influencer infamy. Maya Jama takes over from Laura Whitmore as host, while Iain Stirling remains the familiar narrator and South Africa once again the venue for this winter outing. 

Bank of Dave (2023)
Netflix
This biopic is based on the real life of Dave Fishwick, a working-class man from Burnley, Lancashire, who became a self-made millionaire. Rather than spend his riches on fancy cars and big houses, though, he was intent on giving back to his hometown and helping local businesses thrive after the 2007 financial crisis. This meant taking on the elite banks – and what results is a moving tale of taking the fight to the man. Death in Paradise’s Chris Foggin directs.

Isle of Dogs (2018) ★★★★
Film4, 6.55pm
This stop-motion animation is Wes Anderson’s weirdest concoction to date and his most daring too. It’s about a diseased community of unwanted mutts, voiced by a typically starry cast made up of Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston, Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum and Edward Norton, who are dumped on an island off the coast of a dystopian Japan. A young boy named Atari (Koyu Rankin) races to help them. It’s dark, but there’s beauty in this vision of distress.

A Bigger Splash (2015) ★★★★
BBC Two, 11.15pm
Director Luca Guadagnino’s psychological drama is loosely based on the 1969 Jacques Deray film La Piscine; this features a stellar cast, made up of Hollywood heavyweights such as Tilda Swinton, Ralph Fiennes and Dakota Johnson. The second instalment in Guadagnino’s Desire trilogy (following I Am Love and preceding Call Me by Your Name), it sees Swinton’s rock star’s idyllic Italian holiday turn into a murderous nightmare.

Tuesday 17 January

The Family Pile
ITV1, 9.30pm
As any lawyer will tell you, families all love each other until the will is read, and Brian Dooley’s sitcom delves into the rich territory of how bereavement can affect us. Set in Liverpool, it follows four sisters who have to sell their childhood home following their mother’s death, and in the process they revert back to familiar roles – the responsible one, the spoiled one, and so on – as old rivalries and newly discovered enmities rear their ugly heads.

The sisters all carry some emotional baggage: Nicole (Amanda Abbington) is keen to move on after the bereavement, Yvette (Clare Calbraith) is single and unfussy about sleeping with married men, fitness-mad Ursula (Claire Keelan) is child- and friend-phobic, while the youngest, Gaynor (Alexandra Mardell), thinks the world revolves around her. Various children and partners – including Gaynor’s dim-witted husband, Greg (James Nelson-Joyce), complete the picture. It has a strong cast and some smart lines although much of the opener is broad brush. It’s made by the same producers of Derry Girls and Stuck, but (so far at least) hasn’t the big laughs of the former or the nuance of the latter. All episodes are on ITVX. VL

Breakfast
BBC One, 6am
Rise and shine for a large dollop of nostalgia as the show celebrates its 40th anniversary. Jon Kay and Sally Nugent present as usual; from 8.30am (for half an hour) the show will be rebranded as its original title, Breakfast Time. Among the guests are weatherman Francis Wilson and Diana Moran (aka The Green Goddess), who recreates an Eighties fitness routine at Waterloo Station.

Winterwatch
BBC Two, 8pm
The team are back with more nature treats and sightings of badgers and wildfowl as Chris Packham and Michaela Strachan set up camp at Wild Ken Hill in Norfolk, while Iolo Williams and Gillian Burke are in Edinburgh. 

Know Your S**t: Inside Our Guts
Channel 4, 8pm
The eye-catching title belies a serious subject in this new popular science series about good gut health, where twin-sister presenters Alana Macfarlane Kempner and Lisa Macfarlane meet people willing to talk on national television about their bowel problems. The tone is relentlessly upbeat – it’s filmed at the cringingly named “Poo HQ” – but dietician Sophie Medlin and gastroenterologist Rabia Topan are on hand to dish out sound advice.

India: The Modi Question
BBC Two, 9pm
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi has been accused of fomenting unrest about his country’s minority Muslim population, a claim he denies. This two-part documentary investigates these allegations, including claims about his role in the 2002 riots in which more than 1,000 people were killed.

Bradley & Barney Walsh: Breaking Dad
ITV1, 9pm
All the bantz as The Chase presenter Bradley Walsh and his adrenaline-junkie son Barney reach Guatemala on their latest road trip; they abseil into a waterfall and ride bikes on a tightrope 25 metres above the ground. 

Punchdrunk: Behind the Mask
Sky Arts, 10.15pm
If you’ve only ever sat in an auditorium to watch a play, then a Punchdrunk show is unlike anything you’ve ever experienced. Its large-scale works take over whole buildings and plunge the viewer right into the story as they walk through a multi-layered live performance (its most recent, The Burnt City, is based on the myths of the Trojan War). This documentary charts the story of the theatre company which, as one contributor puts it, “marries the epic and the intimate”. 

Run Silent, Run Deep (1958, b/w) ★★★★
Film4, 2.40pm
This effective and shimmeringly tense Second World War drama concentrates on the rivalry between a US Navy submarine commander (Clark Gable) and an insubordinate officer (Burt Lancaster). Both leads are excellent. The setting revels in the claustrophobic tension of 40 fathoms down and below-decks rivalries are broilingly played out. Based on Edward L Beach’s novel, it’s Moby Dick by way of Mutiny on the Bounty.

Castle Keep (1969) ★★★
Great! Movies Action, 5.05pm
Here’s more Burt Lancaster to enjoy; American GIs led by a one-eyed Lancaster take refuge in a castle packed with art treasures during the Battle of the Bulge. The owner, an eccentric Count (Jean-Pierre Aumont), grows increasingly anxious about the advancing Germans. Released just months before director Sydney Pollack wowed audiences with They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, it’s worth a watch.

Love & Mercy (2014) ★★★★
BBC Two, 11.15pm
Bill Pohlad’s biopic of Brian Wilson, the mastermind behind The Beach Boys, gives us two versions of this mercurial character. Played by Paul Dano and, decades on, by John Cusack, it’s a probing, cross-decades look at a man whose adulthood was broken in half by success, depression and exploitation by his psychologist. It’s also excellent at testing the line between mental breakdown and creative genius.

Wednesday 18 January

Surgeons: At the Edge of Life
BBC Two, 9pm
The Major Trauma Unit at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge deals with only the most urgent and gruesome of life-threatening injuries. Ben, 33, for instance, has been rushed to hospital after crashing his motorcycle into a metal gate. He has broken his femur, requiring a complex operation, and one of his lungs has collapsed. He’s in so much pain that he has been administered ketamine, which has given him a euphoric high. As the staff lift him from his trolley, he shouts “wheeeeeee!” like a child. It is a darkly comic moment in an otherwise sobering episode of the fly-on-the-wall series, which returns for a fifth series. 

The most serious case is that of single mother of four Jasvinder, who has broken her spine, severing her spinal cord, after a car accident. As a doctor pin-pricks her from head to toe, we see her realise that she can’t feel anything from the waist down. It is as tragic as it is haunting; although it does lead to a miraculous procedure where surgeons reconnect her spine, restoring some movement in her upper body. It is extraordinary, life-affirming stuff, although be prepared for some truly nasty, stomach-turning gore. SK

My Cornwall with Fern Britton 
Channel 5, 8pm
Fern Britton finishes up her Cornish road trip with an episode themed around local industry. She visits the ancient hundreds of Kerrier and Penwith, which have been in use as farming land since the Bronze Age, as well as the Tin Coast, which used to play host to a prosperous mining industry.

Landscape Artist of the Year 2023
Sky Arts, 8pm
The painters are off to the races this week, where they must capture the hustle and bustle of the Grandstand at Royal Ascot. The complex crowds prove a challenge for the artists, but the bigger problem is the unpredictable horses themselves. Joan Bakewell and Stephen Mangan host. 

Next Level Chef
ITV1, 9pm
Gordon Ramsay’s high-octane cooking competition continues into its second week, with the remaining 11 contestants challenged with cooking Italian cuisine. Depending on their performances last week, however, they will either be cooking pasta in a top-flight kitchen or a basement full of basics.

No Place Like Home
Channel 5, 9pm
Actor and comedian Ben Miller continues this second series of trips down memory lane, which follows celebrities as they return to their hometowns. Miller travels back to Nantwich in Cheshire to revisit his old family home. He also delves into the town’s history, discovering the touching stories of how locals took in child evacuees during the Second World War.

Hold the Front Page
Sky Max, 9pm
Comedians Josh Widdicombe and Nish Kumar’s quest to get published on the front page of Britain’s local newspapers hits a bump when the delightfully intimidating Yorkshire Post editor James Mitchinson tells them they have “zero, no chance at all” of landing a big story. Nonetheless, they visit the set of Emmerdale and explore the caves of Yorkshire in the misplaced hope of changing his mind.

Ken Loach: This Cultural Life
BBC Four, 10pm
Kes director Ken Loach sits down to discuss the cultural influences that have inspired his work. Following this discussion is a repeat of his acclaimed TV play Up the Junction, which sparked controversy and debate in 1965 due to its portrayal of a back-street abortion. 

Goodbye Christopher Robin (2017) ★★★
Film4, 6.40pm
This not-so-cuddly biopic (not to be confused with Disney’s 2018 Ewan McGregor-led tear-jerker Christopher Robin) reveals the sadness behind Winnie-the-Pooh – a broken family – and suggests that the idyll depicted in the books was a momentary respite from their trauma. Domhnall Gleeson and Margot Robbie star as AA Milne and his wife, Dorothy, while Will Tilston is a delight as their young son.

King of Thieves (2018) ★★★
BBC One, 10.40pm
Based on the true story of the elderly master-thieves that shocked the nation back in 2015, this thriller brings prestige talent including Michael Gambon, Jim Broadbent, Michael Caine, Tom Courtenay and Ray Winstone together to dramatise the famed Hatton Garden safe deposit burglary, where £14 million was stolen. The dialogue is a bit stilted, but the truly exceptional cast stands out and keeps the drama ticking along. 

Croupier (1998) ★★★
Film4, 11.20pm
Clive Owen stars as Jack Manfred in Mike Hodge’s neo-noir about a cocky aspiring writer who gets a job as a croupier to cover his debts. But when Manfred starts to break all the rules of the casino world, his life begins to unravel. Owen’s performance is excellent, and helped to relaunch his acting career. He may even have won an Oscar – if the film hadn’t been disqualified from the awards for being shown on Dutch television, that is.

Thursday 19 January

The Chemistry of Death
Paramount+
The streaming service continues its forays into British drama with further mild tweaks to genre, this time adapting Simon Beckett’s David Hunter series of novels with an effectively sparse production, a suffocating atmosphere and profoundly unsettling sound design. The series also benefits from an appealingly shifty and haunted lead performance from Harry Treadaway as a new GP in the Norfolk Broads. Carrying a secret trauma, the doctor’s past in forensic anthropology comes in handy when a mutilated body is discovered in the woods. When further violence grips the area and a woman disappears, it leaves the police baffled and Hunter first a suspect then a useful ally whose particular set of skills are related in detail over a redundant, pseudo-philosophical voice-over.

The mystery element may offer little that feels new, but alongside Treadaway’s intriguing lead there is classy support from Lucian Msamati, Samuel Anderson and Jeanne Goursaud, a keen feel for the claustrophobia of village life, and a smart balance of the intellectual and the macabre. Just enough, in short, to make this a distinctive addition to the roster of crime thrillers. Well worth a look. GT

That ’90s Show
Netflix
Continuing its habit of reviving or reinventing inexplicably popular US sitcoms, Netflix creates a third iteration of That ’70s Show, with 1995 Wisconsin the setting, Red and Kitty (Kurtwood Smith and Debra Jo Rupp) now grandparents and their granddaughter (Callie Haverda) camping out in the basement for all manner of japes.

Women at War
Netflix
Bought in from French broadcaster TF1, this solid if soapy miniseries starring Spiral’s Audrey Fleurot follows four women – a nurse, a sex worker, a nun and an aristocrat – as they deal with life near the Western Front in 1914.

Dragons’ Den
BBC One, 8pm
Chutneys, accessible gardening and refillable fragrances are among the wheezes tonight; as ever, the pleasure comes from the best ideas falling flat and the worst being somehow redeemed.

Murdoch Mysteries
Alibi, 9pm
Crime shows don’t reach 16 series without knowing their audience, and if Murdoch Mysteries is as formulaic as they come, it is none the worse for that. Shaking things up in tonight’s opener is Derry Girls’ Siobhán McSweeney as the ornery aunt of our hero William Murdoch (Yannick Bisson) – her supposed clairvoyance causes Murdoch’s deputy (Jonny Harris) to call off his engagement, while two corpses at a cemetery present a dilemma for the detectives.

The Apprentice
BBC One, 9pm
As dreadful as most Apprentice candidates are at so many of their tasks, any assignments in which they have to somehow relate to children invariably see them plumb new depths of ineptitude. This week’s test is no different, as the would-be tycoons must create a pitch for a new pre-school cartoon; the results, it is fair to say, won’t give Hey Duggee’s creators sleepless nights.

Britain’s Notorious Prisons: Wormwood Scrubs
ITV1, 9pm
Just about managing to fall the right side of the divide between hard-nosed journalism and lip-smacking voyeurism, this grim documentary about the west London institution – once a model of prison reform – relates assorted stories of inmates both famous and notorious (Keith Richards, Pete Doherty, Peter Sutcliffe, the Krays) while attempting to explain why the violent reputation of the prison has proven so hard to shake. 

Green Book (2018) ★★★
BBC Four, 9pm
Peter Farrelly’s Oscar-winner is ingratiating without offering much meat. It’s based on the true story of black pianist Don Shirley’s (a regal Mahershala Ali) tour of the American Deep South in 1962, told from the perspective of Frank “Tony Lip” Vallelonga (Viggo Mortensen), his Italian-American chauffeur, whose prejudices are softened by his drive with Shirley. The charismatic leads are great company, but this is thin stuff.

Bombshell (2019) ★★★
Film4, 9pm
Released off the back of 2017’s MeToo movement and the death of Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, this starry biopic detailed the sexual harassment endured by his female staff members. Charlize Theron plays anchor Megyn Kelly, Nicole Kidman is Gretchen Carlson, and Margot Robbie is newbie Kayla – a fictional character based off of multiple victims’ testimonies. The three leads are great, but the film fails to pack the emotional heft it should do.

First Man (2018) ★★★★
Film4, 11.15pm
Damien Chazelle’s last film before this month’s ode to old-Hollywood glamour, Babylon, presents the last leg of the Space Race as seen through the eyes of Ryan Gosling’s Neil Armstrong. Gosling delivers another star-turn as an Armstrong who is both a reluctant hero and a man mired in grief, following the death of his two-year-old daughter Karen from a brain tumour. It’s worth watching for the wondrous moon landing finale alone.

Friday 20 January

Travel Man: 48 Hours in Dublin
Channel 4, 8.30pm
“So, out of all the hot places in the world, you’ve brought me to Dublin,” bemoans Mawaan Rizwan. You have to sympathise with the comedian – the travelogue series has most recently jetted guests away to Rio de Janeiro and Vilnius (and visited 50 other far away places over 11 series), meaning an overnight stay in the drizzling Irish capital was never going to feel like the most exotic of treats. Especially not for Rizwan, who was secretly hoping for a trip to Ibiza. 

But host Joe Lycett is having none of it. “It’s a fabulous city,” he insists, before whisking Rizwan away to appreciate some of the city’s 275, er, statues. From there they go on to order the entire menu at Dublin’s smallest restaurant, drink a pint of Ireland’s most famous alcoholic beverage at the Guinness Storehouse, and brave a bracing early-morning dip at the Forty Foot bathing spot. Even if the pair never really get round to sampling the city’s many more sophisticated, historically significant, or above all, lively pleasures (everywhere they visit is, mysteriously, empty of Dublin’s biggest attraction – the teeming crowds of people out to have a good time) they still manage to have plenty of fun. GO

Fauda
Netflix
The explosive Israeli drama based around the Israel-Palestine conflict returns for a delayed fourth series (filming had to move to Budapest from Ukraine when Russia invaded). While previous seasons focused on the West Bank, here Doron (Lior Raz) and his counterterrorism unit begin working in Lebanon and Belgium, too.

Represent
Netflix
Watch out, Macron! Poised to be an early breakout hit for 2023, this six-part French political comedy, about a youth leader from the Paris suburbs who cuts through to become a candidate in the presidential election, pushes all the right buttons and hits the right notes. Is France ready for its first black president?

Amanda & Alan’s Italian Job
BBC One, 8.30pm
Despite neither seeming handy with a hacksaw, best pals Amanda Holden and Alan Carr are renovating a Sicilian property – having purchased an adjoining pair of them for €1 each. In the third episode, they’re onto the bathroom. But Holden wants a rolltop bath, which you can’t get in Italy, and a disco ball… to Carr’s horror. 

Death in Paradise
BBC One, 9pm
In another low-stakes visit to Saint Marie, a property scam to “sell” one of island’s most beautiful, publicly owned beaches to unsuspecting investors goes fatally wrong, but DI Parker (Ralf Little) and DS Thomas (Shantol Jackson) struggle to find any evidence of a murderer. Meanwhile Marlon’s (Taj Miles) efforts to impress the Commissioner (Don Warrington) don’t go down as well he hopes. 

Jon & Lucy’s Odd Couples
Channel 4, 9pm
Jon Richardson and Lucy Beaumont’s droll Mr & Mrs update finds two more celebrity couples eager to prove that theirs is the perfect partnership. Comedians Sara Pascoe and Steen Raskopoulos take on singer Duncan James and Rodrigo Reis in silly challenges – while relationship therapist Charlene Douglas vets their behaviour.

The Graham Norton Show
BBC One, 10.40pm
The ever-versatile Michelle Williams (she played a screen icon in My Week With Marilyn, a brilliant Broadway actress in Fosse/Verdon and, now, Steven Spielberg’s mother in The Fabelmans) joins Nolly star Helena Bonham Carter, It’s a Sin writer Russell T Davies, The Whale star Brendan Fraser and dancer Oti Mabuse on the sofa. 

Ben Is Back (2018) ★★★
BBC Three, 9pm
Teenage drug addict Ben Burns (Lucas Hedges) returns home to his family on Christmas Eve, unleashing a torrent of difficult truths over the next 24 hours that threaten to rip them apart. His mother (Julia Roberts) grapples with her attempts to save Ben from his addiction, with the pressures of keeping the rest of the family together. Peter Hedges’s film is, at its best, a nuanced, tense character study; at its worst, a contrived crime thriller.

The Company of Wolves (1984) ★★★★
Talking Pictures TV, 9.05pm
Angela Carter wrote the screenplay for this haunting spin on Little Red Riding Hood, adapted from her eponymous short story (published in 1979’s The Bloody Chamber and its radio play adaptation in 1980) that imagines a young girl (Sarah Patterson) plagued by nightmares of wolves. The late, great Angela Lansbury plays her grandmother, who resides deep within an eerie woods.

Long Shot (2019) ★★★
BBC One, 11.30pm
Charlize Theron stars as a fiercely unattainable US presidential candidate just waiting to have her heart melted by Seth Rogen in this unconventional odd-couple romcom. Rogen plays the shambolic journalist she used to babysit who spends his days writing biting polemics for a leftist publication. It chunters along with its spoofy impression of current politics, but is torn between adult pretensions and adolescent humour.

Television previewers

Jack Taylor (JT), Catherine Gee (CG), Veronica Lee (VL), Stephen Kelly (SK), Gerard O’Donovan (GO), Chris Bennion (CB), Rachel Ward (RW), Poppie Platt (PP) and Gabriel Tate (GT)