British Telly

Louis Theroux’s production company is behind this startling documentary. Plus, Gemma Whelan’s crime drama The Tower returns. Here’s what to watch this evening

9pm, BBC Three

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The popular Brighton-based cosy crime drama is back for a third series. Plus, behind-the-scenes footy action in Mission to Burley. Here’s what to watch this evening

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cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/16878799

The BBC has unveiled a first look at the upcoming Wallace and Gromit adventure that will air on the BBC in 2024.

In Vengeance Most Fowl, Gromit worries that Wallace has become unduly reliant on his creations, and his worries are validated when Wallace creates a "smart gnome" that appears to have an independent mind.

The League of Gentlemen and Inside No. 9's Reece Shearsmith is the voice for Norbot, who can be heard in the new teaser.

In terms of other cast members, Ben Whitehead stars as Wallace, who previously worked alongside the late Peter Sallis (the original voice of Wallace) on other Wallace and Gromit brand projects.

The cast also includes Peter Kay, Lauren Patel, Diane Morgan, Adjoa Andoh, Lenny Henry, and Buzz Khan.

The BBC confirmed earlier this year that the renowned supervillain Feathers McGraw will make a comeback in the new 79-minute film.

Directed by Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham, the film will make its UK premiere on BBC iPlayer and BBC One this Christmas. Later in the winter, it will be accessible on Netflix worldwide.

Stephen Mangan hosts Password, with team captains Daisy May Cooper and Alan Carr. Plus: a gripping new French drama. Here’s what to watch this evening

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Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is joyously celebrated at the Proms. Plus: what happened when a pilot was sucked halfway out of the cockpit. Here’s what to watch this evening

8pm, BBC FourIt is the 200th anniversary of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and given that it’s arguably the most well-known piece of classical music, it’s only right that it is commemorated. Nicholas Collon conducts the Aurora Orchestra in a signature memorised Proms performance. Soloists include Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha, Marta Fontanals-Simmons, Brenden Gunnell and Christopher Purves. The National Youth Choir of Great Britain joins for the final, joyous movement. Phil Harrison

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She is this week’s adventurer into the past on Who Do You Think You Are? Plus: Interview With the Vampire takes an intriguing turn. Here’s what to watch today

9pm, BBC OneThis popular long-running genealogy series has a way of making you count your blessings: one thing that’s usually evident is how few generations most of us are from grinding poverty. That’s true of this week’s adventurer into the past, former Spice Girl Melanie Chisholm, whose Liverpudlian family’s journey involves a workhouse, incredibly bleak manual work and a hasty flight from the great Irish famine of the 19th century. She is also fascinated to learn that her fourth great-grandfather was a campaigner for improving working men’s lives and rights. Phil Harrison

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The 17th summer instalment promises 11 days of sublime sport. Plus: Chloe Ayling is interrogated in Kidnapped. Here’s what to watch this evening

6.30pm, Channel 4

If you’re feeling wistful for the wholesome cheer of the Olympics, part two of the summer Games, the 17th of the season’s Paralympics, is here. Clare Balding presents coverage of the opening ceremony – this time, the participants will parade up the Champs-Élysées and then in the Place de la Concorde. Eleven days of competition involving more than 4,000 athletes start on Thursday. Team GB finished second in the medal table in Japan three years ago; how will they fare this time out? Phil Harrison

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Your biggest foodie questions are answered by experts. Plus: Celebrity MasterChef cooks on. Here’s what to watch this evening

8pm, Channel 4

Why is there so much air in a bag of crisps? What distinguishes cordial from squash? How does the shape of a chocolate change its flavour? These are the big foodie questions answered by Jimmy Doherty, Kate Quilton and their team of experts in this special Unwrapped episode about the best party food and drink. Samosas, martinis and sugarwork are also on the menu, as well as the essential ice bag. Hollie Richardson

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cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/16672044

Shot on color 35mm film, the 1.37:1 2K restorations look outstanding, the 17 episodes generously spread across six Region_Free Blu-ray discs. Partly this is to accommodate all the extra features accompanying specific episodes, but in any case, each episode is extraordinarily clean with excellent color and contrast. Audio is offered in LPCM 2.0 mono and DTS-HD 5.1 remixes (the latter on episodes of The Prisoner only, not the Danger Man shows). While the 5.1 remixes aren’t original to the initial broadcasts they do add enormous oomph and are well-mixed. Also included are original music & effects tracks. In English only, optional English subtitles are provided. It all comes in sturdy hardbox packaging limited to 1,500 copies.

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The extra features, much of it new, is practically endless. The fat booklet is loaded with great behind-the-scenes photos, an exhaustively researched making-of article by Andrew Pixley, material prepared by ITC to sell the show abroad, and an excellent episode guide with detailed credits.

Two feature-length documentaries are included: Don’t Knock Yourself Out, a 95-minute piece from 2007 about the making of the series, and In My Mind (2017), an 82-minute documentary about filmmaker Chris Rodley’s experiences trying to wrangle and interview with Patrick McGoohan. Patrick McGoohan 1983 is 30 minutes of outtakes of Rodley’s McGoohan interview. Catherine McGoohan 2017 features the actor’s daughter.

Seven episodes—Arrival, The Chimes of Big Ben, The Schizoid Man, The General, Dance of the Dead, A Change of Mind, and Fall Out—feature audio commentaries by various writers, directors, production managers and others that worked on the show. All 17 episodes offer text commentaries. These are, like everything else, very informative and exhaustively researched, though a little difficult to focus on in conjunction with the running of each episode.

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If you’re a fan of The Prisoner, British ‘60s television, or innovative television generally, you are going to want to have this. The shows look great and the extras are extremely worthwhile though it will take you weeks and weeks to go through everything. One of the year’s best TV releases.

I still have the notepad where I first doodled an idea about MI5 spies. I pitched it to the production company Kudos, which made documentaries: they didn’t have a drama department but the idea appealed. What producer doesn’t secretly want to make James Bond? Channel 4 and ITV said no, but the BBC liked it and we were off.

I grew up in the US and wanted to capture the adrenaline, ambition and scale of American shows. I remember asking: “Can I blow up a car?” The BBC kept saying yes. Back then, spy dramas still had this dark, dour Le Carré legacy. We dared to be shiny.

We had written four scripts when 9/11 happened. The show then became about the people stopping that happening in Britain. Who are they? How do they operate? Spooks was my preferred title. I had considered Five, then the BBC came up with the tagline: “MI5, not 9 to 5.”

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Killing off Lisa’s character with a deep fat fryer was originally going to be in the series finale of season one. We decided to move it to episode two and break viewers’ hearts. It created the sense that nobody was safe. There was a furore afterward but you hardly see anything – it’s all implied. Somebody in LA told me that JJ Abrams screened it for his writers’ room and said: “This is how you do it!”

Advisers who can’t be named were instrumental in keeping things authentic. We’d rip plots from the headlines. Sometimes, the Ten O’Clock News bulletin after the show looked like an extra scene. One episode was referenced in Hansard. After a storyline about an attack on Sellafield with a Scimitar missile, an MP asked: “This TV drama is talking about our defences, why aren’t we?”

The morning after it first aired, I got a call saying ratings were 9.6m and we’d been recommissioned straight away. It was the sort of moment you dream about. MI5 had been having some trouble with recruitment but applications went through the roof. Today’s geopolitics mean you can easily imagine Spooks returning. New threats, a new generation, Harry passing the torch. In fact, I recently had an idea for a festive reboot. Imagine Harry alone on Christmas Day, drinking a rare Scotch. Someone visits with a gift and it gets worse from there …

She made the brave decision to make this emotional documentary. Plus: Saudi Arabia’s prince shells out for a Leonardo. Here’s what to watch tonight

8pm, BBC One

When Strictly dancer Amy Dowden was diagnosed with stage-three breast cancer in May 2023, she made the brave decision to allow cameras to follow her during treatment. This film is the result and, as you might expect, it’s an emotional rollercoaster involving surgery and chemotherapy – but also uplifting moments, including her appearance in last year’s series finale. It has been a difficult few months in Strictlyworld but this story, at least, offers some redemption. Phil Harrison

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Crime and corruption in the former coalfields as Monica Dolan and David Harewood join the cast. Plus, what becomes of a dangerous illegal dog? Here’s what to watch this evening

Sunday, 9pm, BBC One.

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cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/16589411

The old eat the young. That is the back-of-a-beermat pitch for new Channel 4 drama Generation Z. And because the Z stands for zombie, the eating is meant literally. “I loved the idea of a horror story about societal breakdown, told from the perspective of different generations,” says its writer-director Ben Wheatley. “Once I started writing it, I couldn’t stop.”

The film-maker’s first original series for TV begins with an army convoy crashing outside a care home. The subsequent chemical leak turns the residents into marauding monsters who attack local youngsters. “It’s a bit of a Brexit metaphor,” admits Wheatley. “But it’s by no means binary. We discuss it from each generation’s viewpoint, exploring the notion that boomers have ruined the lives of the young. Because it’s a genre piece, that’s basically by biting their hands and eating their brains.”

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“I love telly and watch a lot of it – Battlestar Galactica, The Sopranos and Deadwood were the golden age for me – so I was keen to play with a different train set,” he says. “It was exciting to write in longer form, rather than the sprint that is a film script. In terms of production values and cinematic scale, TV has closed the gap on film. It’s like the difference between a single and an album. Actors move freely between the two now. The skillset’s no different. Any stigma has long gone.”

Fittingly for a series punctuated by gruesome deaths, he’s assembled a killer cast. Playing the pensioners are veterans such as Sue Johnston and Anita Dobson. “Sue’s first day on set, she was biting someone’s nose off,” he says. “They got to do stuff they don’t usually do, running around covered in gore, and had a blast doing it.” The gore is created the old-fashioned way. “Everything is practical, with prosthetics or models. There are very few CG effects. When arms are ripped off and blood spurts, there are people pumping plasma just out of shot. We use jelly when organs need to be edible. It’s all very visceral.”

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Generation Z is coming to Channel 4 this autumn.

The pop-soul star performs orchestral versions of their hefty back catalogue. Plus, a sunny jaunt for Tory traveloguer Michael Portillo who visits Lisbon. Here’s what to watch this evening.

8.25pm, BBC Two

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Nigella’s ‘meecro-wah-vey’ and a Bake Off controversy are just some of the topics covered. Plus: Brian May goes to battle for badgers. Here’s what to watch this evening

9pm, Channel 4

Pedro Pascal’s brutal Game of Thrones death, a controversy on Bake Off and Nigella Lawson’s “meecro-wah-vey” are just some of the topics in Jimmy Carr’s ultimate quiz on all things television. Babatunde Aléshé, Daisy May Cooper, Natasia Demetriou, Jamie Demetriou, Judi Love and Russell Howard form the teams. Hollie Richardson

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cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/16514035

Blake’s 7 is one of British sci-fi’s greatest, most subversive cult classics. From the mind of Doctor Who scribe Terry Nation—after he’d sent the nation into Dalekmania in the ’60s—the 1978 show was wildly ahead of its time, with ideas as bold as its budget was threadbare. Imagine if classic Doctor Who had less money and more balls, and you get a rough approximation of what Blake’s could be at its very best. Now, at long last, the series is getting a familiarly loving home release treatment.

Today the BBC lifted the lid on a brand-new Blu-ray remaster, Blake’s 7: The Collection. Styled in the vein of the corporation’s lavish Blu-ray remasters of classic seasons of Doctor Who, the first of Blake’s four series will release later this year. Including a brand-new remastering of the series—available for the first time on Blu-ray after an infamously rough home release history on VHS and DVD decades prior—complete with all new practical model work for the show’s VFX sequences, the first volume of Blake’s 7: The Collection will include all 13 episodes from series one, as well as new interviews with surviving cast and crew, and a previously unreleased documentary planned for the show’s DVD release, The Making of Blake’s 7.

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Blake’s 7: The Collection series one releases in the UK November 11.

Negan and Maggie get their own show. Plus: a surprise or two for Paddy McGuinness. Here’s our pick of what to watch this evening

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How to create a property portfolio with an Instagram account. Plus: the brilliant Celebrity Race Across the World continues. Here’s what to watch this evening

12.05am, Channel 4

The average deposit for a house in the UK is £53,000. This, along with extortionate rents, has made home ownership a distant dream for many without the financial help of parents. The hardest hit are Black people, with only 32% across all ages groups owning their own place. In this report, Daisy Maskell investigates the young Black people creating property portfolios and showing exactly how they do it on social media, which they also use as a tool to raise the money they need. Hollie Richardson

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cross-posted from: https://fedia.io/m/teletext/t/1103403

In 1974, a brand new technology called teletext was being rolled out. It would, over the next few decades, have far-reaching implications, not only in the UK but worldwide. These are the stories of those involved in the production, restoration and art of the blocky medium that graced UK TV screens until 2012. You’ll hear from the pioneers, those who made teletext tick, and the newcomers keeping the medium alive 50 years after its inception. This is a social record of teletext, and these are the teletext people.

The eight-parter focuses on the Rwandan genocide. Plus: remarkable doctors in Saving Lives in Cardiff. Here’s what to watch this evening

10pm, BBC Four

“The images of that haunt us all,” said Bill Clinton, then the US president, on a visit to Rwanda in 1998. A few years earlier, as many as 1 million people had been murdered in the country over a 100-day period – and yet the US had not acted on the genocide being waged against the Tutsi minority as it unfolded. This powerful eight-part series continues to examine global atrocities and ask: what happened to “never again”? Former members of the US government, including Madeleine Albright, share their thoughts. Hollie Richardson

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Big problems lie ahead when tetraplegic Freya moves in with her new lover. Plus: the rise of Mohammed bin Salman. Here’s what to watch this evening

10pm, BBC TwoThis cracking, sexy comedy drama upends the usual telly tropes about disabled women’s lives. It was created by Lee Getty and Kyla Harris, with Harris starring as the sardonic thirtysomething Canadian artist Freya, who is tetraplegic and was “disabled way before it was cool”. Freya is living in London with her new lover, Abe (Darren Boyd) – who has left his wife and is “having a midlife crisis, albeit a very inclusive one” – and she asks her chaotic friend Jo (Elena Saurel) to be her personal assistant. But a rift between Abe and Jo suggests big problems ahead. It’s inspired by the time Getty was Harris’s PA in real life, which explains the great writing. It will have you laughing loads. Hollie Richardson

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Jay reads Shakespeare while Judi works on a market stall in this delightful doc. Plus, Team GB’s Olympic heroes are welcomed home. Here’s what to watch this evening.

9pm, Channel 4

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The singer, writer and sculptor offers a priceless insight into his creative processes. Plus: a UK K-pop reality experiment. Here’s what to watch this evening

10pm, Sky Arts

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This opener sets the tone for the grubby takeaway-set cartoon series. Plus: modern movie soundtracks at the Proms. Here’s what to watch this evening

10pm, BBC Three

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Two sisters and their sweet but pathetic dad hit rock bottom. Plus: the boxing star who became mayor of Kyiv. Here’s watch to watch this evening

9pm, BBC ThreeSex Education’s Aimee Lou Wood proves her comedy chops once more in this new father-and-daughter sitcom. She plays Gemma, a spirited twentysomething hairdresser who gets pregnant after a one-night stand, and panics when her flatmate moves out. To solve her financial worries and living situation, she moves in with her sweet but slightly pathetic dad, Malcolm (David Morrissey), who is struggling after Gemma’s mum left him and took their money. To make this family dynamic even messier, Gemma’s mouthy but lovable sister Catherine (Sharon Rooney) is in prison. Cue a sweet, funny and touching story of repairing relationships after things hit rock bottom. Hollie Richardson

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