British Academy Television Awards 2020
BBC One, 7.00pm
Richard Ayoade hosts this socially distanced awards ceremony where nominees will accept awards virtually. The necessarily low-key nature of the event is a particular pity given what an exceptional year of television it celebrates. While there are richly deserved nods for such high watermarks as Giri/Haji, The Virtues, Catastrophe and Succession, the nominations have been hogged by Chernobyl and Fleabag; although Andrew Scott is a surprising absentee for the latter.
Plenty of juicy stories await: Brexit: The Uncivil War would make a pungently controversial winner of Best Single Drama, Glenda Jackson would be a deserving Best Actress for her performance in Elizabeth is Missing, almost five decades after her last Bafta, and past accusations of a lack of diversity have been at least partly addressed by a deserving quartet of nominees for Male Comedy Performance with Cypriot, Rwandan, Moroccan and Pakistani heritage. Russell T Davies’s excellent if divisive Years and Years and Jed Mercurio’s Line of Duty are perhaps the most glaring omissions. But with so much uncertainty, it feels like the perfect time to savour TV at its best. GT
Muppets
Now Disney+
Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear return for more japes and guest stars. We begin in typically meta fashion, as Scooter risks missing his deadline to deliver the new Muppets series for streaming.
The Umbrella Academy
Netflix
Paying a heavy price for stopping the Apocalypse, the sibling superheroes have been transported back to Dallas, Texas, but scattered across a three-year period, as this comic book series returns. With a trio of Swedish assassins on their tails, they must save the world anew.
Snooker: World Snooker Championships
BBC Two, 10am
Up to his old tricks, World Snooker Tour chairman Barry Hearn has managed to convince the government that the Crucible should be among the first sporting venues in the UK to allow spectators back following the lockdown. All eyes will be on Hearn’s frequent sparring partner, five-time world champion Ronnie O’Sullivan, when snooker’s premier competition returns to Sheffield, who recently called the idea an “unnecessary risk”.
Travel Man’s Greatest Trips: Out and About
Channel 4, 8.00pm
A double helping of Richard Ayoade tonight, as he looks back on some of his jaunts across Europe in the company of various famous faces. He meets Johnny Vegas in Dubai, Paul Rudd in Helsinki and Lena Dunham in Tenerife.
Jack Whitehall’s Sporting Nation
BBC One, 8.30pm; Wales, 9.30pm
Jack Whitehall’s amiable ramble through Britain’s sporting history goes on with one of his pet subjects, class. Particular attention is paid to the clashes between Seb Coe and Steve Ovett, and those between Fred Perry and Andrew Flintoff and their respective sporting establishments.
Miriam Margolyes: Almost Australian
BBC Two, 9.00pm; not NI
What makes the idea of a “mate” so different in Australia to anywhere else in the world? Miriam Margolyes investigates the issue, while also attending a drag night, a gathering of Aboriginal elders and a conclave of women truckers.
8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown
Channel 4, 9.00pm
The remarkably resilient panel-show crossover returns for another run with long-term competitors Sean Lock, Jon Richardson and Joe Wilkinson joined by Kerry Godliman, plus Nick Mohamed’s alter ego Mr Swallow in Dictionary Corner.
Gospel According to Mica: The Story of Gospel Music in Six Songs
BBC Four, 9.00pm
Raised as a gospel singer before finding pop fame, this revealing and thoughtful film finds Mica Paris considering how faith and music have entwined. She sings with the Kingdom Choir, explores the tragic life of Sam Cooke and chats to Stormzy. GT
Poltergeist (1982) ★★★★
BBC One, 10.45pm
Director Tobe Hooper, who made The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, tones down the gut-churning horror but still ramps up the tension to nightmare levels in this Steven Spielberg-produced chiller. It has one of cinema’s most spine-tinglingly scary moments: “They’re here,” sing-songs a little girl kneeling before the TV. “They” are the spirits, at first playful then increasingly malevolent, who terrorise a suburban family.
The Heat (2013) ★★★★
Channel 4, 10.00pm
Bridesmaids director Paul Feig brings back one of that hit film’s stars, Melissa McCarthy, as a foul-mouthed Boston cop whose policing style (aided by a fridge full of armaments) makes Dirty Harry look like Thumbelina. She’s paired with a goody-two-shoes FBI agent (Sandra Bullock, reminding us what a pro she is at comedy). Together, they’re dynamite; on top of that, the film also has an emotional clout that hits you from nowhere.
Babel (2006) ★★★★
Sony Movies, 9.00pm
This engrossing, multi-narrative drama tells the interrelated stories of a handful of people, in Morocco, Japan, Mexico and the US, who are all bound by a fateful shot fired by a playful Moroccan boy. It’s about the difficulties of communicating but the film itself is communicated in a rather jumbled fashion. The Tokyo sequence is the best, and Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett provide some star power.
Television previewers
Chris Bennion (CB), Catherine Gee (CG), Michael Hogan (MH), Sarah Hughes (SH), Gerard O’Donovan (GO), Gabriel Tate (GT) and Rachel Ward (RW)