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Friday
Pick of the day: Granite Harbour
8pm, BBC One
With the Dundee-set crime drama Traces ending this coming weekend, Scottish noir fans can move 65 miles up the coast to Aberdeen for the return of Granite Harbour. The nattily dressed detective Davis Lindo (Romario Simpson) has decided to continue his traineeship with the Major Investigations Team and is reunited with DS Tara “Bart” Bartlett (Hannah Donaldson) to investigate the murder of a local drug kingpin’s former fixer. At the same time, it seems that a new cocaine and ketamine compound is flooding the streets. Could its source be the recently docked Norwegian cargo ship on which a pregnant stowaway has just been discovered?
MasterChef
7.30pm, BBC One
It’s all to play for as this week’s best comeback contestants return for the last quarter-final and the chance to push on into Knockout Week as restaurant critic Jimi Famurewa sets a brief all about fusion. The six need to create a single dish that brings two unrelated food cultures and cuisines onto one plate in perfect harmony. Fusion is risky but, if done well, can result in some of the most thrilling food imaginable. If not? It’s time to hand back the apron.
The Big Steam Adventure
8pm, Channel 5
Journalist turned reality TV regular John Sergeant, actor Peter Davison and steam aficionado Paul “Piglet” Middleton (from North Yorkshire Moors Railway) are back, and this time the cosy triumvirate are exploring some of the most beautiful parts of Britain by steam. In this opening episode to a new series, they’re chuffing around the Lake District via a narrow-gauge steam train, a gigantic traction engine, a 1906 steam launch, and a bone-shatteringly uncomfortable miniature Foden steam van. I suppose you could call it Top Gear for steam enthusiasts.
Gardeners’ World
9pm, BBC Two
Spring is now fully into its stride and at Longmeadow, Monty Don expands the planting on the mound, gathering self-sown seedlings and preparing for a summer display in the cottage garden. And after a long, wet spring, the time has finally arrived to get some seeds sown in his vegetable garden. Elsewhere, Arit Anderson visits Sarah Raven to discover her new dahlias, which are perfect for pollinators.
Michael Portillo’s Long Weekends
9pm, Channel 5
The colourfully trousered presenter explores Italy’s capital of fashion, design and industry – Milan. Not wanting to leave any cliché unturned, his weekend begins on the back of a classic 60s Lambretta. Meeting a group of biker aficionados, Portillo is whisked off to see some of Milan’s must-see landmarks, and has a crash-course on the strict rules of Italian coffee-drinking etiquette.
Avoidance
9.30pm, BBC One
“We need to talk…” Yes, it’s seemingly curtains for both Brett and Megan (Matthew Lewis and Aisling Bea) and their respective relationships with Claire and Jonathan (Jessica Knappett and Romesh Ranganathan). It’s hard to see what the smart and funny Megan has done to deserve the elbow, although Brett’s habit of body-building in front of a mirror isn’t very endearing. This second series of Ranganathan’s sitcom has been an improvement, although my funny bone hasn’t felt particularly bothered (comedy being subjective).
Saturday
Pick of the day: Spy/Master
9pm, BBC Four
A promising new Romanian entry in BBC Four’s Saturday-night subtitled-drama berth. Set in 1978 at the height of the Cold War, it follows a perilous week in the life of Victor Godeanu (Alec Secăreanu), the fictitious right-hand man and trusted adviser to the increasingly paranoid Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. If Ceausescu is paranoid, he has every right to be, as Victor is a Russian agent. But with the KGB wanting to extract him back to Moscow, Victor (married with children) decides to defect westwards on a trip to Germany. Parker Sawyers co-stars as CIA agent Frank Jackson.
Britain’s Got Talent
7.30pm, ITV1
Anyone who saw that recent video of nine-year-old Cooper Wallace screeching his way to victory at the European seagull impersonation contest in Belgium will be hoping he enters next year’s Britain’s Got Talent. It certainly has to be better than that world-record-holding American Kimberly Winter and her burping act. But then BGT is a broad church that also includes the sublime South African operatic singer Innocent Masuku.
Our Dream Farm with Matt Baker
8pm, Channel 4
This agrarian cousin to The Apprentice continues with the wannabe tenant farmers tested on how they would fit in with the local rural community at a livestock auction, where they must purchase cattle for a buyer who cannot attend in person. Some of them have never bought livestock before, while others are regulars – but can they buy within budget?
Casualty
8.30pm, BBC One
The senseless violence often faced by paramedics attending an incident is the focus of this week’s visit to Holby, as Iain and Teddy (Michael Stevenson and Milo Clarke) are called out to a looted shop, but find themselves caught up in a riot during which their ambulance is destroyed. Back on the wards, Stevie and Dylan work together to acquire evidence of Patrick’s wrongdoing while also striving to prevent him from harming any other patients during an explosive shift.
Inside Windsor Castle
9pm, Channel 5
Xand van Tulleken, JJ Chalmers and Raksha Dave examine what it is like to live in the magnificent Windsor Castle, with the “inside scoop” on what the royals get up to. Nothing too salacious, alas, as we hear about King Charles’s military workouts and the Princess of Wales’s kale smoothies. All that and George III’s breakfast routine and the hidden horrors of Queen Charlotte’s hairdo.
Jackie O: Style and Scandal
10pm, Channel 5
Saturday night is royalty night on Channel 5, and this is a biography of the nearest the US has ever come to royalty: the former US First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. The documentary examines how she coped with life in the spotlight amid her first husband John F Kennedy’s countless infidelities and the trauma of his assassination in November 1963. It is followed by the 2023 documentary JFK Assassination: Inside the Trauma Room, involving a reunion of seven doctors who were present in the Parkland Hospital emergency room on that fateful day.
Sunday
Pick of the day: The Responder
9pm, BBC One
Martin Freeman returns as Chris Carson, the Liverpool police response officer struggling to keep a grip on his mental health. The second series of this gritty and well-regarded crime drama begins with Carson attempting to address his trauma and rebuild his life, only to find himself drawn in to a drug war between two of the city’s top dealers. Joining the cast is Boys from the Blackstuff legend Bernard Hill, while Adelayo Adedayo and Emily Fairn also star.
Mammals
7pm, BBC One
For those who have never seen a tenrec before, these tiny, hedgehog-like Madagascan mammals are as cute as anything – and you’ll soon find yourself invested in a young tenrec’s search for his absent mother and siblings. The final episode is all about mammalian forest dwellers, including an absorbing sequence in which a family of African chimps set up an elaborate ambush.
Our Welsh Chapel Dream
8pm, Channel 4
It was only a matter of time before Keith Brymer Jones, the lachrymose judge and breakout star of The Great Pottery Throw Down, got his own TV show. No surprise, given it’s on Channel 4, that it is a property makeover programme, following the efforts of the potter and his partner Marj to restore a 160-year-old derelict chapel in Pwllheli, on Wales’s Llŷn Peninsula.
Michael Palin: This Cultural Life
8.30pm, BBC Four
An evening of programmes dedicated to Sir Michael Palin includes this profile in which he talks to John Wilson about his formative creative influences. Among much else, he recalls listening to radio comedy, especially The Goon Show, meeting future Monty Python co-star Terry Jones at Oxford University in 1962, and his move into straight acting roles in the 1991 Alan Bleasdale drama GBH.
Red Eye
9pm, ITV1
We’ve been waiting to discover exactly what happened in the Beijing nightclub that led to Nolan’s (Richard Armitage) arrest and deportation back to China. It’s flashback time. then, while in the present, Hana’s (Jing Lusi) journalist sister Jess (Jemma Moore) unearths a link to a mysterious biotech company.
I Kissed a Girl
9pm, BBC Three
Dannii Minogue returns with a lesbian version of the gay male dating show I Kissed a Boy. Ten singletons are gathered at an Italian villa, and in a variation on Married at First Sight, their first interaction is to lock lips. Or, as Minogue puts it: “No small talk, no swiping, just a kiss.”
The Piano
9pm, Channel 4
Claudia Winkleman, Mika and Lang Lang continue their search for amazing amateur pianists at Cardiff Central Station, where they are surprised by triplets, a man on a piano bike singing about conkers, and an angelic Welsh performance that reduces them to tears. It is followed at 10.05pm by The Incredibly Talented Lucy, in which cameras catch up with the blind and neurodivergent teenage pianist who rose to fame via her association with The Piano.
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