What to watch on TV this week Our pick of the best television shows The Innocents, Netflix — disparate and oblique As teen couple Harry and June run away together, June discovers she can shape-shift Friday, 17 August, 2018 Grayson Perry: Rites of Passage, C4; Extraordinary Rituals, BBC2 — shared spiritual energy Finding deeper meaning in modern and ancient practices Friday, 17 August, 2018 Horizon: Stopping Male Suicide, BBC2 — essential but not easy Dr Xand van Tulleken investigates why suicide is the biggest killer of males under 50 in the UK Friday, 17 August, 2018 Manhunting With My Mum, C4 — sharp cultural reflections A likeable Blackburn lass and her mum go for a bit of matchmaking Nigerian-style Friday, 17 August, 2018 Disenchantment, Netflix — a sheer delight A tyrannical king pushes his tomboy daughter to marry a wealthy handsome prince Friday, 10 August, 2018 9-1-1, Sky Witness — intense, juddering drama An LA-set drama series about the lives of emergency responders Friday, 10 August, 2018 More from this Series Succession, Sky Atlantic — more caustic than hilarious The assumed heir to a fictional media empire bends events to his advantage Friday, 3 August, 2018 Travels in Trumpland with Ed Balls, BBC2 — full of the unexpected Paradoxical and intriguing views from America’s Bible-and-bullet belt Friday, 3 August, 2018 Horizon: Jupiter Revealed, BBC2 — illuminating Follow the scientists uncovering the secrets of our solar system’s biggest planet Friday, 3 August, 2018 Hang Ups, C4 — complacently broad A comedy series revolving around a psychotherapist who treats eccentric patients online Friday, 3 August, 2018 Meet the Drug Lords, C4 — delicately worded questions A documentary investigates Latin America’s most notorious narcotics barons and hitmen Friday, 3 August, 2018 The Frankenstein Chronicles, ITV — a deliciously overstuffed pudding of a series Sean Bean stars as an inspector trying to discover who is chopping up and reassembling street urchins in 1820s London Friday, 27 July, 2018 Stewart Lee: Content Provider, BBC2 — screamingly funny Filmed on one of the last nights of his latest tour, the stand-up pontificates on the nature of comedy Friday, 27 July, 2018 The Prosecutors: Prisons, Drugs and Drones, BBC2 — sobering revelations A year-long investigation into a gang spotted on security cameras flying a drone into an English prison Friday, 27 July, 2018 Orange Is the New Black: Season 6 opener, Netflix and Prison, C4 — ‘essential viewing’ In OITNB the guards are looking to punish the ringleaders of a riot, while Prison centres on mental health crisis Friday, 20 July, 2018 Sharp Objects, Sky Atlantic — Amy Adams convinces as a boozy, woozy journalist Missouri-set crime series has a languid pace and familiar tropes but succeeds as a Gothic mood piece Friday, 6 July, 2018 Picnic At Hanging Rock, BBC2 — languorous as a perfume ad Natalie Dormer stars as the forbidding headmistress of Appleyard College, a rigidly controlled girls’ school Friday, 6 July, 2018 Managing England: The Impossible Job, BBC2 — watchable even for the uninitiated A documentary on the 13 unsuccessful England football managers since 1966 World Cup victory Friday, 15 June, 2018 Storyville: City of Ghosts, BBC Four — astonishing viewing A devastating film following a resistance group dedicated to exposing Isis atrocities in Raqqa Friday, 8 June, 2018 Flowers, Channel 4 — the dark family sitcom returns A welcome second series for writer Will Sharpe’s tales of an odd family Friday, 8 June, 2018 Atlanta, BBC2 — frank and blisteringly surreal drama-comedy The plot is minimal, but this tale of the highs and lows of an aspiring rapper and his cousin/manager is mesmerising Friday, 11 May, 2018 Genderquake, Channel 4 — prejudice aired and dispelled Eleven young people, mostly gender-fluid and of various sexual orientations, move into a house on the Sussex Downs Friday, 4 May, 2018 The Rain, Netflix — a post-apocalyptic Scandi horror A dystopian Danish drama driven by conspiracy fears and environmental catastrophe Friday, 27 April, 2018 Westworld Season 2, Sky Atlantic — hokum to get hooked on Evan Rachel Wood is superb as she morphs from sweet-faced homesteader to leader of the robot resistance Friday, 20 April, 2018 Law and Order, BBC4 — the bad old days of criminal justice GF Newman’s classic crime drama is a bracingly downbeat portrait of 1970s London Friday, 6 April, 2018 Civilisations, BBC2 — ‘an educative extravaganza of Reithian scope and aspiration’ A blockbuster nine-part arts series accompanied by a festival in partnership with hundreds of UK museums Friday, 23 February, 2018 Black Mirror, Netflix The show is at its best when it eschews didactic dystopias in favour of stories that are more open-ended Friday, 29 December, 2017 The Crown Season 2 — a privileged glimpse into a privileged world The winds of change are blowing and the Royal marriage grows turbulent as Netflix’s show continues Monday, 27 November, 2017
