Read our TV reviews, guides about what to watch and interviews
What to watch on streaming
Critics’ choice
Amol Rajan Goes to the Ganges
BBC1, 9pm
Since the death of his father three years ago, the journalist and presenter Amol Rajan has struggled to come to terms with his deep grief. While he considers himself an atheist, he wonders if reconnecting with his father’s Hindu faith could help him to find new peace. Cameras follow him as he travels to India for the festival of Kumbh Mela, where more than 500 million pilgrims gather to bathe in the holy waters where rivers meet. His pre-trip worries are gently comic — “I love my hygiene,” he tells his mother as they cook dosas in London, asking how soon he can use his “two-in-one shampoo” after his immersion — but the film takes a sudden turn after tragedy strikes at the festival. There is revelation, and lots of emotion, but the film never glosses over the issues of faith, bereavement or the festival experience. Victoria Segal
• Amol Rajan: I contemplated suicide after my father died
Secret Nazi Bases
U&Yesterday, 8pm
Cutting through the territory formerly known as East Prussia is the Masurian Canal, an unfinished and abandoned waterway that was originally intended to connect Lake Mamry with the Baltic Sea at Kaliningrad. This documentary outlines its complicated history before zeroing in on the most sensational part of its flawed creation: its role in the Nazi plan for European domination. Historians and engineers discuss how labourers were redirected to build Hitler’s strategic “Wolf’s Lair” headquarters and the Mauerwald military base close to the canal, speculating on the compound’s role as a secret shipyard for U-boat construction. With its “symphony of steel and concrete” and its “dark tides of history”, the narration veers towards the pulpy, but the story it charts is full of darkly fascinating twists. VS
The Kim Kardashian Diamond Heist
BBC3, 9pm
In 2016, during Paris Fashion Week, the reality TV star Kim Kardashian was robbed at gunpoint by masked men disguised as police officers. The gang forced their way into her hotel room, bound and gagged her, before stealing millions of dollars worth of jewellery, including a $4 million engagement ring. Last month, eight people were found guilty of the robbery, and this documentary is set against the backdrop of the trial, with first-hand testimony from investigators, friends of the family and reporters. Joe Clay
• Kim Kardashian: how her $10m heist really happened, by insiders
Northanger Abbey
BBC4, 10pm
The 1987 adaptation of Jane Austen’s light-hearted love story about a sheltered young girl (Katharine Schlesinger) who believes that everyone in the world is as sweet as herself. She meets the 26-year-old clergyman Henry Tilney (Peter Firth) at a dance in Bath, but their love, needless to say, is beset with complications and played out against the social whirl of Bath and the gothic horrors of Northanger Abbey. Before the screening at 10.15pm, Schlesinger, who is Peggy Ashcroft’s great-niece, recalls her first screen role. JC
• The truth about Jane Austen’s extraordinary final years
Streaming choice
Ironheart
Disney+
With Ryan Coogler’s Sinners still breaking box-office records, it feels like the director/producer can do no wrong. Which bodes well for his latest Marvel production. Set in the aftermath of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, this limited series follows our titular Marvel superhero, aka the MIT student/inventor Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) as she is forced to do battle with the Chicago crime lord The Hood. The few glimpses we were allowed promise engaging characters and a nice blend of Chi-town grit and superhero gloss. Andrew Male
• The best films to watch at home this week
Film choice
Legends of the Fall (15, 1994)
Film4, 6.25pm
A sweeping romantic melodrama, this Montana saga, based on Jim Harrison’s 1979 novella, gave Brad Pitt a role to showcase his movie-star credentials, as well as his baby-blue eyes and golden locks. Pitt plays one of three brothers (Aidan Quinn and Henry Thomas play the others) who find themselves at odds over a woman (Julia Ormond). Anthony Hopkins is the father who raised the boys alone after his wife left. It may take place in a man’s world, but this is a women’s picture, in the vein of the overwrought family epics of the 1950s. (133min) Wendy Ide
Taxi Driver (18, 1976)
Sky Cinema Thriller, 10.45pm
Travis Bickle, the world’s most famous cabbie, has become a pop-culture meme, endlessly parodied for his “You talkin’ to me?” scene, a moment of pure, potted aggression as he aims his gun at the mirror, all alone. While the chilling intensity of Robert De Niro’s career-making performance is a thing of awe. Scorsese’s Seventies masterwork is about a damaged Vietnam veteran who becomes a cab driver and indulges in two obsessions, with a political aide (the dreamy, grey-eyed Cybill Shepherd in a lot of Diane von Furstenberg) and a child prostitute (12-year-old Jodie Foster). Foster’s role, all freckles, gap teeth and floppy hats, is even more shocking now. (113min) Kate Muir
• The best films of 2025 so far, as chosen by our critics
Radio choice
Your Mum
Radio 4, 6.30pm
Laura Smyth hosts a new series in which she interviews two fellow comedians about their mothers in front of a live audience, with voice note contributions from the mums. Her first guests are Janine Harouni, who reveals that she’s not her mother’s favourite child and that her mother was mistakenly given a baby boy when she was in hospital, and Russell Kane, who explains how his grandmother’s life “made Shameless look like Downton Abbey”, and how his mum describes him as being an exhausting child. The conversation is more about families and childhood in general, rather than mums, but is still warm and entertaining. Clair Woodward
The best podcasts and radio shows of the week
What to watch on TV this week
Thursday
Critics’ choice
The Bear
Disney+
At the end of series three of Christopher Storer’s drama, one fine-dining eatery opened as another closed. After belatedly launching The Bear, Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) attended the “funeral” of its rival, Ever, and afterwards saw a review on his phone and missed calls from an investor. Series four’s premiere was not available for preview, but it seems likely that the review, and pressure to economise, will prompt Carmy to cut down on chaos and try to treat colleagues better. And he has to persuade Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) to stay. Also to be resolved is whether this run will be funnier or darker than its predecessors: The Bear recently lost its “best comedy series” title in the Emmys and Golden Globes, perhaps because voters saw it as not comic enough. So will Storer boost the laughs, or double down on the drama and stop competing with Hacks and Ted Lasso? JD
• The restaurateur who inspired The Bear — with a hot dog
Will Nigel Farage Be Prime Minister?
C4, 8pm
Since winning five seats in the general election, Reform UK has regularly topped voting intention opinion polls, won a by-election from Labour and claimed victory in the local elections and second place for party membership, while also signing up Tory defectors. While there have been farcical ructions and resignations among Reform’s top team, that seems to have no effect on the populists’ popularity. Nigel Farage perhaps won’t be overjoyed that Dispatches is assessing his chances — last year Channel 4 News ran an undercover report on his Clacton campaign — but may be reassured by the choice of Fraser Nelson as presenter. The astute Times columnist meets Reform supporters, looks at potential obstacles and pitfalls for Farage, and asks whether there’s a real prospect of a “political earthquake”. JD
• Nigel Farage: ‘Will I be the next PM? There’s a good chance’
Prost
BBC4, 8pm/8.25pm
This French series continues with Alain Prost’s personal story proving moving and surprising. As Jackie Stewart says: “Fifty-seven of my friends died in their car.” While episodes three and four do begin to confront the dangers faced by drivers in the 1980s, it becomes clear as Prost talks that his brother’s childhood epilepsy, brain tumour and death as a result of lung cancer in 1986 gave him a different perspective on mortality to his fellow competitors. HS
Murder Most Puzzling
5, 8pm
This batty adaptation of the novels of Parnell Hall was made with some additional funding from Northern Ireland Screen and filmed there. As the show settles into the second of its six episodes, the fictional setting of Bakerbury in England is proving a little much for some of the cast. Watch out for local accent spillage this week as a bored Cora, aka the Puzzle Lady (Phyllis Logan), is asked to investigate a potentially unsafe murder conviction. HS
Pushers
C4, 10pm/10.30pm
This promising sitcom still hasn’t quite found its feet as the newly minted crime gang gets to work shifting a load of “spice”. Ewen’s (Ryan McParland) early release from prison has drawn the attention of a friend to whom he owes £20,000, so the pressure to sell is not inconsiderable. HS
Will there be an early chop for Antoinette?
Marie Antoinette
BBC2, 9pm
It’s 1789, so the end is nigh. After Louis (Louis Cunningham) summons an assembly of the clergy, nobility and commoners, things rapidly fall apart: a National Assembly is formed, the Bastille is stormed and soon the mob are at the gates of Versailles. As Marie (Emilia Schüle) wasn’t guillotined until 1793, there’s perhaps scope for another series. But it seems unlikely that broadcasters (let alone viewers) will relish the idea of a chronicle of royals in jail. JD
• Marie Antoinette TV drama is ‘vulgar insult to France’
Friday
Critics’ choice
Squid Game
Netflix
No one, not even Netflix, expected this South Korean dystopian horror to become one of the biggest shows ever on the platform when it launched in 2021. Four years and a second series later, there’s a great deal of expectation resting on this final chapter. It picks up where the second left off, with Gi-hun’s (Lee Jung-jae) rebellion on the point of failure, let down by the cowardice of one miserable soul. So the games will continue but with a weakened cohort of the frightened, elderly and self-interested players, which means the double-crossing Front Man (Lee Byung-hun) will require something spectacular for the VIPs who are soon to arrive on the island. The face-off between the Front Man and Gi-hun might appear to be a simple battle between evil and good, but will Squid Game have something more to teach us about humanity? HS
• How we turned Squid Game into a real-life game show
Kiwi Adventure
ITV1, 9pm
There is quite the tension between Noel Edmonds’ expressed desire for spirituality and all-round positive vibes and his obvious livewire need for attention as he records the second episode of this disquieting documentary from his Antipodean home and business venture. He and his wife, Liz, might run their vegetable plot using healing frequencies and have a special “energy garden” planned for their “wellbeing hub”, but he’s not above provoking a bit of inter-personality rivalry as he shows the crew round the bar. “I quite fancy the Bugger Inn taking on Diddly Squat,” he says of a planned pub quiz. “We’d wipe them out. Come on Jeremy, take the challenge.” One imagines that even the famously impulsive landlord of the Farmer’s Dog will manage to resist. After all, Edmonds could always ask Mr Blobby to join his team. HS
Not Going Out
BBC1, 9pm
Lee (Lee Mack) has taken Lucy (Sally Bretton) on a romantic campervan break. Unfortunately their accommodation “looks like the sort of vehicle they pull out of a canal at the start of Casualty” and the ominous atmosphere intensifies when a neighbouring camper (Felicity Montagu) appears. The BBC’s longest-running sitcom after Last of the Summer Wine is never subtle, but you have to applaud Mack’s way with fire-extinguisher-based innuendo. VS
• Lee Mack: middle-class snobs are killing sitcoms
The Last Days Of Anne Boleyn
PBS America, 6.35pm
Originally shown on the BBC in 2013, this classy, argumentative documentary should appeal to Wolf Hall fans who want to know even more about Henry VIII’s doomed second wife and the courtly turmoil around her. Her death is the focus here, with David Starkey, Philippa Gregory and the much-missed Hilary Mantel interpreting the conflicting evidence around Anne’s trip to the executioner’s block. VS
Grand Day Out
5, 8pm
Roaming Britain like a restless seaside spirit, Susan Calman sends her latest postcard from Cromer on the north Norfolk coast. She tucks into crab, visits the steam museum, rehearses for the end-of-pier summer season and challenges the comedian Helen Lederer to an arcade-game showdown. VS
There’s smoke, but so far not much fire
Smoke
Apple TV+
If you enjoyed Dennis Lehane’s 2022 true crime drama Black Bird, which starred Taron Egerton as the FBI informant Jimmy Keene, then you should be rejoicing. They have reunited for this nine-part series about a fire investigator (Egerton) and a police detective (Jurnee Smollett) on the trail of a serial arsonist. But Smoke’s first episode is all showy edits and clever camera angles. It’s admirable, it’s stylish, but just not that thrilling. Yet. AM
• The 15 best true crime drama series to watch right now
Readers’ views on recent TV
Please stop inserting trailers for the following programme in the middle of the news. It’s annoying, unnecessary and interrupts the content flow.
James Pullen
We love Flog it (BBC1), but why does the BBC repeat the same programmes twice? There must be hundreds of programmes that have never been repeated. It doesn’t matter if the values are out of date.
Joan Freeland
Best edition of Countryfile ever on June 1 (BBC1) celebrating Bradford City of Culture, linking the surrounding countryside with the historic wool industry and contemporary art as well as literature and music. Fantastic.
Pamela Stenson
Malpractice series 2 (BBC) was well acted, realistic and disturbing. A good indicator of what infighting and reputation protecting can occur in the health service.
David Francis Seelig
I’m sorry that a recent YouSayer was disappointed in Death Valley (BBC1). I found it very entertaining and at times laugh-out-loud funny. Nor did I think that the dialogue was spoken too quickly. All-round great cosy crime with a quirky sense of humour.
Liz Barker
The Horne Section TV show (C4) is really well constructed. It’s witty, clever and extremely entertaining.
Barbara Mitchell
Having enjoyed another series of Race Across The World (BBC1), may I compliment the choice of teams, the in-depth research that must have been carried out in advance and most of all the camera teams. I can’t imagine how they kept up with filming the teams on their travels and experiences so discreetly.
Neil Walmsley
Will Escape To The Country presenters stop describing what are clearly houses as cottages.
Irene Noble
Just tried to watch The Gold (BBC1). Turned it off after a few minutes as I could not see what was going on. When are film-makers going to realise that producing dark films etc is a real turn-off, literally. If they want to create atmosphere, do it by letting the viewers see what is going on.
Val Roberts
Doctor Who (BBC1) — completely spoilt by Disney.
Alec James
Dept Q (Netflix). In episode 3 had 35 ‘F’ swearwords 5 ‘C’ swearwords plus minor references to bodily functions and parts. Is there no consideration for the example this sets to young people?
David Evans
Why even, or rather especially on, the BBC is “the” now pronounced “thee” and “a” now pronounced “ay”? Regional or national accents are fine but this sounds like pomposity.
John Smith
Send your comments to: telly@sunday-times.co.uk
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