Friday 9 November 2018

Must see TV - Week beginning Sat10 November 2018

Next week is poor to say the least. On the TV front that is, I was close to not posting today but a few new shows that caught my attention changed my mind. On Sunday, there is the new David Attenborough documentary an obvious hit for the BBC. Over on Channel 4 ‘Escape to the Chateau’, clashes with Attenborough and his new offering ‘Dynasties’.

But these days the only decision you have to make is - which to watch live so to say because the BBC has the iPlayer and Channel 4 as a +1 channel and their own iPlayer meaning it’s difficult to miss anything. I am also looking forward to the second series of ‘Mars’ over on National Geographic Channel.

Sunday – BBC1 – World War One Remembered – 10pm (New)

David Dimbleby, Dan Snow, and Tina Daheley introduce live coverage of the service of remembrance from the Cenotaph, attended by members of the royal family and thousands of veterans. The programme includes coverage of the two-minute silence, the Royal British Legion's march past, and a procession of 10,000 members of the public in tribute to the soldiers who died in the First World War.

There will be a tear or two shed by myself sometime during the service.

Sunday – Channel 4 - Escape to the Chateau 8:30pm (New Series)

Dick and Angel expand the project by setting up a luxury campsite on the chateau grounds, but they only have six weeks to complete it before the first guests arrive - and the weather is not on their side, with constant rain turning the planned site into a muddy field. They also have to contend with a visit from Dick's family at Easter.

Sunday – BBC1- Dynasties 8:30pm (New Series).

David Attenborough narrates footage of five of the world's most endangered species as they struggle to preserve their social groups, beginning with a chimpanzee troop in Senegal. As the dry season sets in, the Alpha of the pack, who has ruled unchallenged for the past three years, faces a series of challenges and finds little support from the other apes.

Sunday - National Geographic Channel - Mars 10pm (New Series)

It was two years ago that I got addicted to a TV show on National Geographic Channel, Mars. Telling a fictional story about the first Mars coloniser’s years from now, in a documentary format where experts talk about space travel and the future of humanity on Mars.
The continuation of the story is finally here – and it’s unmissable. 

The latest season picks up five years after the conclusion of the first. It is now 2042, IMSF has established, and Olympus Town settlement on Mars is fully developed. Now oil company workers are transferred to the planet to work on resource extraction.

Monday – ITV – Running Wild With Bear Grylls 9pm (New Series)

Tennis legend Roger Federer joins the adventurer on a trip through the Swiss Alps, with the pair descending a frozen waterfall and using tennis rackets as snowshoes to cross a frozen lake. After a snack of frozen fish eyeballs, the two ascend a sheer cliff that is their only way home, and Roger shares details of his private life, including amusing aspects of raising two sets of twins, and his struggle to develop an on-court balance that led to an unmatched string of Grand Slam victories.

Monday – Channel 4 – 24 Hours in A&E 9pm (New Series)

The return of the programme following life at the A&E department of St George's in south-west London. Rich, 35, is airlifted to the hospital after being involved in a high-speed collision on the M25, and doctors are concerned when they discover he has lost feeling below his chest and can't move his legs. Meanwhile, 36-year-old Justin has had a life-threatening accident while playing football and he is put into an induced coma while a CT scan is carried out, which reveals a potentially life-threatening bleed on his brain.

Tuesday – BBC1 – Stacey Dooley: The Young And The Homeless 10:45pm (New)

Street life, a youth homeless charity in Blackpool funded by Children in Need, has eight beds – but there are ten young people waiting outside. Josh, the 18-year-old hero of this enraging documentary, explains that this means he’ll probably end up in a sleeping bag on the doorstep; a few days later, when Stacey Dooley meets him again, he’s definitely kipping outside because his shift at a pizza takeaway has made him miss his place in the queue.

Another circumstance in which Josh sleeps rough is when a girl needs the bed: he refuses to subject young women to the ordeal. The desperately vulnerable teen girls Dooley meets when she moves on to Manchester prove Josh’s point. Their families have booted out most of these blameless kids. Then when they hit 18, the welfare safety net disappears. Dooley’s film offers hope in the form of organisations that try to help, but it’s a shamefully bleak picture.

Friday – BBC4 – David Rodigan: The Unlikely King Of Reggae 10pm (New)

The life of the German-born reggae broadcaster and radio presenter whose love affair with Jamaican music began in the 1950s, celebrating a man whose career is strangely intertwined with not only the evolution of such music in this country, but also the evolution of the culture. In recent years, the 67-year-old's DJ appearances have started attracting a far younger audience, a reflection perhaps of the way different forms of music from the different cultures that have arrived in Britain over the last 70 years have integrated, taken root, and spawned new scenes, attitudes, and tastes.

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