Friday 9pm, BBC Two Ask any farmer what their biggest enemy is, and they might say the foxes that feed on their chickens, but there’s a good chance they’ll mention the threat of bovine TB, apparently spread by badgers . However, Queen lead guitarist Brian May has long been a critic of the practice of culling the badger population in the UK. He believes the animals are scapegoated and killed needlessly, and has sponsored a research programme into the causes of the disease.
This one-off documentary follows May as he takes his case to sceptical farmers, hoping to persuade enough of them to back his radical plans to stop the cull. 8pm, BBC Two Monty Don makes a start on adding some foxtail lilies to his borders. The winter salads he sowed last month are also ready to plant out, and in the greenhouse, there’s the conundrum around what to do about fuchsia gall mite.
Rachel de Thame, meanwhile, delves into the extraordinary world of bees. 8pm, BBC Four As part of the Proms 2024 season (it was recorded last Friday), Gemma New conducts the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the National Youth Choir of Scotland’s Chamber Choir in Bonis’s “Salomé”, followed by Mozart’s “Clarinet Concerto”, featuring American clarinettist Anthony McGill. The Prom culminates in a semi-staged performance of Mendelssohn’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”.
9pm, ITV1 The final furlong for this somewhat absorbing docuseries about National Hunt jump racing. After his success in the Grand National, Irish trainer Willie Mullins mounts an all-out assault for the British Trainers’ championship over the final tense two weeks of the season. Can Paul Nicholls hold on to his title, or can his former protégé Dan Skelton achieve his first championship title? 9pm, Channel 4 Channel 4’s resident quizmaster Jimmy Carr asks the questions as Babatunde Aléshé , Daisy May Cooper, Natasia Demetriou, Jamie Demetriou, Judi Love and Russell Howard compete to see who knows the most about television.
Charles Dance, the children of Mitchell Brook Primary School, and a host of celebrity question-setters help out. 9pm, Channel 5 The summer holiday season is nearing its end and with it this docuseries likely to instil a fear of flying in even the most blasé vacationer. The final close shave involves Flight BA5390 from Birmingham to Málaga, passengers and crew recalling the after-effects of the plane’s front windscreen blowing out.
A freezing wind caused chaos in the cabin, and the captain was sucked out of the empty window, his torso and head banging against the outside of the aircraft. 9pm, More4 And if the above hasn’t put you off flying for life, there’s always this ongoing airborne thriller from Sweden in which a plane is hijacked while travelling between Stockholm and San Francisco. Erik asks Osman to help investigate the cargo hold, though is unsure how much he can trust the aircraft technician.
Saturday 8.25pm, BBC Two The Grammy Award-winning, non-binary “Stay with Me” singer promised not to scare the horses when he appeared at the Royal Albert Hall earlier this month, rolling out the ballads while dressed in a double-breasted Vivienne Westwood suit. Smith does change it up after the interval, however, slipping into a big red taffeta dress and belting out some jazzier numbers.
5.15pm, BBC One Dear Alice, the manufactured British K-pop group dispatched to South Korea, come to terms with the reality of being in the toughest boy band bootcamp in the world. Determined to bounce back from an underwhelming first evaluation, the band take on a dance challenge 555 metres in the air at the top of the fifth-tallest building in the world, and perform live in front of an audience.
8pm, Channel 4 Behind the scenes on the Bealach Mor, one of Britain’s toughest cycling events, in which riders take on the Applecross Peninsula’s mountainous terrain, on a 90-mile ride that includes the iconic Bealach Na Baa – the steepest climb of any bike race in the UK. Also featured during this final visit to Scotland’s North Coast 500: a glass designer and a cheesemaker. 9pm, Channel 5 A look back at two of the worst flash floods in British history, which were separated by exactly 52 years.
On 16 August 1952, 15cm of rain fell in just a few hours on Lynmouth in Devon and cascaded into the village via the East and West Lyn rivers, bringing with it 114,000 tons of boulders, sediment and uprooted trees that smashed into buildings. Fifty-two years later, on 16 August 2004, Boscastle in Cornwall suffered four hours of relentless rainfall, which funnelled down the steep banks of the valley from the moors. 10.
10pm, BBC Two The latest pop star to have her performances retrieved from the BBC archives is Stefani Germanotta, otherwise better known as Lady Gaga . Included here are the 2008 Top of the Pops performance of her breakthrough single, “Just Dance”, along with her duet with Tony Bennett on Strictly Come Dancing . 10.
15pm, ITV1 A concluding double bill of this lavish HBO true crime series starring Marvel Studios stalwart Elizabeth Olsen as Candy Montgomery, a bored housewife in late 70s Texas accused of murdering her lover’s wife. As her trial gets under way, Candy testifies that she feared for her life. 11.
45pm, BBC One It’s August bank holiday weekend, which means it’s festival time again in Reading and Leeds. BBC iPlayer is providing the main coverage of the proceedings, but here is the day’s bill-topping set at Reading from producer, singer and all round international dance music sensation DJ Fred Gibson, aka Fred Again . Sunday 9pm, BBC One A follow-up series to James Graham’s gripping and genre-bending 2022 drama featuring a manhunt in a former Nottinghamshire mining town still riven by bitter memories of the 1985 miners’ strike.
That was set in 2004, while the sequel takes place in the present day, when a controversial new pit is planned. Joining the cast are Robert Lindsay and David Harewood , while returning characters include Lesley Manville’s Julie Jackson, former DCS Ian St Clair ( David Morrissey ) – now retired from the police and heading up a team to stem youth crime (and there’s lots of it) – and Lorraine Ashbourne’s Daphne Sparrow, the former police spy turned gangster matriarch. 8pm, BBC One Fiona Bruce begins a new series of the show at Pitzhanger Manor & Gallery in Ealing, west London, where treasures include a royal paintbox, a collection of Italian jewellery and a rare wartime medal awarded to a carrier pigeon.
8pm, BBC Two A new series follows a six-month expedition tracking lions, leopards and cheetahs in Botswana’s Okavango Delta. All the latest gizmos are used (state-of-the-art drones, military-grade night-vision cameras) as wildlife cinematographer Gordon Buchanan goes on the trail of one of the largest lion prides in Africa – “quite a complicated family group” of 28. Anna Dimitriadis, meanwhile, tracks down the Okavango’s most elusive big cat, the cheetah, while local film-maker Brad Bestelink seeks the leopards.
9pm, BBC Two From the makers of the Bafta-winning Misadventures of Romesh Ranganathan , this new series finds the presenter turning semi-serious sleuth as he investigates the mysterious deaths of various cultural figures. He begins with rapper Tupac Shakur, who was gunned down outside a Las Vegas nightclub in September 1996. “Now the case is going to be solved by me.
.. maybe,” says Ranganathan as he visits the scene of the crime with psychologist and podcaster Julia Shaw (aka “the useful one”) and meets witnesses, police and friends of the victim.
9pm, Channel 4 The ebullient, hands-on presenter trains to fly a classic frontline fighter jet, and builds a jet engine in his shed in a single day (of course he does) – this to gain an understanding of the technology. With jet travel being a major contributor to climate change, Martin also looks for less damaging alternatives, before he heads off to the Swiss Alps to fly a fighter jet through the mountains. 10.
30pm, Channel 4 Documentary exploring the world of American XL bully dogs and their owners, in the run-up to a Government ban against a backdrop of maulings. Many owners are fighting a legal battle, though others are abandoning their dogs. With unscrupulous breeders having made big money selling in-demand XL puppies, the rescue centres are now overwhelmed.
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