Fri 26 Jul 2024

 

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The 10 best TV shows to watch this week, from the Oscars to Love Rat

Plus, Interior Design Masters returns and Dancing on Ice reaches its thrilling climax

Dancing on Ice  
Sun 6.25pm, ITV1

After eight weeks, 12 celebrity hopefuls have been whittled down to four finalists: Radio 1’s Adele Roberts; Olympic hero Greg Rutherford; Made in Chelsea’s Miles Nazaire; and Corrie actor Ryan Thomas. The semis split viewer opinion over the use of wires to send skaters flying around the rink – it’s hard to get much skating done like that – but, back down on the ice, Miles is the bookies’ favourite.

Forensics: The Real CSI  
Sun 9pm, BBC Two

When a freezer is brought to a local dump after a flat clearance, staff find that there is a truly horrible surprise inside: a decomposing body. In this behind-the-scenes doc, we follow West Midlands Police forensics experts as they try to find out who the deceased was, how they died, and who might be responsible – which gets more complicated when it turns out that a friend of the person who died knows quite a lot more about it than first thought.

Forensics: The Real CSI s4,10-03-2024,Body in a Freezer,1,Kat Harrold, Dani McGarry,Examining a fridge for forensic evidence,Blast Films,Blast Films
The forensics team investigate a fridge with a dark secret (Photo: BBC/Blast Films)

Oscars Live  
Sun 10.15pm, ITV1

Whether you are hoping Oppenheimer will blow away the competition or just wondering whether anyone’s going to get clouted around the head again, good news: for the first time in two decades, you’ll be able to see all the action as it happens. Hollywood’s biggest night is, finally, being shown live on British TV again. Jonathan Ross anchors an Oscars party that promises chat with famous movie fans before leading into coverage of the show itself.  

This image and the information contained herein is strictly embargoed until 21:00 4th March 2024 From ITV Oscars Red Carpet Live: on ITV1 & ITVX Pictured: Jonathan Ross This photograph is (C) ITV plc and can only be reproduced for editorial purposes directly in connection with the programme or event mentioned above, or ITV plc. This photograph must not be manipulated [excluding basic cropping] in a manner which alters the visual appearance of the person photographed deemed detrimental or inappropriate by ITV plc Picture Desk. This photograph must not be syndicated to any other company, publication or website, or permanently archived, without the express written permission of ITV Picture Desk. Full Terms and conditions are available on the website www.itv.com/presscentre/itvpictures/terms For further information please contact: michael.taiwo1@itv.com
Jonathan Ross anchors ITV’s Oscars coverage (Photo: Matt Frost/ITV)

Accused: The Hampstead Paedophile Hoax  
Mon 9pm, Channel 4

Christ Church in Hampstead, north London, was known mostly for being where Clement Attlee married his wife Violet in 1922. Then, in 2014, the church and the school across the road became – according to conspiracy theorists – the centre of a satanic cult, where 175 paedophiles feasted on the blood of children. Obviously, it wasn’t true. But it turned into a very real terror for the people accused, with very real victims – including children coerced into telling the fantasists’ lies for them.

Pictured: ?Anna?, one of the four Mums in the story, standing outside, wider shot...The actor playing ?Anna? is Kathryn McGarr...Image taken on the drama shoot in January 2023...
‘Anna’, played by Kathryn McGarr, is one of the four mums at the centre of the conspiracy (Photo: Channel 4)

Snow Going Back: Comic Relief vs the Arctic  
Mon 9pm, BBC One

Dragons’ Den’s Sara Davies, Geordie Shore alumnus Vicky Pattison, former England footballer Alex Scott and Love Island presenter Laura Whitmore set out from Trømso in Norway to do the traditional arduous celeb challenge in the name of charity. The goal: circumnavigating Markusfjellet Peak over 50km and four days’ skiing, snowshoeing and biking across the Arctic tundra, where temperatures can go as low as minus 40°C, winds can gust up to 100mph, and all while lugging 20kg of kit behind them.

NORWAY - FEBRUARY 21: (R-L) Vicky Pattison, Laura Whitmore and Alex Scott, during day three of the Snow Going Back - Comic Relief 2024 Challenge seen walking through the Arctic landscape pulling and pushing their gear on February 21, 2024 in Norway. This Red Nose Day will see an all-female group of celebrities take on extreme. harsh and unpredictable conditions in Arctic Norway for a BBC One documentary. Vicky Pattison, Sara Davies, Laura Whitmore, and Alex Scott are taking on Comic Reliefs coldest challenge yet to raise much-needed funds for Red Nose Day. (Photo by Brodie Hood/Comic Relief via Getty Images)
Vicky Pattison leads the team through the snow (Photo: Brodie Hood/Comic Relief via Getty Images)

Love Rat  
Mon 9pm, Channel 5

This four-part drama stars Sally Lindsay as Emma, who has escaped to Cyprus to take her mind off a particularly unpleasant divorce from Pete, played by Neil Morrissey. That is where she bumps into dishy, suave Niko (Casualty’s Gerald Kyd) and they get caught up in a whirlwind romance. It looks like Niko has it all, especially when he shows off a flash pad he is interested in buying. Only problem is, he needs a bit of cash to get it nailed down – £200,000 would do it. Emma gives him the money, and Niko scarpers. Emma doesn’t take that lying down, though. Soon she has enlisted Pete to exact revenge.

Interior Design Masters with Alan Carr  
Tues 8pm, BBC One

The fifth series of the Bake Off-but-with-wallpapering competition opens by sending its 10 contestants into a former convent in Norfolk, praying that their visions to turn the nuns’ old quarters into chic B&B rooms impress judges Michelle Ogundehin and Abigail Ahern. Later in the series they’ll be giving a new lick of paint to activity centres at Chester Zoo, reworking holiday lodges at Blenheim Palace and putting their own spin on the changing rooms at Wembley Stadium.

Interior Design Masters with Alan Carr S5,12-03-2024,Series ,Generic,(l-r) Francesca, Roisin, Benat, Anthony, Domnall, Alan Carr, Michelle Ogundehin, Sheree, Matt, Ash, Jess, Hannah,**Embargoed until Tuesday 5th March 2024**,Darlow Smithson Productions,Kevin Ralph TV Still BBC TV Still BBC
Alan Carr fronts another series of the design competition (Photo: Kevin Ralph/BBC/Darlow Smithson Productions)

Saving Lives at Sea in World War II  
Tues 9pm, BBC Two

This special celebrates the bicentenary of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution by telling the story of its wartime heroics. At a time of death and destruction, the RNLI was sometimes at odds with public opinion in its mission to save lives with no regard for nationality, and Dermot O’Leary explores how volunteers were pitched into the war during the Battle of Britain and the evacuation of Dunkirk, speaking to descendants of wartime crew members and putting out to sea in a historic lifeboat to get a feel for what they went through.

Saving Lives at Sea: In World War Two,12-03-2024,1,Dermot O'Leary,Dermot O'Leary, in mordern day RNLI kit, sat in the Coxswains seat on the Aldeburgh All Weather Lifeboat out at sea. **STRICTLY EMBARGOED UNTIL TUESDAY 5th MARCH 2024**,Blast FIlms ,Tim Knight
Dermot O’Leary suits up to explore the RNLI’s past (Photo: BBC/Blast Films/Tim Knight)

Royal Kill List  
Tues 9pm, Sky History

It is 1660, and after the restoration of the monarchy, Charles II is in the mood for revenge in this historical drama. There is a slightly unusual spin on the telling here, with Chernobyl’s Jared Harris voicing the regicides, Sheila Atim the royalists and Joseph Fiennes Charles II himself, alongside splashy historical reconstructions. There is a slightly Guy Ritchie-ish lilt to the script – “A spot of hunting is in order,” Fiennes says at some point, “regicides are in season” – and it launches into the chaotic, paranoid period with relish.

The Idaho Murders: Trial by TikTok  
Weds 9pm, BBC Three

Early in the morning of 13 November 2022, in the small town of Moscow in Idaho, Xana Kernodle and her boyfriend Ethan Chapin got home after a party at a frat house. Best friends Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen joined them, having been to a sports bar. By the morning, all four university students had been stabbed to death. The shock of their murders snowballed and led armchair detectives to try to solve the case themselves. Zara McDermott goes to Idaho to investigate why the case became so huge, and why true crime has such a hold over certain corners of social media.

The Idaho Murders: Trial by TikTok,13-03-2024,Zara McDermott ,in Moscow, Idaho,Summer Films,Alana McVerry
Zara McDermott heads to Idaho to investigate the murders (Photo: BBC/Summer Films/Alana McVerry)

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