Dan Reed catches up with Jackson’s accusers as they pursue the singer’s estate. Plus: Bradley Walsh has alternative theories about the pyramids. Here’s what to watch this evening

9pm, Channel 4Dan Reed’s documentary about Wade Robson and James Safechuck, who alleged they were sexually abused as children by Michael Jackson, rocked the world in 2019. This follow-up film delves into their 10-year legal journey to get Jackson’s estate to accept their claims that they were abused, while lawyers share insights. The documentary ends on an astonishing note, and not just because it shows the opening of a hit Jackson musical in the West End of London. Hollie Richardson

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Nearly four years ago, back when Holly Willoughby and Philip Schofield were still mates, and both still employed by ITV, it felt normal to watch the two This Morning hosts get emotional as they embraced through a “cuddle curtain” – a thick sheet of plastic with arm sockets. “Why does it feel like we’re in prison?” laughed Schofield. “This is what the internet was made for!” yelled guest Ant McPartlin, sitting on the sofa a safe two metres away.

It was proof that coronavirus had turned television completely upside down.

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It was a relief when audiences slowly started to return, albeit masked and sitting two metres apart. “The best description of what it was like came from Frank Skinner, who looked at an audience and said: ‘Doing this show is like waking up in an operating theatre.’”

This was quite a feat for other shows that lost live audiences, too, such as Strictly Come Dancing (the crew stepped in, whooping and hollering), Question Time and Have I Got News For You. Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway even received its highest ever ratings. Then again, that is hardly surprising, given that the alternative was buying a dry scotch egg with a QR code in a pub.

Behind the scenes, though, TV production was in crisis. In April 2020, the TV and Film Charity reported that 93% of industry freelancers were not working because of the pandemic. Many struggled to obtain government recognition to qualify for sick pay and financial support. By 2021, Creative UK Group said one in 20 screen industry jobs in Britain had been lost.

It was bleak. Many productions downed tools, while quiz and cookery shows filled the schedules. Even the soaps had to pause production. Luckily, most filmed up to six months in advance and episodes could be rationed. But what next?

“The soaps have never shut down for anything. It was scary,” ITV’s executive producer of continuing drama, Iain MacLeod, tells me. “But soaps are incredibly adept at responding to catastrophes – we’ve had 60 years of practice.”

Emmerdale was the first to return with new episodes in June 2020, using two-hander lockdown episodes. EastEnders stopped broadcasting for three months – its first ever break – and came back in September. Coronation Street came back in between, in July, with a “light touch” inclusion of Covid into the storylines.

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There was still plenty of ready-made TV to distract us – and all Covid-free! An increasingly sex-deprived nation made horny drama Normal People the BBC’s most watched show of the year, while the utterly absurd Tiger King provided the ultimate Zoom catch-up conversation starter, and Quiz – based on the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? cough scandal – tapped into the nostalgia we felt, longing for simpler times.

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This is a strange anniversary to be marking: for many of us, lockdown was a discombobulating, scary period made slightly better by morning telly mishaps and wild Netflix shows; for hundreds of thousands of others it was a time of utter grief, anger and injustice that would go on to fuel devastating dramas. For plenty of us, it was probably a bit of both. That was Covid: laughing at a chatty kid crashing her mum’s serious interview one minute and crying at televised powerpoint charts of mass deaths the next.

A documentary follows the controversial water company on the verge of collapsing. Plus: the long-term effects of lockdown on our kids. Here’s what to watch this evening

9pm**, BBC Two**

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Protection is the twisty drama about a family shot dead while under witness protection. Plus: meet the new Celebrity Bake Off judge. Here’s what to watch this evening

Sunday, 9pm, ITV1

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The popular professor starts her odyssey in Thessaloniki. Plus: the tense finale of Welsh thriller The One That Got Away. Here’s what to watch this evening

8pm, Channel 4

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Krishnan Guru-Murthy reports from an African disaster zone. Plus: ballet superstar Steven McRae’s gruelling road to recovery. Here’s what to watch this evening

7.30pm, Channel 4This documentary strand may be a bleak testimony to the amount of misery the world is capable of generating, but it remains as essential as ever. Krishnan Guru-Murthy is in Sudan exploring the horrific facets of the ongoing civil war: about 30 million people need humanitarian assistance, certain regions are experiencing famine and the conflict rumbles brutally on – bombings, executions and sexual violence are rife. Phil Harrison

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Dooley speaks to women who have reported being raped by someone they know. Plus, the story of the miners’ strike’s ‘Polmaise Piranhas’. Here’s what to watch this evening

9pm, BBC ThreeProsecuting rape is notoriously difficult in the UK, with an estimated 5% of cases making it to trial, and only about 45% resulting in a conviction. Amid such discouraging headlines, four young women have allowed Stacey Dooley to tell their difficult, complex stories about reporting being raped by someone they know, in the three-year run-up to trial. Ellen E Jones

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The bloodthirsty roomies are back in What We Do in the Shadows. Plus, the genius Am I Being Unreasonable? finale. Here’s what to watch this evening

10pm, BBC TwoMatt Berry, Natasia Demetriou and Kayvan Novak are back with a fifth series of their bitingly funny vampire mockumentary. Human familiar Guillermo (Harvey Guillén) is acting oddly, and the vampires think it’s because they missed his birthday (a “terrible day” for humans). But the reality is that Guillermo has done something his masters won’t be very happy about at all. Hollie Richardson

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A gripping film about how the persecuted spiritual movement took on their repressive state. Plus: London teens exchange places with high-schoolers from the US. Here’s what to watch this evening

10pm, BBC Four

In 2002, activists from the banned spiritual movement Falun Gong managed to commandeer a Chinese state news broadcast to rebut what they saw as slander by the authorities. Two decades later, the comic-book artist Daxiong has painstakingly researched the guerrilla operation that changed his life. Featuring striking animation, this gripping film dramatises the hijack and its aftermath, including police raids that forced Daxiong – a blacklisted Falun Gong follower – to flee the country. Graeme Virtue

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The Welsh actor buys £1m worth of debt in this powerful documentary. Plus: chess is officially the most exciting game! Here’s what to watch this evening

Monday, 9pm, Channel 4

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cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/25366224

It's been 25 years since the now defunct Channel M first broadcast to viewers in Greater Manchester

The Australia-set Ten Pound Poms is back for a tense second series. Plus: part two of the star-studded new Agatha Christie. Here’s what to watch this evening

8pm, BBC One

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The glamorous but gritty period drama continues to put on a show. Plus, enjoy some ‘doggy dancing’ at Crufts! Here’s what to watch this evening

9.15pm, BBC One

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Nemo, Käärijä and Katrina all feature in a special concert ahead of May’s finals. Plus: The Traitors US reaches its gripping conclusion. Here’s what to watch this evening

11.40pm, BBC One

The Eurovision song contest final takes place in Switzerland on 17 May, so of course we are already warming up for it with this celebratory concert in Amsterdam to kick off the competition. Edsilia Rombley and the Drag Race UK star Tia Kofi host a night of interviews and performances with Eurovision royalty including Loreen, Nemo, Käärijä, Katrina (minus her Waves) and Baby Lasagna. Hollie Richardson

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Five female activists tell the astonishing tale of how they discovered they were dating undercover police officers. Plus: canine capers at Crufts. Here’s what to watch today

9pm, ITV1

This shocking documentary series televises the “spy cops” scandal brought to national attention by the Guardian. Told by five female activists whose romantic partners suddenly abandoned them, it’s a moving, personal account of discovering you’ve been dating an undercover police officer – and an astonishing tale of their investigative nous. Alexi Duggins

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Get Millie Black is an action-packed story by Booker prize-winner Marlon James. Plus, Lucy Boynton stars in a dark true crime drama. Here’s what to watch this evening

9pm, Channel 4

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Dispatches looks at the rise of appetite suppressants for weight loss in the health and beauty industries. Plus: Frankenstein at the National Theatre. Here’s what to watch this evening

8pm, Channel 4

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Peter Blake, Jim Moir and more celebrate the late artist’s genius. Plus: Norma Percy’s masterly series on Israel and Palestine continues. Here’s what to watch this evening

10pm, BBC FourThe overlooked sole female co-founder of Britain’s pop art movement, Pauline Boty, who died at 28 in 1966, finally gets her story told in a documentary. Fans including the pop artist Peter Blake, the comedian Jim Moir (AKA Vic Reeves), the critic and curator Kate Bryan and the print designer (and Boty’s best friend) Natalie Gibson help to honour Boty’s legacy, alongside a showcase of her vibrant, feminist and politically incisive pieces, which were ahead of their time. Hollie Richardson

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The BBC’s Towards Zero follows the scandalous life and loves of an adulterous tennis pro, and it’s slick from the get-go. Plus, Tom Hanks narrates epic nature show The Americas – and it’s Oscars night!

9pm, BBC OneChallengers meets Agatha Christie in the latest slick adaptation, which follows the aftermath of the scandal of adulterous pro tennis player Nevile Strange (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) – who holidays at his coastal family pile with his wife and ex-wife. At Gull’s Point, owned by the no-nonsense Lady Tressilian (Anjelica Huston), there are more guests and residents with grudges. Naturally, a murder is ahead. Hollie Richardson

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The intergalactic version of the song contest will co-incide with the real thing in May, and it's going to be 'mahoosive' according to the writer

Welsh crime drama The One That Got Away is an addictive watch with a hotshot lead. Plus, Sabrina Carpenter will dazzle the stage at the 2025 Brits. Here’s what to watch this evening

9pm, BBC FourThis knotty Welsh crime drama opens with a nurse heading for a romantic weekend in Paris. She is later found dead in the woods, with a heart-knot carved into a nearby tree. Enter your new favourite no-nonsense detective: Ffion Lloyd (Elen Rhys). The hotshot is called back from Cardiff to team up with ex-partner (and lover!) DS Rick Sheldon (Richard Harrington), and the pair wonder if, based on a previous murder they solved, there is a copycat killer on the loose. Hollie Richardson

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The fascinating story of those who won’t stop searching for Nessie. Plus: Claudia Winkleman sits in for Graham Norton. Here’s what to watch this evening

9pm, BBC TwoIn 1961, the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau started monitoring the loch 24/7. By the 70s, a Japanese pop promoter, Yoshio Kou, led the International Loch Ness Monster Search Party. And 2023 saw the biggest Nessie hunt in more than 50 years. The beast has kept tourists coming for decades, and this documentary tracks the people who have been most obsessed with finding it. Hollie Richardson

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The Mad Men star plays a hotshot Hollywood producer going back to her Irish roots – and beyond – in Chris O’Dowd’s fun new show. Plus: a reboot of Bergerac. Here’s what to watch this evening

9pm, Sky Max

Chris O’Dowd (The IT Crowd, Bridesmaids) returns to his roots with this new creation: an offbeat Irish comedy drama with a strange sci-fi twist. The six-parter follows Wendy (Christina Hendricks of Mad Men fame), a hotshot Hollywood producer who returns to her rural home village, the fictional Drumbán, to make a movie. But when she reunites with the local doctor, Séamus (Paddy Considine), we see flashbacks to what happened more than two decades ago on millennium eve, when a light in the sky caused birds to drop dead around them in the woods. It’s kooky and fun, as the community gets involved with the movie production, and just the right amount of weird to keep it intriguing. Hollie Richardson

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The meticulous high-risk work carried out by hospital surgeons is shown in unflinching detail. Plus: is love hiding close to home in Amandaland? Here’s what to watch this evening

9pm, BBC TwoNot one for the faint-hearted: it’s the return of the fly-on-the-wall hospital series that doesn’t flinch from showing every detail of the remarkable work carried out during high-risk surgeries. We’re in Edinburgh this time, where 21-year-old law student Sania has an inflamed pancreas and needs an auto-transplant – which involves removing it and reconstructing her digestive tract. It’s a complex procedure that has only been conducted in Scotland three times. Edge-of-your-seat stuff, if you can stomach it. Hollie Richardson

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Presenter James Blake finds there is a policing war raging online. Plus: a cold case gets a breakthrough. Here’s what to watch this evening

10.40pm, BBC One

After the identity of the social media influencer James Blake was stolen and used in scams, he made a documentary about it – last year’s Hunting the Catfish Crime Gang. So he is well placed to tackle another investigation, this time into how cyber sex crime has become an online policing war. But as he speaks to young people and experts, and travels across the globe in pursuit of answers, he is shocked to find that the “sextortion” picture is even darker than he imagined. Hollie Richardson

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