Channel 4, 8pm
Twenty years on from the Falklands War, this brilliant documentary revisits a very British tale of derring-do from the conflict. On 30 April, 1982, the RAF launched a secret mission: to bomb Port Stanley’s runway, putting it out of action for the Argentinian fighter jets. But the RAF could only get a single, crumbling Vulcan (a relic from the Cold War) 8,000 miles south to the Falklands, because just one bomber needed an aerial fleet of 13 Victor tanker planes to refuel it throughout the 16-hour round-trip. On the brink of being scrapped, only three of the bombers could be fitted out for war; one to fly the mission and two in reserve. Spare parts were scavenged from museums and scrap yards: one vital component had been serving as an ashtray in the Officers’ Mess. In just three weeks, the Vulcan crews had to learn air-to-air refuelling and conventional bombing. With a plan stretched to the limit and the RAF’s hopes riding on just one Vulcan, the mission was flown on a knife-edge; fraught with mechanical failures, unreliable navigation and electrical storms. And with the complex refuelling calculations done on a £5 pocket calculator, there was a very real chance of running out of fuel. This is Dambusters for the 1980s generation.
Live Formula 1
Sky Sports F1 HD, 4.30am/ BBC One, 2pm
The new Formula 1 season starts today and, sadly, the BBC have lost the rights to broadcast all the races live, and instead will show ten live races and highlights of the others. But anyone with the Sky HD package or a Sky Sports subscription gets access to the new Sky F1 HD channel, where all 20 races are showing, starting in the wee small hours of this morning with the Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park in Melbourne. The Sky team includes Martin Brundle and David Croft, while the Beeb have retained Eddie Jordan and David Coulthard and, one hopes, the use of Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain as the theme music.
Orbit: Earth’s Extraordinary Journey
BBC Two, 9pm
In the final episode of the fascinating series following the Earth’s orbit around the Sun, the journey is completed, travelling back from the Spring Equinox to the end of June. In Britain, the arrival of spring is signalled by the first snowdrops emerging, but Kate Humble is in Canada, where spring arrives with a violent and noisy bang. Humble is also in the ancient Mayan city of Chichen Itza in Mexico to witness a magical bi-yearly event. Meanwhile, Dr Helen Czerski chases a tornado to show how the earth’s tilt creates the most extreme weather on Earth.
Homeland
Channel 4, 9pm
The tension is ramped up tenfold in tonight’s episode of the conspiracy thriller, as the sole surviving terrorist of the compound from which Brody was rescued is captured in Islamabad and returned to the US for interrogation. Estes asks Carrie and Saul to lead the questioning, but also calls Brody in to feed the duo facts about his incarceration (and treatment at the hands of the brutal al-Qaeda operative) to help them to get information from the prisoner. But how will Brody react when faced with one of his former captors? Or, if you take Carrie’s line, co-conspirators? All of the cast are superb, with Damian Lewis unreadable as Brody and Claire Danes’s Carrie verging on the deranged by the end.
Upstairs Downstairs
BBC One, 9pm
The Second World War is imminent. We know this because Mr Amanjit is showing Johnny how the war could open up on two fronts using some plates and cutlery. Plus, the Foreign Secretary is making comments that, with the benefit of hindsight, make him look a bit stupid. “If there’s anyone Stalin hates more than us, it’s the Germans,” he tells Sir Hallam. The dread of war is nicely played downstairs, as Harry boards up the windows and tells Beryl: “If things kick off I’m not hanging around here to choke to death in some basement.” Someone else not hanging around is Lady Agnes, who packs herself and the kids off to Buckinghamshire as the cracks in her marriage deepen.
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Digital choices, by Joe Clay
Don’t Stop Me Now
Sky1, 8pm
Just when you thought that all the talent show formats had been exploited, up pops Sky with yet another variation on the theme. Here, the studio audience is split into three categories — singers, stand-up comics and variety (think: anything goes) — and each week, they’re randomly selected to step into the spotlight to showcase their skills for 100 seconds. The remaining audience members are armed with voting pads and play judge and jury, à la Britain’s Got Talent. Unpopular acts will be ejected — literally — via various trap doors, horizontal bungees and exploding stages. The eventual winner will pocket £25,000. Amanda Byram presents, joined each week by a host of celebrity commentators, such as Freddie Flintoff, Chris Moyles, Micky Flanagan and Louie Spence. It’s a tweak of the conventional, rather than a revolution.
Live Premier League Football
Sky Sports 1, from 1pm
The last thing you need when you’re battling the drop is a visit from Manchester United, but the Red Devils are this afternoon’s opponents for Wolverhampton Wanderers (kick-off 1.30pm). Then, Newcastle United take on Norwich City (kick-off 4pm).
Songwriters Circle: English Folk/Songs of Ireland
BBC Four, 7pm/8pm
Martin Simpson, Michael Chapman and Steve Tilston, acoustic guitarists and stalwarts of the English folk scene, perform together at the Bush Hall in London, and discuss their careers and lives as touring folk musicians. Chapman plays songs including Postcards of Scarborough, Tilston performs the title track from his 2011 album The Reckoning, and Simpson sings a eulogy to his father, Never Any Good. Then, it’s a short hop over the Irish Sea to the Emerald Isle (musically, not geographically), where musicians including Brian Kennedy and Cara Dillon perform contemporary and traditional songs from their native country at the Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, as part of the Celtic Connections festival.
Discovering Zeffirelli
Sky Arts 1, 9pm
Franco Zeffirelli has had a rich and varied career in theatre, opera and film. He cast Maria Callas in Tosca, brought Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton together in The Taming of the Shrew, directed a classic film version of Romeo and Juliet, told the story of his childhood in Tea with Mussolini, and controversially served as a senator for Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party. Here, from his home in Rome, the 89-year-old Italian, looks back over his career.
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Film choice, by Wendy Ide
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005)
BBC Two, 6.20pm
This film adaptation — showing a week after what would have been Douglas Adams’s 60th birthday — is faithful to the author’s inimitable style and his unrestrained pleasure in the downright absurd. The casting is canny and mostly gels well with the material. Martin Freeman is effective as Arthur Dent, all rumpled outrage, moth-eaten slippers and a rather poignant belief that life, the universe and everything would be a lot easier to deal with if he could just get a nice cup of tea. Sam Rockwell showboats as Zaphod Beeblebrox the delinquent president of the galaxy with a flip-top head but no brains to fill it. And Stephen Fry is appropriately calming as the voice of a book which has “Don’t Panic” written in large friendly letters on the cover. (97min)
I, Robot (2004)
Channel 5, 7.45pm
Inspired by the stories of Isaac Asimov, this slick sci-fi thriller wears its CGI effects well. At first glance it might seem to be another dumb action picture, but there is more to it than that. For a start, Will Smith, as a robot-phobic cop investigating a crime that seems to have been perpetrated by an android, is persuasively downbeat and mercifully free of his usual swagger. The man versus machine themes have been explored before certainly, but there is plenty here to get the audience thinking. (115min)
War of the Worlds (2005)
BBC One, 10.25pm
H.G. Wells’s alien invasion story is beefed up and pumped full of steroids and explosives by Steven Spielberg’s big-budget adaptation. This superior popcorn flick revels in the unabashed joy of blowing stuff into oblivion. The special effects are tremendous — from the first sight of the tripod alien machines as they stalk through the wreckage of the city to the burning express train that screams past the stunned survivors as if it has escaped from Hell. Particularly effective is the sound design — the bellowing rumble from the alien ships chills the blood. As does Dakota Fanning’s incessant screaming. (116min)
Drillbit Taylor (2008)
Channel 4, 12.15am
Seth Rogen writes and Judd Apatow produces this sweet-natured high-school comedy, which feels like a junior version of Superbad. The central characters — the gauche geek, the chubby loudmouth and the oddball — could be prototypes for the trio at the heart of Superbad. The rapid-fire obscenity is toned down — this film is pitched at a younger audience — but the movie-literate in-jokes remain. The added ingredient here is Owen Wilson’s “Drillbit”, an affable down-and-out, hired by the kids as a bodyguard to protect them from a pair of bullies. (110min)