THE SHIELD
Five, 11.05pm
This is the most powerful episode of The Shield to date. The Salvadoreans are shipping hand grenades into LA to muscle in on the drug-protection business. Innocent people — retired teachers, families having a barbecue — are being blown to pieces by drug enforcers. But, in terms of bloodshed and mayhem, that’s nothing compared with the continuing war between Vic (Michael Chiklis) and the internal affairs investigator (Forest Whitaker) who is out to get him. By the end of the episode, the volume of their hatred has been cranked up to decibel levels that are life-threatening — and are made more extreme because viewers, for the first time, are allowed to feel sympathy for Whitaker’s oleaginous toad. Unmissable.
Tony Robinson can do no wrong at the moment. As a presenter on Time Team he has always been able to convey enthusiasm (often against the odds) without battering viewers with rhetoric and hype, and the film he made recently about his mother was one of the most unexpected and moving programmes of the year. The Queen must have thought so, too, and gave the Time Team unprecedented permission to dig up the begonias in Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and the Palace of Holyroodhouse over the Bank Holiday to see what they can uncover. At Buckingham Palace, for example, they will be looking for the original Buckingham House, the country houses that pre-dated it and the original layout of the gardens, including evidence of a lost canal. Highlights will be broadcast nightly from Friday until Monday.
THE WAR AT HOME
Channel 4, 8pm
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The War at Home is a mainstream US sitcom with a similar feel to Malcolm in the Middle, written by Rob Lotterstein (who also wrote Will & Grace). It involves an updated version of the classic sitcom family, with harassed parents trying to keep their three streetwise kids under control. It is a curious beast, because although cheerful and intermittently funny, it already feels uncomfortably dated. This is not just because of an old-fashioned laughter track, but because it revolves around jokes about the possibility of their son being gay and the fact that they are uncomfortable about their daughter dating a black student. In stockbroker parlance, it would be somewhere between a “hold” and a “weak sell”.
WHATEVER
Channel 4, 11.05pm
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It is the inalienable right of young people to depress the elderly. For this new Friday- night series, a trendy producer got together 12 young people, gave them lots of money and said: “Hey, guys. Make your own TV series! Do anything you want!” So the 12 set up their own telephone sex lines, talked to gangs in Los Angeles, researched sex toys, filmed animals’ testicles and played a game that involved showing film clips of various people off their heads and guessing which drug they were on. The studio audience claps and whoops and cheers in classic Friday-night fashion. It is not as horrible as Johnny Vegas’s 18 Stone of Idiot, but it comes a close second.
BEST OF THE REST . . .
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THE SIMPSONS
Channel 4, 8.30pm/9pm
The new series kicks off with a double bill: Treehouse of Horror XII and The Parent Rap.
Multichannel choice
READING ANDLEEDS FESTIVAL
BBC Three, 7.45pm/10.30pm
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Coverage of the second of the year’s two-site festivals to be broadcast this week (see also V on E4) comes mainly from Reading, where Edith Bowman (left) and Zane Lowe have all-areas passes. No doubt, though, they’ll be stuck backstage interviewing while the cameras catch the bands rocking and the punters jumping in the sun/mud (delete as applicable). Headlining tonight are Franz Ferdinand, tomorrow it’s Muse, with Pearl Jam on Sunday.
REAL TOMB HUNTERS: SNAKES, CURSES AND BOOBYTRAPS
History Channel, 9pm
In films, books and computer games, archaeology is an exciting adventure, filled with deadly surprises, whereas, as any watcher of Time Team could tell you, the reality seems a lot more mundane. But according to this programme, treasure hunting in jungles and deserts can involve gun fights, unexplained heart attacks and the carrying of machetes and snake-bite kits. Any would-be Indiana Joneses or Lara Crofts will be heartened, no doubt.
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ULTIMATE FORCE
ITV4, 10pm
Ultimate Force was co-devised by Chris Ryan but, with Ross Kemp at the helm, still manages to be nothing more than a guilty pleasure to men who enjoy mindless, macho shoot-em-up action. As the third season begins a woman joins the ranks, which leads to much muttering among the men — until she proves herself, of course.
ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT
Bravo, 10pm
Jason Bateman won the Best Actor Emmy for his central role in this well-crafted and highly rated sitcom about dysfunctional family the Bluths. Portia de Rossi (of Ally McBeal fame) plays his spoilt, shopaholic sister.
Daytime choice
THE THIEF OF BAGDAD (1940)
Film4, 3pm
John Justin, June Duprez and Sabu star in this early musical version of the Arabian Nights tale, which features Oscar-winning cinematography and great special effects for its day, including an enormous genie. GABRIELLE STARKEY