TV choice
ABBA: THE REUNION
ITV1, 9pm
Thirty years to the day after they won the Eurovision Song Contest and five years since the first production of Mamma Mia! opened, Abba are reunited in London. (Well, almost. One of them failed to show.) To mark the occasion, Pete Waterman presents this tribute, which combines interviews with the group and footage from an old Australian tour with coverage of the celebrations in London. Waterman describes their songs as pop classics, woven out of middle-European folk melodies and backed up by the Spector Wall of Sound. Abba have already sold over 370 million albums, and the songs remain as kitsch and infectious as ever. DC
SHOEBOX ZOO
BBC One, 4.35pm
The Beeb’s new fantasy serial featuring Potter-style magic and talking toy creatures. See Kids’ favourite.
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BANK OF MUM AND DAD
BBC Two, 8pm
With personal debt in the UK at record levels, it makes sense to have TV programmes that address the problem. The trick is to find new ways to say: “Don’t spend more than you earn.” In this series, parents live for a week with their spendthrift offspring and take over their finances. Richard and Dawn already owe £28,000 and overspend by £385 every month. The parents do their best, but it is only when a financial adviser reads the riot act that they start to take the problem seriously. “The hardest thing,” says Dawn, “is facing the truth. Facing what I already know.”
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TOO POSH TO WASH
Channel 4, 8.30pm
Aggie MacKenzie and Kim Woodburn are back with the same formula as the abysmal How Clean is Your House?, only this time they have turned their attention from dirty houses to unwashed bodies. Incredibly, they have found people who are willing to parade their lack of personal hygiene in front of millions of viewers. Then again, if you don’t wash your underwear for a year, you don’t care how many people know about it. The show is demeaning for the person involved, embarrassing for the viewer and of limited value to anyone who washes regularly.
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GOING STRAIGHT
Channel 4, 9pm
Six former convicts, who have all served time for offences ranging from GBH to drug trafficking, are offered the chance to run their own florist business in North London. They are given job training, business advice and start-up money, but the success of the project will depend on their willingness to turn up and work together as a team. In the first episode of what promises to be a lively series, the project is already looking shaky. DC
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Multichannel choice
DEADWOOD
Sky One, 10pm
You may well think that the TV western is as dead as Doc Holliday, but you’d be wrong. HBO’s fabulous new series brings back to our screens lawless towns, six shooters and saloons filled with poker games, fist-fights and whores — but it is also far stronger medicine than, say, Bonanza, or even Unforgiven. The story begins with various characters, among them “Wild” Bill Hickok (Keith Carradine), descending on the violent settlement of Deadwood to get rich quick. Awaiting them is a demonic bar owner, Al Swearangen (a deliciously nasty turn by Ian McShane). Be warned — the language is truly filthy. See Barry Norman’s verdict. James Jackson
LIVE INTERNATIONAL CRICKET: ICC CHAMPIONS TROPHY
Sky Sports 1, 10am
Coverage of the first one-day semi-final from Edgbaston, the second being played out tomorrow at Hampshire’s Rose Bowl ground (10am).
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THE NEXT JOE MILLIONAIRE
E4, 7pm
The first series of this reality show was such a hit you wonder just how media-starved the participants in this second series must be to fall for the charade on which it all hinges. Once again, 14 women have been flown to a luxury villa for several weeks in order to fight for David, a good-looking bachelor they believe to be worth $80 million. Unbeknown to them, he is in fact a rodeo cowboy earning $11,000 a year.
THE NEW TWILIGHT ZONE
Sci-Fi, 8pm/9pm
Tonight’s double-bill of uncanny tales wraps up the series: in the first, Lou Diamond Phillips is a pool cleaner suffering dreams about being murdered; then Bill Mumy plays a father with terrifying telepathic powers whose daughter rebels against him. This latter story is a sequel to an episode from 1961, which starred Mumy himself as a boy.
JOURNEYS FROM THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH
BBC Four, 8.30pm
The start of a six-part tour of the Mediterranean to examine how the rocks beneath it have shaped its history, and how the area’s geological character still threatens catastrophe (as witnessed in Izmet, Turkey, five years ago). The geologist Iain Stewart presents with an enthusiasm for the subject bordering on mania, making it all feel like an uncharacteristically lively geography lesson.
DINNER WITH PORTILLO
BBC Four, 9.30pm
Tonight, Portillo’s round-the-table chatterati chums include Dawn Airey, Will Hutton and Shirley Conran. Over their crèmes brûlées, they consider whether we really are the victims of greedy bosses and an overwork culture. More wine, anyone? JJ