TSUNAMI, THE AFTERMATH
BBC Two, 9pm
Filmed on location in Thailand, this ambitious two-part drama provides a vivid sense of the chaos and devastation that followed in the wake of the Boxing Day tsunami. Written by Abi Morgan, it sees the tragedy unfold through the eyes of different people — among them, a couple (Chiwetel Ejiofor and Sophie Okonedo) searching for their missing daughter; a mother (Gina McKee) desperate to get her injured son back to England; and a British consular official (Hugh Bonneville) losing his grip. The most arresting performanceof all is Tim Roth as a journalist scavenging for news among the corpses and the desolation. The film is likely to be criticised for viewing a global catastrophe from a largely Western perspective, but it does show — better than any documentary could — what it feels like to be an individual in the midst of a catastrophe that seems anything but “natural”.
638 WAYS TO KILL CASTRO
Channel 4, 10pm
. . . and that figure doesn’t take into account the dirty tricks, which included spraying a television studio where Castro was due to be interviewed with an hallucinogenic drug or devising ways to make his beard fall out. This detailed documentary details some of the more ludicrous attempts on the life of the Cuban dictator. The toxic diving suit. The poisoned milkshake. The booby-trapped seashell. The exploding cigars. “Castro plays David to our Goliath beautifully,” says Wayne Smith, a former US diplomat in Cuba, “and we give him an opportunity on an almost weekly basis.” But the film stops being even remotely funny as it enters the murky world of the psychotic anti-Castro terrorists, who are oblivious to the loss of innocent life.
IMAGINE
BBC One, 10.35pm; Wales, 11.15pm
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There was a time when opera divas could behave like, well, divas — making impossible demands, throwing tantrums and demanding to be treated like spoiled royalty. How much has that changed? The opera world has become fiercely competitive and professional, and this colourful edition of Imagine looks at the gruelling demands of life as a modern diva. It focuses particularly on the glamorous Angela Gheorghiu, whose career has taken her from a small provincial town in Ceausescu’s Romania to the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, and young Isabel Leonard, who is making her debut in Don Giovanni at Bordeaux. Old- style excess may be a thing of the past, but today’s prima donnas still come with attitude.
SCARS
Channel 4, 11.30pm
First shown on More4, Scars is essentially a monologue — part confessional, part therapy — that takes the viewer on a journey into one of the darkest areas of the human psyche. A violent criminal gave the film-maker Leo Regan a series of interviews. To disguise his identity, the interviews have been re-enacted, with the film-maker playing himself and the criminal — who is now married with a child — played by Jason Isaacs (the heroic ambassador in The State Within). The man was raised in an atmosphere of extreme violence and grew up striving to be hard. The violence he describes is constant, acute and random, and the memory of it both sickens and excites him. Isaacs’s performance is vicious, tortured and wholly convincing. It is an appalling hour.
MULTICHANNEL TELEVISION
Gabrielle Starkey
LIVE FOOTBALL SPECIAL
Sky Sports 2 (and HD), 7.30pm
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Both Watford and Sheffield United have struggled since they were promoted to the Premiership, so the three points on offer in their clash tonight should be hard fought.
THE CULT OF . . . STAR COPS
BBC Four, 8.30pm
You can be forgiven if you’ve never heard of the latest BBC sci-fi show to feature in this quirky little series — Star Cops ran for only one season on BBC Two in 1987, but apparently spawned an enthusiastic cult following. Set in the year 2027, it followed the exploits of a squad of intergalactic coppers — the International Space Police Force — investigating felonies on a Moon base. David Calder is among the actors recalling the ridiculous problems of simulating weightlessness, while the critic Kim Newman (who has become ubiquitous on BBC Four this week) praises the scripts.
PARALLEL UNIVERSES NIGHT
BBC Four, from 9pm
Yet more sci-fi on Four, this time a whole night dedicated to the idea that our world is just one of an infinite number, running side by side. It kicks off with a lighthearted Time Shift, giving an overview of dimension-hopping TV shows, from Doctor Who to Sliders. Then, in an original Star Trek (10pm), Kirk and Spock find themselves in separate universes, and in Star Trek: Next Generation (10.50pm), a time rift brings the old Enterprise into the same world as the new one. The evening ends with a repeat of last night’s drama Random Quest (11.35pm), based on a story by John Wyndham and starring Sam West.
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MIDSOMER MURDERS
ITV3, 9pm
In Beyond the Grave, Barnaby and Troy go ghosthunting when a painting is slashed to pieces in Aspern Tallow museum. The residents fear that the ghost of Jonathan Lowrie is at large in the village, and when one of his relatives is found murdered in the graveyard, hysteria threatens to break out. Being the realist he is, though, Barnaby (John Nettles) is loathe to believe that a centuries-dead local could be to blame, and starts searching for a much more lively culprit. Meanwhile, his daughter’s boyfriend, an actor, asks for some artistic guidance when he is cast as a copper in a TV soap.
RACE TO DAKAR
Sky Two, 10pm
Ewan McGregor is at the finishing line in Dakar to congratulate his battered and bruised best friend Charley Boorman as the race — and the series — comes to an emotional end.
HARD LABOUR
Discovery, 10pm
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This new spin on the Brat Camp TV penal colony idea takes three long-term dole claimants and introduces them to a foreign concept — hard work — in the hope that they will shape up. Tonight, a mummy’s boy and two unmotivated layabouts go to work at a fairground for a week, taking down and re-erecting an enormous ride. One doesn’t even last a day, but the other two manage to stick it out — and even start to enjoy it.