BBC One, 9pm
It’s business as usual as 16 new entrepreneurs set out to prove to Lord Sugar that they have what it takes to be his new business partner. They are the usual bunch we’ve become so familiar with over the past seven series with egos inflated far above their abilities. But that’s just how we like our apprentices, isn’t it? The candidates’ CVs reveal everything from a professional wrestler, a show jumper and a shark diver to entrepreneurs in fields as varied as architecture, beauty, bridal, technology, fine wine and greengrocery. They say things like “in business I can be like an animal and literally roar my way to the top” and “I truly am the reflection of perfection”. One claims to be a “blonde assassin” and then fails to say a word (silent assassin?); another says he is a master puppeteer who can manipulate all his rivals. Nobody seems to realise how stupid they sound or how hard they are going to make us laugh. In the first task, the teams are spilt into two groups — the boys form Team Phoenix, the girls Team Sterling — and their mission is to launch their own print business. One team loses comprehensively, but in the boardroom their leader isn’t going down without a fight.Talk about the mouse that roared! Mike Mulvihill
Four Rooms
Channel 4, 8pm
Four Rooms returns with the brilliantly simple format that combines Dragons’ Den, Antiques Roadshow and Deal or No Deal. In case you missed the first series, a member of the public pitches up with a strange, collectible object that he or she wants to sell, and four colourful dealers lurking in separate rooms bid for it. The catch is that if the seller turns down an offer, he or she can’t change their mind afterwards. Among the objects sold in the first series were a mutilated painting by Francis Bacon for £48,000 and the nose cone of Concorde for £55,000. This series will be attracting bids for JK Rowling’s chair and a pair of Muhammad Ali’s boxing gloves. Any takers?
Midsomer Murders
ITV1, 8pm
Eighteen years ago, a man convicted of murder vowed to exact revenge on everyone he held responsible. Eighteen years later and he’s out of prison. He returns to the village where the murder took place, and all the people who were on his hit list start dropping like flies. But here’s the thing. Each time another murder takes place, he has a rock-solid alibi backed up by dozens of witnesses. Far more importantly though, DS Ben Jones (Jason Hughes) is having an affair with a sultry firefighter and head teacher Sarah Barnaby (Fiona Dolman) is propositioned by a fitness instructor. Best of all, there is another perfectly judged turn from Sykes the dog.
The Secret Life of a Superpower
BBC Two, 9pm
A year after WikiLeaks began publishing 250,000 classified US diplomatic cables, Richard Bilton assesses the fallout and its long-term impact on American diplomacy. Apart from the embarrassing revelations — that the British armed forces were not considered “up to the task of securing Helmand” and that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia made excessive use of Viagra — the cables show how the US wanted to spread democracy around the world, while pursuing its own self-interest and maintaining cosy alliances with dictators. But the clarity of the programme is marred by the distracting style that uses split screens, moody close-ups and frenetic editing.
One Born Every Minute
Channel 4, 9pm
According to the midwife, ask any pregnant woman what she would like and she will always say a straightforward birth and a healthy baby. “But unfortunately,” she adds, “sometimes life and birth isn’t straightforward.” That sounds ominous. The first baby tonight weighs just 2lbs 10oz. “You don’t believe it’s going to happen to you,” says the 16-year-old father, “until it’s happened.” The second mother is told that her baby boy will be born with a cleft lip. And the third is so exhausted that it takes a whole roomful of relatives to cheer her on. But don’t let this summary put you off. Against all expectations, it is an immensely happy-making programme.
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Digital choice, by Alex Hardy
I Was a Jet Set Stewardess
Yesterday, 10pm
An interesting piece of social history here, as the development of the jet plane is seen not as a leap forward in technology but as a leap forward for women in the late 1950s and 60s, whose prospects had previously been limited to wife, secretary or shop assistant. Ladies who were among the first intakes into the new, high-glam profession of “stewardess” share their memories and open their scrapbooks. We learn what they had to go through to get the job — archive footage shows hoards of ladies queuing as if for an X Factor audition, and being measured in a swimsuit as part of the interview. Once selected, the ladies were intensively drilled and put in some ridiculous get-up, including psychedelic paper mini-dresses in the Sixties. The rewards? Besides the exotic travel and sipping champagne onboard, one of them has a note saying “I love you”— from Sean Connery, no less.
The Lost Lagoon
Eden, 9pm
Here’s a location that Darwin would have relished visiting. Pomene Bay in Mozambique is a lagoon paradise, which has remained pure and isolated, and has an extraordinarily quick tidal cycle, meaning its inhabitants are ushered in and out rapidly, or forced to adapt at breakneck pace. This makes for a mix of utterly weird sea creatures, and here we meet them, from transparent, brainless shrimps to enormous sea slugs.
She Wolves: England’s Early Queens
BBC Four, 9pm
Dr Helen Castor’s excellent series concludes with one of the more covered periods of history: Henry VIII’s struggle to produce a male heir, the subsequent death of his teenage son Edward VI and the brutal twists as an all-female cast lined up to succeed him; his half sisters Mary and Elizabeth and his cousin Lady Jane Grey. The stories may be well-trodden, in fact and fiction, but Castor’s thoughtful and clear analysis makes them feel fresh.
Sons of Anarchy
5USA, 10pm
A hit ordered and paid for, an horrific injury, a gun pulled ... tension is rife, as Jax (Charlie Hunnam, below) and Tara attempt to escape to a “normal” life. Such high-octane terrain is well-known to the guest director of this episode, Peter Weller, who played Murphy in RoboCop. His directing experience runs back to Partners in 1993, which was Oscar-nominated. He also directed an episode of House, and two of Homicide: Life on the Street, the series that drew upon the same source material as The Wire.
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Film choice, by Wendy Ide
Dorian Gray (2009)
Film4, 9pm
The director Oliver Parker’s adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s Gothic horror novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, published in 1890, is an energetic but rather unadventurous production. Ben Barnes, stars as the vain and vapid socialite who trades his soul to retain his beauty — but at what cost? Colin Firth, above with Barnes, dominates the picture as the decadent Lord Henry Wotton. Parker fills the film with opium dens, prostitutes and scandalous assignations. Wilde’s wit is coarsened a little by the earthy B-movie sensibility, but it is undeniably watchable. (112min)
Killing Bono (2011)
Sky Movies Indie, 8.05pm
If a perfect pop song is short, sweet and to the point, this picture is more like a meandering prog-rock indulgence. The story of school friends of the U2 front man who started a band at the same time but struggled to rise above plodding mediocrity, this is a movie which would have benefited from crisp writing and a savage edit. That said, Ben Barnes and Robert Sheehan turn up the rock star swagger as the also-ran McCormick brothers. And the supporting performances, from Peter Serafinowicz as a dementedly foul-mouthed music exec and a frail Pete Postlethwaite in his final film role, are impressive. (114min)
Sweet Charity (1969)
ITV1, 2.30am
Bob Fosse’s exuberant musical about a luckless but eternally positive “taxi dancer” named Charity (Shirley MacLaine) is based on a Broadway show which itself was inspired by Federico Fellini’s film Nights of Cabiria. While it is no match for Cabaret, the inimitable Fosse flourish adorns a handful of first-rate musical numbers. The dead-eyed ennui of the dancers performing a rendition of Big Spender that oozes sleaze is a brilliant counterpoint for MacLaine’s barnstorming enthusiasm during If My Friends Could See Me Now. The groovy late-1960s trappings date the film a little and the flower children interludes feel a little off key. Still, it’s great fun. (149min)
The North Star (1943)
Channel 4, 3.20am
This war film has an interesting political heritage. The story of a farming collective in the Ukraine that is destroyed when Germany invades, the film was made as a piece of propaganda to help bolster relations between the US and the USSR in support of their alliance against Germany. It is even said that the film was made at the request of President Roosevelt. Yet a few years later, the pro-Russian sentiments of the story saw the film condemned as a pro-Communist endorsement by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. The writer Lillian Hellman was blacklisted as a result. (108min)