For full TV listings for the week, see thetimes.co.uk/tvplanner
Viewing guide, by Ben Dowell
David Baddiel: Social Media, Anger and Us
BBC2, 9pm
The builder turned TikTok star Nick “Smithy” Smith had his family home gutted by fire, while the comedian Phil Wang was threatened for making a joke on TV about Jeremy Corbyn. As well as envy and bilious resentment, the state-sponsored agitation, performative fury, narcissistic virtue signalling, antisemitism and other poisons that spew out from phone and computer screens every second is the unsettling subject of this marvellous programme that feels so sane and articulate it should be put on the school syllabus. In his 2020 documentary about Holocaust denial (in which he met a guitar-strumming advocate of the repellent belief) David Baddiel has demonstrated that he is prepared to go to troubling places. And having your brain scanned while viewing poisonous bile written about you on Twitter is up there with this one. He’s honest enough to acknowledge the benefits of social media as a marketing tool with an instant audience (he is a comic performer after all), but should we all just pack it in? You would think so after hearing Baddiel’s daughter Dolly, 20, reflecting on whether her struggles with anorexia were exacerbated by social media use. Online discourse eliminates discussion and forgiveness, simplifies complex human identity, with unfeeling algorithms exploiting the fact that people (as the writer puts it) sometimes hate themselves. The film’s gloomy air lifts when Baddiel goes cold turkey on social media for a fortnight and feels instantly better. When he returns to the fray, soon tweeting about his dad, who has dementia, he wonders why he did this until he sees the generous, kind comments of what he calls the “quiet people”. But are they enough?
Strictly the Real Full Monty
ITV, 9pm
After the apparent success of The Real Full Monty on Ice last year the dancer Ashley Banjo is enticing more celebrities to overcome personal setbacks and understandable modesty to bare all for cancer awareness, although now with more of a ballroom twist. Participants include the model Christine McGuinness, who is coming to terms with her recent autism diagnosis, Brenda Edwards from Loose Women (who has had reconstructive breast surgery) and the EastEnders actress Laila Morse. The men, who show more than the women in tomorrow’s concluding episode, include the former Strictly Come Dancing dancer James Jordan and the former Olympic athlete Colin Jackson.
Succession
Sky Atlantic/Now, 9pm
The series finale is called All the Bells Say and begins with plenty of loose ends to tie up — starting with the dick pic Roman accidentally sent his father at a board meeting, just when the patriarch called for the bankers to enter the room (ho, ho . . . I think?). Will Shiv be able to leverage Roman’s, er, cock-up to push Roman from favour or will the bells of doom toll for Gerri, the private image’s intended recipient? And what will happen to Kendall, last seen drunk, depressed and lying on a float in a swimming pool. Will we be witnessing another Succession drowning? It has been a brilliant series and another is coming.
The Slow Hustle
Sky Documentaries/Now, 9pm
In a documentary that will be of particular interest to fans of David Simon’s HBO masterpiece The Wire, the director Sonja Sohn (detective Kima Greggs in the drama) investigates the shooting of a real-life Baltimore officer called Sean Suiter. His death was followed by the familiar round of tearful tributes, but in a dramatic twist that drama script editors might even dismiss as far-fetched, it emerged that Suiter died the day before he was due to testify against fellow officers in a corruption trial. Was he killed to shut him up? And who was behind shadowy briefings that sought to tarnish his reputation? It’s a riveting watch.
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The Cockfields
Gold, 10pm
The seasonal special of the awkward family sitcom finds Joe Wilkinson’s Simon and his fiancée Esther (Susannah Fielding) driving home to his parents for a quick December 27 pitstop. The sound of the Chris Rea song that marks just that occasion is on the radio, even though the pair cruise through sun-soaked fields and leaf-bedecked trees. However many times the cast talk about how cold it is, they can’t pretend they didn’t film in summer. Yet it remains an amiable watch, our central pair an amusing foil for the neuroses and sheer weirdness of Simon’s blood family.
Catch-up TV, by Ben Dowell
Empire State of Mind
All4
In this two-part series based on his book Empireland the Times journalist Sathnam Sanghera argues that the legacy of Empire can be seen in the language of Brexiters and an internalised belief in some white people that other races are inferior. For him, many Britons have reacted uneasily to losing their hold on the world. Sanghera is an engaging and articulate TV presence, often close to tears when discussing the issues or returning to his native Wolverhampton to talk to his brother. For those of Sikh heritage like Sanghera, their experience of Empire is also unique and clouded by the Sikh people’s long and relatively close association with the British Army, contributions that Sanghera feels many have forgotten.
Film choice, by Wendy Ide
Scrooged (PG, 1988)
Sky Cinema Drama, 8pm
In this take on Charles Dickens’s perennially popular festive tale Bill Murray is cast as Frank Cross, a callous television executive who gets a good talking to from three spectral manifestations over the course of Christmas Eve. The ghostly visitors take issue with Frank’s decree that his entire network will have to work over Christmas to broadcast a live version of A Christmas Carol. This is the latest in a series of nefarious ratings-boosting ideas, including a programme titled The Night the Reindeer Died, which features Father Christmas armed with a sub-machinegun. It’s a little dated perhaps — the Ghost of Christmas Present is the spitting image of Bonnie Tyler — but still riotously good fun. (101min)
The Desperados (15, 1969)
Film4, 1.30am
This violent, downbeat western shares a title with a 1943 movie by Charles Vidor, but it is a very different story that unfolds here, one that owes more to the spaghetti westerns of the 1960s than the earlier examples of the genre. Jack Palance is enjoyably monstrous as the pastor turned outlaw Josiah Galt. Together with his sons, David, Jacob and Adam, he forms a bandit gang that terrorises a land that is scarred by the Civil War that rages. David (Vince Edwards) can no longer stomach the ruthless excesses of his kinsfolk and he returns to his wife, Laura (Sylvia Sims), and goes straight, living under an assumed name. Josiah doesn’t take this betrayal well. (91min)
Radio choice, by Ben Dowell
Faith, Hope and Glory
Radio 4, 2.15pm
The second series of this excellent drama series continues to tell the history of postwar immigrant Britain through various lives connected by the theft of a pram in Tilbury in 1946. Today’s story, Hope and Jim, is written by Roy Williams and finds the sinking of a passenger ferry bringing back painful memories for Hope Kiffin (Danielle Vitalis), who is still struggling with the loss of her baby, a grief that is putting pressure on her faith and her relationship with Jim (Martins Imhangbe). He is hoping to break through as an actor and has just landed a promising if small role. But he is warned not to get his hopes up.