CRITICS’ CHOICE
Heavily stacked emissions
Altered Carbon (Netflix)
There is more than a touch of Bladerunner to this dystopian sci-fi series based on the novel by Richard K Morgan. Set 500 years in the future on a distant planet settled by humans, it follows elite mercenary Takeshi Kovacs (Joel Kinnaman) as he is hired to investigate the murder of the super-rich Laurens Bancroft (James Purefoy). The person hiring, however, is Bancroft himself, for this is a world where humans store their memories in “cortical stacks” in their spines, and once dead have their consciousness uploaded into a new body or “sleeve”.
Complicating things further, it is a process that Kovacs — in a particularly disgusting scene — has just undergone himself. Altered Carbon suffers from that stilted atmosphere that often afflicts science fiction: self-conscious jargon, distancing special effects and a reliance on flashbacks. Even so, there is plenty to like here amid the blood, gore and flying cars — not least The Raven, a hotel owned by a synthetic Edgar Allen Poe.
Victoria Segal
Nigel Slater’s Middle East (BBC2, 9pm)
There is more to this food-based travelogue than recipes cooked al fresco against a picturesque backdrop. Nigel Slater’s unforced curiosity and joy elevates this visit to Lebanon, where he tastes preserved rose petals, herb blend za’atar and ubiquitous yogurt cheese labneh. The emphasis on home cookery is fascinating, especially when Slater helps to prepare the raw lamb dish kibbeh. (VS)
Absentia (Amazon Prime)
Stana Katic rarely got the chance to display her acting range in Castle, her role largely characterised by eye-rolling spats with Nathan Fillion; but she now takes centre stage as an FBI agent abducted by a serial killer six years ago, who is released to a family that has been mourning her death. It is a crime drama intriguingly dark and bleak from the off, which benefits from the casting of British actors Cara Theobold and Ralph Ineson. (HS)
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Celebrity 5 Go Barging (C5, 8pm)
The Real Marigold Hotel proved there is an appetite for amiable documentaries with more mature (less expensive) personalities, so Channel 5 sends the actor Tom Conti, gardener Diarmuid Gavin, former Olympian Tessa Sanderson, singer Tony Christie and radio presenter Penny Smith to France to mess about on boats. It’s all terribly good- natured, fuelled by wine and having little better to do. (HS)
Hits, Hype & Hustle — An Insider’s Guide To The Music Business (BBC4, 9pm)
Publicist Alan Edwards hosts this look at the rock’n’roll reunion racket, viewed by the music industry as an exciting revenue stream (especially now dead stars can return as holograms). Mel C and Stuart Copeland are among those discussing the personal and financial implications, while Kevin Rowland expresses the artist’s ambivalence: “I’m not here to be a jukebox.” (VS)
FILM CHOICE
This Is 40 (2012)
C4, 12.10am
Judd Apatow’s comedy about a worn-out married couple (Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann) confronting middle age — and a few surprises — can itself be deemed a little flabby and tired, but then its maker’s films have never exactly been hyperactive, and this one rouses itself to deliver good jokes often enough.
King Arthur — Legend Of The Sword (2017)
Sky Cinema Premiere, 12 noon/8pm
This being Guy Ritchie’s take on the Arthurian legend, it gives us a mockney medieval action film about an unregal Londoner (Charlie Hunnam) whose companions are more rogues than knights. If you can pardon its many crimes against chivalry, you might find it entertaining in its messy way.
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Sorcerer (1977)
Film 4, 10.45pm
William Friedkin’s audacious remake of 1953’s The Wages of Fear — the story of four men persuaded to transport nitroglycerine through dicey South American terrain — is not as tense as the original, but its scuzzy realism, dotted with nightmarish moments, has its own potency.
Calvary (2014)
BBC2, 11.05pm
Using the story of a menaced priest (Brendan Gleeson) to ponder the merits and crimes of the Irish Catholic Church, John Michael McDonagh’s film has numerous virtues — including eloquence and pitch-black humour — and the nearest thing it has to a vice is a touch of overambitiousness.
Edward Porter
Radio pick of the day
Short Works (Radio 4, 3.45pm)
In Clearing The Bones, a newly commissioned tale by the American writer Celeste Ng, storytelling becomes a kind of music as two sisters look for nourishment in art and in love. Earlier, there is drama of a more structured nature with David Threlfall back as Barry Devlin’s much-loved radio sleuth, Baldi (Radio 4 Extra, 11.15am), the Franciscan priest and semiotics lecturer who can’t resist an unsolved murder.
Andrew Male
Sport choice
Anglo-Welsh Cup Rugby Northampton Saints v Harlequins (BT Sport 1, 7.15pm)
Super League St Helens v Castleford Tigers (SSME, 7.30pm)
You say
Inside No 9 (BBC2): inside the mind of genius.
Lesley Hutchins
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In providing an end, a middle and a beginning in less than 30 minutes, Pemberton and Shearsmith have made recent crime serials, with week after wearying week of Durbridgian red herrings and dead ends, as obsolete as Patrick McGoohan’s Danger Man made Paul Temple 50 years ago.
David Drury
Bittersweet, brittle, tender, emotional, funny and, most of all, moving. Give these boys a Bafta.
Alan Cooper