Viewing guide, by Joe Clay
Wonders of the Moon
BBC One, 9pm
If predictions are correct, when you look into the sky tonight you should see a supermoon, which happens when the moon’s orbit is at its closest to Earth just at the time of a full moon. The moon has long been a source of fascination, being the closest planet in our solar system and with a gravitational pull that has an effect on our tides. We have studied it for centuries, taken photos of its surface from space, explored its elusive far side and even spent billions of dollars sending astronauts to walk on it at the end of the 1960s. But are there still mysteries out there for us to contemplate? This illuminating film, while not covering any new ground, reveals the monthly life cycle of the moon as it waxes and wanes. From Wales to Wyoming, from Hong Kong to Croydon, we are shown how the moon shapes life on Earth and discover how the moon’s journey round our planet delivers one of nature’s most amazing events — a solar eclipse. And at the end of a remarkable year of lunar activity, we will find out why so many of the aforementioned supermoons have been lighting up our night sky. The best spot to see a supermoon is on top of the Roque de los Muchachos in the Canary Islands and there is stunning footage captured from that location. The moon also affects events in the natural world, from coral spawning on the Great Barrier Reef to lions hunting in the Serengeti — the success and failure of these events are dictated by the phases of the moon. You will never look at the moon in the same way again.
Further recommendations
Straight after on BBC Four (10pm) is a further look at how lunar activity dictates our world in Do We Really Need the Moon?
The Truth About Getting Fit
BBC One, 8pm
With many people embarking on new-year fitness regimes, here comes Michael Mosley and a team of boffins to set you on the right path. For a start, don’t bother trying to walk 10,000 steps every day — that’s a marketing ploy. Instead, a mere two minutes of intense exercise is far more beneficial. And in the UK we waste about £600 million a year on unused gym memberships, so what are the alternatives? Mosley also has advice on how to stick to your fitness plans and what forms of exercise can make you brainier. Jogging while listening to the In Our Time podcast, perhaps?
The New Builds are Coming: Battle in the Countryside
BBC Two, 9pm
In Britain we need to build 300,000 homes a year to keep up with demand. In this heated two-part series, filmed over nine months, the film-maker Richard Macer (Absolutely Fashion: Inside British Vogue) travels to one of our most expensive counties, Oxfordshire, to see how vast areas of once protected countryside are being turned into housing plots. In the first episode he visits the charming, tiny village of Culham, which is being considered as the site for 3,500 homes. A few weeks after plans are announced, Culham finds itself at the centre of a gold rush and the residents are furious.
Kiri
Channel 4, 9pm
Who killed Kiri? That’s the focus of the final part of Jack Thorne’s murder-mystery/social drama. Alice, Kiri’s foster mother has lied to the police, saying that she saw the gold VW belonging to Kiri’s violent, drug-dealing birth father outside their house around the time Kiri was last seen alive. Alice lied to protect her son, Si, because she has reason to believe that he may be responsible. Thorne keeps us guessing all the way, which isn’t the most palatable way to pass an hour, but the performances, especially from Sarah Lancashire and Wunmi Mosaku, are utterly compelling.
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Gomorrah
Sky Atlantic, 9pm/10pm
The Neapolitan mafia series, which borrows the themes of Roberto Saviano’s book and 2008 film, returns for a third season. Gomorrah is a phenomenon in its native Italy. The first episodes of season three were shown in cinemas in Italy, where they topped the box office; when it was broadcast on Sky Italy, more than a million people tuned in, the highest debut for a series on Sky. As we re-enter the world of the ferocious crime syndicate, the bullet-headed mobster Ciro (Marco D’Amore) and his contemporaries are scrambling to fill the power vacuum left after the murder of boss Pietro Savastano. It’s going to get bloody.
Catch-up TV, by Chris Bennion
Anjelica Huston on James Joyce: A Shout in the Street
BBC iPlayer, to Feb 15
Anjelica Huston was raised in the west of Ireland and she starred in her father John Huston’s final film, The Dead, based on the James Joyce short story of the same name. In this excellent documentary Huston traces Joyce’s life, from his childhood in Dublin, where the brilliant young scholar lived in poverty thanks to his hard-drinking, spendthrift father, to the fateful meeting one day with his muse, Nora Barnacle, and his rise to literary fame. The interviewees are superb — Colm Tóibín, Frank McGuinness, Dominic West, Eimear McBride, Anne Enright, David Simon — as they dissect Joyce’s works.
Film choice, by Wendy Ide
Harvey (U, 1950)
Film4, 3pm
Mary Chase’s Pulitzer prizewinning play was effortlessly transformed into a comedy classic by the director Henry Koster. It falls firmly into the category of if you have never seen it, remedy that immediately; if you have seen it, watch it again. James Stewart stars as the wealthy lush Elwood P Dowd, who claims that his closest companion is a giant invisible rabbit called Harvey. While the townsfolk put it down to the booze — one advantage of having Harvey around is being able to order two martinis — his sister, Veta (Josephine Hull), tries to have him committed. A true Hollywood great. (104min) Chris Bennion
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All is Lost (12, 2013)
Film4, 12.50am
One man. A boat. No dialogue. And the vast, relentless ocean. From these meagre ingredients, the writer and director JC Chandor (A Most Violent Year) crafts a compelling survival adventure and a profound meditation on mortality. It helps that the man — nameless and without a backstory — is played by Robert Redford. He’s a solo yachtsman who wakes to find his vessel’s hull has been breached by a collision with a container. He’s enterprising enough to patch up the hole, but water damage to his navigational equipment means that he finds himself in the path of a devastating storm. The sailor’s battle for survival takes on a spiritual dimension as the chances of death grow. (106min)
Win Win (15, 2011)
Channel 4, 1.55am
Hollywood’s No 1 choice for beleaguered sad-sack roles, Paul Giamatti is particularly fine in this comedy drama by the writer/director Thomas McCarthy (The Visitor). Giamatti plays an attorney and part-time wrestling coach who schemes to keep his failing law practice from foundering by appropriating the savings of an elderly client. The plan hits a bump in the road when the client’s grandson turns up out of the blue looking for a place to stay, followed shortly after by his troubled mother, fresh out of rehab. And McCarthy demonstrates yet again that when it comes to smart, humane, real-life comedies, there are few who can match him. (106min)
Radio choice, by Catherine Nixey
Behind The Scenes: Marin Alsop
Radio 4, 9am
If you ever worry whether feminist progress is being made, think of the moment when Marin Alsop became the first woman to conduct the Last Night of the Proms in 2013. This period was only five years ago, but already feels closer to five decades in its attitudes. A few days before she took to the podium, the conductor Vasily Petrenko said that orchestras “react better when they have a man in front of them” and on the night itself, the BBC tied pink balloons all around the hall (As Alsop put it: “They said, ‘It’s a girl!’ ”). This programme looks beyond that one event to her career as the conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestrak, where she’s equally revolutionary. To open their new season, for example, she took the orchestra to play for passengers in the terminal at Baltimore airport.
The Compass: My Perfect Country
World Service, 1.30pm
The programme that hunts the globe for solutions to the world’s problems this week finds itself in Norway. Frankly, it could probably stay in Norway for the rest of the series, as that basically is the perfect country. Although that wouldn’t make for very interesting radio. This week the presenters Fi Glover and Martha Lane Fox are looking at ways to reduce prisoners reoffending. Norway has prisons that look like trendy hotels, with climbing walls and Banksy murals — and the lowest rate of prisoner reoffending in Europe.