Viewing guide, by Alexi Duggins
Winterwatch
BBC Two, 9pm
During these worrisome times there’s a lot to be said for busying your mind with things that are altogether cuter, fluffier and involve adorable baby otters frolicking alongside barrels of single-malt whisky. Fortunately, this week lets you do exactly that as Winterwatch returns to offer more excitable commentary on covertly observed wildlife, with Michaela Strachan and Chris Packham broadcasting live until Thursday from the National Trust’s Sherborne Park Estate in the Cotswolds. The plan is for hidden cameras to film the foraging habits of birdlife such as greenfinches and yellowhammers, the behaviour of a troop of shy otters inside a boathouse and a sett of badgers that are the subjects of a “collaring study” by the University of Brighton. Also, Strachan will be taken on a jaunt to the nearby Cotswold Water Park by Packham, who is determined to convince her that “yes, ducks can be interesting”. On-the-road snippets come from the Scottish island of Islay — including the aforementioned footage of otters playing by whisky barrels — with the presenter Gillian Burke focusing on the isle’s gigantic flocks of white-fronted geese and tracking golden eagles as they swing between fighting and mating in an attempt to define their territories. There will also be a variety of presenter-led films, including Packham pitting a crow against a raven in a series of tasks to see which is more intelligent, plus yet more cutesy fun from a study into the stress levels of seals. Just the kind of cuddly creature to act as a distraction from global warming, Trump et al — although no surprise that even seals are stressed nowadays.
Further recommendations
More of our country’s rich fauna features in the series The River Wye with Will Millard, with a focus on river creatures (iPlayer)
Silent Witness
BBC One, 9pm
Shady goings-on in a care home are the topic of the latest double bill from this forensic crime drama as we open on a teenager making a run for it, only to be strong-armed by two menacing orderlies with a penchant for face-slapping. People keep dying of suspicious substances, while Nikki (Emilia Fox) spends most of the episode curiously failing to point out the unlikeliness of the police’s chief suspect — a teenager with severe learning difficulties — being capable of preparing a highly sophisticated cocktail of lethal drugs. Very convenient, given that this two-parter could probably have been wrapped up in a single episode if she had done so. Is this (very) long-running show’s writing team finally running out of ideas?
Trophy: The Big Game Hunting Controversy — Storyville
BBC Four, 9pm
Shaul Schwarz and Christina Clusiau’s disturbing documentary digs into the murk of the African big-game trade with candour and even-handedness. In one sickening scene an American hunter shoots an elephant and waits for it to die, smirking and smoking a cigarette as it moans softly nearby. Most will find that abominable, but the debate becomes much more nuanced than “animals good/hunters bad”. Could legalising the trade in rhino horn actually save the dwindling rhino population by encouraging poachers to remove horns rather than shoot the beasts? It’s a thorny mess, unpicked with subtlety and balance. Ed Potton
Active Shooter: America Under Fire
Sky Atlantic, 9pm
There’s a sensitivity to this documentary profile of the 2015 mass shooting at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, that raises it above the level of grisly grief porn. Through news footage and interviews with victims’ relatives, what emerges is a careful account of a community coming together to inspire the nation with their inner strength — standing up en masse to forgive the terrorist his crimes at a courtroom hearing and inspiring their state’s senators to vote in favour of removing the Confederate flag from the statehouse. A refreshing break from the too-often schlocky output of the true-crime genre — fingers crossed the other episodes in the series follow suit.
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Two Doors Down
BBC Two, 10pm
It’s Burns night in Glasgow as series three of this low-key sitcom about a group of disparate neighbours begins. As ever, laughs are quiet, based on the awkward situations that crop up between people whose only thing in common is the proximity of their houses, with reactions to celebrating Scotland’s national poet steeped in tiny-mindedness (“at this very moment there’ll be Scottish people in every country, in every town, in every corner of the globe getting hammered,” says one eulogistically). Star of the show is the ever excellent Doon Mackichan, who veers between drunken life of the party and terrifyingly envious harridan — often in the same line of dialogue.
Catch-up TV, by Chris Bennion
Britain’s Favourite Dogs: Top 100
ITV Hub, to February 14
There are two types of person in the UK: those who had no idea there were even 100 dog breeds to choose from (there are, in fact, 217 recognised by the Kennel Club) and those who could merrily reel off their top 100. Sara Cox and Ben Fogle present a rundown of the nation’s most popular dogs, taken from a survey of 10,000 dog owners, with the help of a few celebrity cynophilists, including Geri Horner, Gok Wan, Michael Ball, James Martin and Holly Willoughby. The breakneck sprint through the canines is interspersed with the odd moving or quirky tale of dog ownership, but most of the fun comes from guessing the make-up of the top ten.
Film choice, by Wendy Ide
The Return of Frank James (U, 1940)
Talking Pictures, 10.35am
So alluring was the screen-fuelled myth of Jesse James and his brother Frank that it spawned this historically inaccurate sequel, stylishly directed by the legendary Fritz Lang in one of his early experiments with colour. Henry Fonda reprises his role as Frank, now determined to avenge Jesse’s murder by Robert Ford, but also hoping to keep his head down and pursue a new life as a farmer. What the film lacks in pace — it’s a little low on action — it makes up for with a visually arresting look. Co-starring are Gene Tierney, making his big-screen debut, and John Carradine. (92min)
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The Blue Dahlia (PG, 1946, b/w)
Film4, 2.55pm
Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake star in a hard-boiled film noir that was Raymond Chandler’s only original screenplay. Returning home from the Pacific to an unfaithful, raddled wife, US navy officer Johnny Morrison (Ladd) is stitched up for murder after he is seen threatening her with a gun. Fans of Chandler will revel in the steel-plated dialogue — particularly that given to William Bendix’s veteran, Buzz — while Lake, despite Chandler dismissing her as “Moronica”, is a femme fatale for the ages. It takes a strong constitution to resist a tagline such as: “Tamed by a brunette; framed by a blonde; blamed by the cops!” (96min) Chris Bennion
The Town (15, 2010)
Channel 5, 12.05am
Ben Affleck the director is far more to the critics’ taste than Ben Affleck the movie star was. And, given the solid job that he makes of this superior Boston-set crime picture, his second movie as a director, that’s hardly a surprise. Affleck also stars in this film, as a career criminal who falls for a bank teller (Rebecca Hall) that his gang took hostage during a raid. Affleck turns on the charm for the role, but leaves the onscreen fireworks to Jeremy Renner (Oscar-nominated for his role in The Hurt Locker) as his unpredictable partner in crime. Affleck’s key talent is creating the sense of place — the tough Boston neighbourhood crackles with nervous energy. (125min)
Radio choice, by Catherine Nixey
No Place to Lay One’s Head
Radio 4, 9.45am
It was a horrible foreshadowing of what was to come. In 1921 Françoise Frenkel, a young Jewish musician and Francophile, was living in Berlin. Fresh from the Sorbonne and filled with a passion for French literature, Frenkel noticed that there was no French bookshop in the capital and decided to open one. She was warned against it by a man from the French embassy. “They will,” he said, “burn it to the ground.” Anti-French feeling remained low, though, and, as Frenkel records in this biography, she opened her bookshop, which was a dazzling success. Frenkel was the sort of bookshop owner from biblio mythology: the sort who loves her stock so dearly that they can’t bear to sell books; the sort who can tell, by the way her customers cradle a volume, what other books may interest them and would, like a literary sommelier, offer them. Then came Kristallnacht.
Will Self’s Great British Bus Journey
Radio 4, 1.45pm
You have to be so careful on buses. You never know who may sit next to you and try to talk to you. Like Will Self, for instance. This week and next the author is travelling around Britain on a bus on his “Great British Bus Journey” (the capitals nicely convey the heavy irony of that title) to find what he calls the “real Britain” and interview the places where “Britons actually live and work: the fast-food takeaways, bed and breakfasts and car repair shops”. Ah yes. Them.