The very best of the week ahead
Sunday Salute SKY HISTORY, 9PM
The men’s final of the 200m at the 1968 Mexico Olympics was one of the greatest races ever run: AfricanAmerican Tommie Smith broke the world record and, in finishing second, Australian Peter Norman set a time that would have won any preceding final and plenty afterwards. But it was the aftermath that made the headlines, sealed their reputations (alongside that of bronze medallist John Carlos) and finished their careers: Carlos and Smith donned black gloves and raised their fists in a Black Power salute while Norman – representing a nation with plenty of its own issues with racism – stood by in solidarity. This spirited if occasionally technically ramshackle documentary retells the story with insight, passion and humour, distinguished by focusing, unusually, on the least celebrated of the trio – the uncle of the film’s director, Matt Norman. In reuniting the three sprinters in conversation, Norman allows them to provide an illustration of the price of courage and the pressure of high-level sport, and a reminder that the Olympics remains a movement whose grubby realities still too often belie its lofty ideals. Gabriel Tate
Celebrity Trash Monsters: What’s Your Waste Size? CHANNEL 4, 9PM
Putting some reality television perennials to good use for a change, this documentary challenges John Barnes (Achilles’ heel: single-use plastic), Kerry Katona (takeaways) and Jodie Kidd (carnivorous habits) to reduce their carbon footprint and the waste they produce. The hook may be absurd – each must go about their business in a “trash suit” that grows according to the rubbish they create – but the point is well made, de, with Jon Richardson a good choice e in the acerbic cheerleader/presenter senter role. GT
Monday Succession SKY ATLANTIC, 2AM & 9PM
Picking up shortly hortly PICK after season two OF THE ended on that at WEEK bombshell, the he third series of Jesse Armstrong’s Shakespearean family saga ga
roars back to life. Adrenaline pulses through the opener as Kendall Roy (Jeremy Strong), having just betrayed his father, Logan (Brian Cox), by claiming the family firm committed serious crimes, searches for allies in his bid for power. Shellshocked by the betrayal, Logan looks for the first time like a man on the back foot as he deals with the crisis, hunkering down with the Waystar Royco team. It’s a thrilling start to one of the best dramas of recent years, with intricate plotting, boldly drawn characters and pacy dialogue that is shot through with vicious black humour. The major players are all superb – Strong’s recovering addict addi Kendall is re-energised by b his new power play, play and Kieran Culkin has ha handled Roman’s maturation from manchild to serious adult with wit aplomb. But it’s Cox’s C towering performance performa as the Lear-ish Logan that commands comma your attention atten – a cruel father fath and selfish egotist, eg he is nonetheless n so charismatic c you can’t c look away. Vicki Power
The Trick BBC ONE, 8.30PM
This one-off drama tackles the human cost of the 2009 Climategate scandal. It’s an involved tale of data breaches and tree rings, but Jason Watkins brings heart to the piece as Phil Jones, the climatologist driven to despair by accusations that he was lying about climate change. VP
Tuesday Impeachment: American Crime Story BBC TWO, 9.15PM
Ubiquitous showrunner Ryan Murphy turns to the attempt to impeach
Bill Clinton in the light of the President’s lies about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky in this effective, if a little underpowered, period docudrama. The jumbled chronology is unhelpful and the tone lurches from gossipy to lurid, but the themes of misogyny, exploitation and breathtakingly cynical political pragmatism hit home well enough. Beanie Feldstein is superb as Lewinsky (who acted as an exec producer on the series), while Murphy surrounds her
with his usual eye-catching cast, from regular collaborator Sarah Paulson (as Lewinsky’s vindictive confidante Linda Tripp) to Clive Owen (his prosthetics as unconvincing as his accent in his brief Clinton cameo) and Annaleigh Ashford (superb, sympathetic and nuanced as Paula Jones, the woman whose lawsuit set the ball rolling on accusations regarding Clinton’s sexual predation). GT
Who Do You Think You Are?
BBC ONE, 9PM; WALES, 10.35PM
WDYTYA snares another big fish in Judi Dench, whose journey into her ancestry turns up some fun anecdotes, private pain in the trenches and skirmishes among the Danish nobility. GT
Wednesday Four Hours at the Capitol
BBC TWO, 9PM
It is all but impossible not to be drawn into the psychodrama of the events that unfolded at the Capitol Building in Washington DC earlier this year. Seen in this unsettling documentary via compelling eyewitness video, filmed by rioters and police, and told from the perspective of eyewitnesses on all sides – including politicians in Congress under siege at the time – this is the most comprehensive account yet of the attempt by a mob of Trump supporters to overturn the result of the 2020 US presidential election. A meticulously reconstructed timeline of events shows what took place and when, what went wrong, and how astonishingly ill-prepared the police and security forces were. Throughout, the levels of hatred and violence on display are shocking and the testimony of officers who fell into the clutches of the mob is especially disturbing. Gerard O’Donovan
Shetland BBC ONE, 9PM
Douglas Henshall returns as writer Ann Cleeves’s sensitive but tough Lerwick cop, Jimmy Perez, for another moody murder case playing out over six episodes. And it’s a particularly tough one as, in the shadow of Perez’s intense bereavement, a prominent local is murdered in perplexing circumstances. GO
Thursday Charlene White: Empire’s Child
ITV, 9PM
Tonight’s documentary from ITV to honour Black History Month follows news anchor Charlene White as she digs into her heritage both in the UK and the Caribbean: her maternal grandparents travelled over from Jamaica in 1961, and she learns about the informal banking system set up to enable members of the Windrush generation to buy houses without mortgages they were generally denied. The real mystery, however, revolves around a photo of a distant ancestor, plantation slavery, illicit relationships and a route that takes White to Devon, east London and eventually Jamaica, where she makes some remarkable discoveries. Against all the odds, there is an uplifting end to a story with its fair share of dark turns and false trails; one which, White argues, has important things to say about the great British melting pot and our shared imperial history. A fitting tribute for Black History Month. GT
Handmade: Britain’s Best Woodworker
CHANNEL 4, 8PM
Taking most of its cues (and its host Mel Giedroyc’s penchant for doubles entendres) from Bake Off, this warmhearted, charming and sporadically jaw-dropping series begins by challenging nine woodworking amateurs to make a bed. GT
Friday Zappa BBC FOUR, 9PM
A wonderful documentary, years in the making, about the unique showman,
composer, controversialist and musician Frank Zappa, who entertained and baffled the world in equal measure from the late 1960s to his death in 1993. Director Alex Winter was given free access to the extraordinary archive Zappa kept at his Laurel Canyon home in Los Angeles, which seems to have comprised every artefact from an extraordinarily full creative life. As an act of concision alone, Winter’s film is a triumph. But it also gives an admirably unvarnished account of a magnetic personality and obsessively dedicated musician whose householdname status was as much for his outspoken anti-establishment attitudes as for his music. GO
Grantchester
ITV, 9PM
Events come to a head in the series’ emotionally-concussive concluding episode when an incident at the home of singer Rita Daltrey (Michelle Greenidge) forces Geordie (Robson Green) to confront the long-buried trauma of his wartime experiences, while Will (Tom Brittney) faces up to Bishop Gray (Stuart Bowman), who’s been gunning for him. GO