Scrappers

BBC1, 8.30pm

It has been 17 years since Maureen Rees ran over her husband Dave’s foot on Driving School, but I reckon we’ve finally found a couple to rival them. Terry and Lyndsay Walker are the husband and wife team behind the North West of England’s biggest scrap yard, Bolton’s Metro Salvage. The fiery couple don’t just take the job home with them, they take it on holiday as well. While poolside in Tenerife, Terry decides to watch the yard’s CCTV on his mobile phone, much to Lyndsay’s annoyance. By the end of the first episode you’ll think the title is as much a comment on the state of their marriage as the business they work in.

ITV, 9pm

It is every parent’s greatest fear to have a child in hospital, but what is it like for the patients? Youngsters at Newcastle’s Great North Children’s Hospital were asked to record their experiences of ward life. Aged six to 16, they talk to the cameras about their illnesses, interview their parents and record themselves undergoing treatment. It’s as heart-wrenching as you’d imagine.

BBC3, 9pm

Inspired by the BAFTA-winning series, Our War, which tracked the first-hand experiences of British troops on the front line in Afghanistan, this three-part BBC3 series immerses viewers in the real stories of British troops serving on the front line during World War One. The opening instalment is based on the personal accounts of the 4th Battalion The Royal Fusiliers, who fought the first battle of the war against an overwhelming German army.

Channel 4, 10pm

Returning series which focuses on the lives of 12 ambitious young farmers from across Britain who are balancing farmyard responsibilities with the life of an average fun-loving twenty-something.

Sweets Made Simple

BBC2, 8.30pm

The queen and king of confectionery, Kitty Hope and Mark Greenwood, rediscover the best of British confectionery. The fun-loving couple are sweetmaking experts and together they show how to make all kinds of sweets at home, from childhood favourites to exotic new treats. Along the way they source the best ingredients from around the UK.

BBC1, 9pm

Adrian Dunbar made for a very convincing anti-corruption cop in Line Of Duty but he’s wasted in this uninspiring comedy drama set in a police station. Whereas Ted Hastings proved that no one can be whiter than white in real life, even when they’re good at their job, Walter is a one-dimensional good guy, a widower with money troubles who is tasked with taking over a dead officer’s case and trying to track down an undercover officer, apparently lost and alone deep within a hardened drugs gang. It’s been made with the intention of being a pilot episode but it’s unlikely to be rescued from the rocks.

BBC4, from 9.25pm

Having started the TV highlights with Huw Edwards, you could say the working week is bookended by two people who didn’t enhance their reputations at the Commonwealth Games’ opening. BBC4 is devoting their late-evening schedule to Rod Stewart, wisely delving into the archive to a time when he could reach all the notes of his songs.

Tumble

BBC1, 6.30pm

Have you ever wondered what happened to Emma Samms? If not, maybe she didn’t have the same effect on your teenage years as she did mine, but she was the British actress who appeared, rather alluringly, in The Colbys as the second coming of Fallon Carrington Colby (after she’d been abducted by aliens in one of the more believable storylines of the outrageous US soap). Her career basically went the same way as The Colbys, forever saddled with that 1980s perm, but she has made the odd appearance on British TV in the time since, most notably on Holby, Doctors and Casualty. It’s ironic, then, that her latest appearance may well put her in hospital for real. Fragrant Emma (pictured below), still looking fantastic three weeks short of her 54th birthday, is one of 10 celebrities competing in television’s latest celebrity/ sport crossover. Carl Froch, Sarah Harding, Peter Duncan, Lucy Mecklenburgh, Amelle Berrabah, John Partridge, Ian “H” Watkins, Bobby Lockwood and Andrea McLean are the other nine, all of whom have been put through a gruelling gymnastics training process and are ready to show the great British public what they can do on a pommel horse and rings. One of the judges is Nadia Comaneci, who surely must have thought her suffering was at an end when the Berlin Wall came down.

BBC2 (Scotland only), 9.15pm

Repeat showing of Bill Bryden’s 1996 drama recounting the experiences of young Glaswegian men in the First World War, with depictions of the home front and the battlefield abroad. Jimmy Logan, Dave Anderson and Iain Connell star in a play that still packs an emotional punch, 20 years on from its original staging.