Telly picks for the coming week…
One of the UK’s most memorable gameshows is back for a new series. Super, smashin’, great!
Host Freddie Flintoff will oversee a thrilling test of intellect and coordination alongside scorer Richard Ashdown and all-star darts professionals, household names who rank among the world’s very best.
Produced by Potato, Bullseye sees three pairs of contestants, each containing an amateur dart player (the ‘thrower’) and their team partner (the ‘knower’), compete against each other. Teams test their skills at throwing darts at different game boards whilst answering questions correctly for points and prizes.
Progressing through the show, three teams are then whittled down to one final pair who can go on to risk all their money and prizes for ‘Bully’s Mystery Star Prize’, which is usually a new car or a fabulous holiday.
The complete family entertainment format is one of the UK’s most successful and best-loved gameshows and has a broad demographic appeal. The original series, launched by ATV, and later produced by Central Television, regularly pulled in audiences of up to 10 million viewers for ITV at its peak between 1981 and 1995.
The new version, hosted by Flintoff, drew more than 8 million viewers across three transmissions for a Christmas Special in 2024, leading to a full series being commissioned for 2025. Bullseye will air weekly for four episodes, plus a Christmas Special will air later in December.
ITV 1 and STV, Sunday 9 November at 8 pm
Play for Today: Never Too Late
At her best friend Marjorie’s funeral, Cynthia Jackson – mid-70s, bold and stylish – shocks her daughter Amanda with her refusal to play the frail widow. But when Cynthia collapses, Amanda insists she move into Cedar Wood Retirement Village for her safety.
Cynthia bristles at the village’s rules (‘no antisocial behaviour’, ‘no noise after 9pm’), but quickly finds a rebellious ally in another resident, Mary. Together, they strike against the rules one by one – hosting strip bridge, dabbling with narcotics in the greenhouse, and causing chaos with exotic pets. Amid the fun, Cynthia discovers Frank Davies, a charismatic former singer and her long-ago fling, lives next door. But their reunion also reopens old wounds.
Complications mount as Cynthia juggles Frank’s rekindled attention, controlling management, and Amanda’s dismay. As secrets spill in a hospital room, the story culminates at Cedar Woodstock, the retirement village’s big festival. Cynthia finally embraces her second act, performing on stage with Frank while Amanda, Mary, Brian, and the residents dance together. Cynthia has rediscovered not only love and friendship, but also herself.
5, Thursday, 13 November at 9 pm
A high-octane US police procedural drama starring Supinder Wraich as Sabrina Sohal and Enrico Colantoni as Vince Brambilla.
Sabrina Sohal becomes the first woman in a long line of trailblazing Punjabi Canadians from her family to become a Canadian Federal Police Corps officer. But her world is turned upside down
when her father, Ajeet Sohal, the Minister of Public Safety, is wrongfully arrested for treason on the day of her graduation from the country’s top police academy.
Sabrina is shaken to her core.
How could her father’s loyalty be so easily doubted? The country she loves has now turned her world, family, and life upside down. Sabrina already understands the limits of a flawed system whose defects are starkly apparent in her diverse community… but it’s shocking to learn these flaws affect a man of her father’s stature. His unjust arrest further ignites her desire to challenge inequity and fight for those who can’t fight for themselves.
In the first of ten episodes Sabrina Sohal’s world is turned upside down when her father is wrongfully arrested for treason. Sabrina must deal with the fallout on her first day as a beat cop when she meets her seasoned but sensitive veteran training officer Vince Brambilla. The two find themselves swept up in a missing child case that could have deadly consequences and just might hint at a darker conspiracy involved in her father’s framing.
U&alibi, Thursday 13 November at 9pm
Richard Burton – Wild Genius
To celebrate the centenary of the birth of Welsh icon Richard Burton, BBC documentary Richard Burton – Wild Genius looks through a new lens at the miner’s son from Wales who, against the odds, became one of greatest actors of his generation.
Tracing his extraordinary journey from poverty and loss to acclaim, fame and fortune beyond his wildest dreams, and delving into a tumultuous personal life that would captivate the world – including his affair with co-star Elizabeth Taylor and their two-time marriage – to his chronic addiction to alcohol.
With exclusive access to the Burton family, including interviews with widow Sally Burton and daughter Kate Burton, the production was granted the use of private home movie recordings, photographs and letters, some of which are being broadcast for the very first time. The documentary has also gained exclusive rights to Richard Burton’s personal diaries, which will be read by Welsh actor Matthew Rhys, alongside insights from Michael Sheen and Iwan Rheon, and former co-stars Dame Siân Phillips, Gabriel Byrne and Claire Bloom.
This documentary is just one of a number of programmes the Beeb is screening celebrating the life and work of Burton.
BBC Two, Wednesday 12 November at 9 pm
Unwrapping King Tut: Secrets of the Mummy
The 100th anniversary of Howard Carter first unwrapping the mummy of Tutankhamun.
One hundred years ago the world celebrated one of history’s most famous archaeological moments, when Howard Carter finally unwrapped the mummy of Tutankhamun. Now Dr Xand van Tulleken sets out to reexamine the six extraordinary days it took to reveal the Boy King beneath the bandages.
Using state-of-the-art forensic science, cutting-edge 3D scanning and X-ray imaging, Dr Xand embarks on a ‘digital autopsy’ of the Boy King. And revisiting Carter’s original notes and archive, he pieces together the clues hidden within the ancient bandages to uncover what the body itself can reveal. Was Tutankhamun’s mummification botched – and if so, why? And could the condition of his body which is eventually revealed, tell us the true story of his early death?
Meeting leading Egyptologists and forensic experts, Dr Xand learns what would have been involved in Tut’s mummification. Through advanced photogrammetry, he explores a reconstructed form of the young pharaoh as never seen before – a virtual resurrection through 3D imaging that may expose the truth behind Tutankhamun’s fragile health, his tangled royal bloodline, and the intrigue that surrounded his short reign.
The programme also takes Dr Xand back in time to 1925, reliving the nerve-shredding six days when Carter and his team painstakingly unwrapped the mummy for the first time. Every cut, every movement, was a gamble that could destroy the fragile mummy forever. What really happened in those tense days inside the tomb – and why did Carter immediately recognise the face of the Boy King beneath the mask?
Blending modern science and historical detective work, these are six days that changed history. Each day’s revelations brings us closer to the truth behind Egypt’s most fascinating Pharoah: how he lived, how he died, and why his myth still captivates the world a century later.
5, Friday 14 October at 9 pm
Heartbreaking new drama, based on Louise Kennedy’s acclaimed debut novel, starring Lola Petticrew, Tom Cullen and Gillian Anderson.
In the first of the four-part series: It’s 1975, and young Catholic schoolteacher Cushla’s (Petticrew) life in a town outside Belfast is shadowed by the Troubles. Amid curfews, bombings and betrayals, she works nights in her family’s pub, serving both sides and British soldiers, when she meets and falls for Michael (Cullen) – an older, married Protestant barrister.
Their affair is both intoxicating and dangerous. Cushla’s world is full of defiant spirits: her alcohol-dependent, sharp-tongued mother Gina (Anderson), her lively pupils and her beloved colleague Gerry (Oisín Thompson).
As Cushla and Michael’s forbidden love deepens, violence looms and tensions rise, and Cushla is pulled between duty and desire, family and freedom. In this first episode, one night, a handsome stranger walks into Cushla’s family bar: Michael, a married Protestant barrister – and trouble.
Cushla is hooked. Teaching by day and serving pints by night, she’s caught between two worlds. As she champions her young pupil Davy (Daithí Ó Haragáin) and faces sectarian violence, Cushla pulls back from the affair. But Michael persuades her, and they begin a secret, passionate relationship that changes everything, with danger all around.
Channel 4, Sunday 9 November 9 pm
