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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Hollie Richardson, Jack Seale, Ali Catterall and Simon Wardell

TV tonight: space babies, the Bogeyman and the Beatles … it’s Doctor Who

The Doctor will see you now…
The Doctor will see you now… Photograph: James Pardon/Bad Wolf/BBC Studios

Doctor Who

6.20pm, BBC One

Ncuti Gatwa is all charisma and then some in his first full term as the Time Lord in the new series of Doctor Who. Written by Russell T Davies, the opening double bill picks up where the Christmas special left off – with street-smart Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) stepping into the Tardis and ready for adventure. First stop: a baby farm, run by freaky talking babies, who like to call Ruby and the Doctor Mummy and Daddy, and are terrified of the Bogeyman lurking beneath them. Then it’s a total vibe change: the pair travel to the 60s, where they meet the Beatles, and the powerful Maestro (Drag Race’s Jinkx Monsoon) who is trying to change the band’s role in history. Hollie Richardson

Bettany Hughes’ Treasures of the World

7pm, Channel 4

Hughes takes another fact-packed tour, roving around the eastern Mediterranean to muse on human ingenuity and creativity. Turkey throws up evidence of a very early form of government, while Greece offers a cache of artefacts at the tomb of Alexander the Great’s sister. In Albania, there are traces dating back to the bronze age of Illyria, the ancient kingdom immortalised in Twelfth Night. Jack Seale

Eurovision Song Contest 2024

8pm, BBC One

It’s finally Eurovision time! The 68th contest is at the Malmø Arena in Sweden this year – 50 years after Abba won with Waterloo. Your hosts for the evening are actor Malin Åkerman and Eurovision veteran Petra Mede, while Graham Norton provides the real entertainment with his snarky commentary. In case you have somehow managed to avoid hearing it so far, our entry is sexy bop Dizzy by Olly Alexander. HR

Our Dream Farm With Matt Baker

8pm, Channel 4

Wanted: a new farmer for Wallington Estate, a National Trust farm in Northumberland. Must be available for 10 years. Which of the remaining four applicants will impress with their livestock handling skills and sustainable grazing plans? While Sally and Giles oversee the cattle herding, Matt assists a hopeful with a ewe giving birth to twins. Ali Catterall

Doctor Who: Unleashed

8pm, BBC Three

Who fever is rife this weekend, and superfans can find out more about the latest series with this spin-off, in which Steffan Powell goes behind the scenes of each episode. This week he’s interviewing the Bogeyman, guest star Jinkx Monsoon and “the Beatles”, as well as finding out how space babies are made. HR

Spy/Master

9pm, BBC Four

Panic stations all round when Ceaușescu’s right-hand man and Soviet secret agent Victor Godeanu goes missing, in episode three of the chilly cold war thriller. But is his new CIA-arranged safe house really that safe? “There’s enough windows to make us sitting ducks, and the fire escape ladder might as well be a welcome mat!” AC

Film choice

The Blackening, 10.45am, 6.15pm, Sky Cinema Premiere

Tim Story’s enjoyably knowing comedy upends the horror movie cliche that the Black character is always the first to die by making all the characters Black. A group of African American friends (including Dewayne Jenkins and Grace Byers) congregate at a cabin in the woods on Juneteenth for a reunion. But their hosts have vanished and they find a sinister talking board game, The Blackening, which demands answers to questions about Black culture and history (and Friends) – or else one of their missing pals dies. Not quite a spoof but still full of callbacks to classic slasher flicks, the film smartly skewers Black representation, while also having a dig at closer-to-home racial prejudices. Simon Wardell

The Final: Attack on Wembley, out now, Netflix

Rob Miller and Kwabena Oppong’s film documents one of the most depressing chapters in the recent history of English football. Canvassing a wide range of views – from embattled Wembley staff to rowdy supporters – it tells the tale of the Euro 2020 final at Wembley, when many England fans without tickets stormed the stadium. The lead-up to the match was a crowd-safety nightmare, with drunk and coked-up young men massing outside and becoming increasingly threatening. There is some focus on the game itself, but it feels like a footnote to a riot. SW

Jupiter Ascending, 5.25pm, 5Star

The expansive vision of the Wachowskis may have faltered a bit here, but cinema is still a better place for their ambition. In a sci-fi adventure of cyberpunk weirdness, Mila Kunis plays Jupiter Jones, a human who discovers she is the genetic reincarnation of the mother of a powerful alien dynasty – whose children (Douglas Booth, Tuppence Middleton, Eddie Redmayne) have competing plans for her … The baroque flamboyance of The Fifth Element is spliced with the comic bureaucracy of Brazil (Terry Gilliam even has a cameo) in a sublimely silly, amped-up escapade. SW

Office Space, 11pm, Comedy Central

The surreal dreariness of working in an office has rarely been captured so succinctly as in Mike Judge’s 1999 comedy. From the boss’s middle-management double speak and a worker saddled with the name Michael Bolton to a man whose desk is being moved incrementally to the basement, it’s enough to make a decent guy such as Peter (Ron Livingston) quit trying. Naturally, his laissez-faire confidence is catnip to the visiting redundancy consultants. A satire that will make you look at your own workplace in a new light. SW

Live sport

Cycling: Giro d’Italia, 11am, Eurosport 1 Stage eight of the Grand Tour, from Spoleto to Prati di Tivo.

Premier League Football: Fulham v Man City, 11am, TNT Sports 1 At Craven Cottage.

Women’s T20 Cricket: England v Pakistan, 2.15pm, BBC Two Heather Knight leads the home side in the first of a three-game series, at Edgbaston.

Premiership Rugby Union: Bristol v Saracens, 2.30pm, ITV/TNT Sports 2 Followed by Exeter v Harlequins at 5.15pm on TNT Sports 2.

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