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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Hollie Richardson, Phil Harrison, Alexi Duggins, Ali Catterall, Danielle De Wolfe and Simon Wardell

TV tonight: autistic people explain what their lives are really like

BBC Radio 2 DJ Ken Bruce with his son Murray and wife Kerith.
‘I really yearn to speak’ … Murray Bruce with his parents, BBC Radio 2 DJ Ken and Kerith. Photograph: Richard Ansett/BBC

Inside Our Autistic Minds

9pm, BBC Two

“Please tell people that I really yearn to speak.” Murray (son of radio DJ Ken Bruce) is a bright nonverbal autistic young man who has a lot to say. Flo is a comedian who has been “masking” her autism her whole life – the only person who has seen her “unmasked” is her husband. In this deeply emotional and insightful two-part documentary, Chris Packham helps other autistic people make films about what life is really like for them. Hollie Richardson

Know Your S**t: Inside Our Guts

8pm, Channel 4

This week at Poo HQ, twins Alana and Lisa Macfarlane find out how the gut is a key organ in the immune system. They meet a pole dancer with extremely eggy wind, a salesman whose psoriasis can flare up depending on his diet, and a businesswoman with intolerances that might be linked to her pooing up to four times every day. HR

Tagged: We’re Watching You

9.20pm, BBC Three

“There’s life,” says Londoner Jaion, “and there’s tag life.” This melancholy series looks at the reality of tagging – a punishment that keeps offenders out of prison but circumscribes their lives in every other way. Jaion, James and John aren’t always endearing company, but it’s clear that the monitoring allowed by tagging is by no means an easy ride. Phil Harrison

First Dates Valentine’s

10pm, Channel 4

Fred Sirieix and team on First Date’s Valentines.
Serving up romance … Fred Sirieix and team on First Date’s Valentines. Photograph: Channel 4

“What percentage of your pants would be bad pants?” Perhaps not the most romantic question to open a Valentine’s special of this dating show, but as we see young clubbers flirt and a 42-year-old “boss woman” swoon at the sight of her dinner partner, one thing’s clear: this show is unbeatably good at matchmaking. Alexi Duggins

Storyville: The Spy in Your Mobile

10pm, BBC Four

Unlike regular spyware, the Israeli-manufactured Pegasus can hack its way into a smartphone without its user clicking a link or taking a call. This means it is able to lurk undetected, with potentially ominous consequences for those who have been traced, including journalists, activists and both the wife and fiancee of murdered Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi. Terrifying stuff. Ali Catterall

Untold: Cheat Detectives – The Loyalty Test

11.05pm, Channel 4

TikTok’s #loyaltytest trend is an increasingly common online honey trap, which puts partners’ fidelity on trial via flattering DM-slides. Here, Daisy Maskell investigates the trend’s ethics, those initiating the approaches and the fallouts it creates. Danielle De Wolfe

Film choice

Rob Bilott (Mark Ruffalo) in Dark Waters.
Pursuing justice … Rob Bilott (Mark Ruffalo) in Dark Waters. Photograph: Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy

Dark Waters (Todd Haynes, 2019), 11.15pm, BBC Two
Todd Haynes’s righteous film borrows Ken Loach’s trick of leaving you fired up about injustice and, unusually for a mainstream US drama, capitalism. Mark Ruffalo, the go-to actor for dogged, honest types, stars as real-life lawyer Rob Bilott, who went from defending chemical companies to attacking them after a West Virginia farmer revealed a dump of toxic waste by DuPont had killed his cattle and contaminated the water supply. An eye-opening tale of dodgy practice and WTF revelations. Simon Wardell

The Shape of Water (Guillerme del Toro, 2017), 11.20pm, Film4
For your Valentine’s Day viewing pleasure, an Oscar-laden romance of love against the odds, in which a young mute woman meets a misfit who understands her perfectly. Sure, he’s a 7ft amphibious creature, but nobody’s perfect. Guillermo del Toro’s fairytale stylings and love of cinema are in full effect as night-shift cleaner Elisa (Sally Hawkins) bonds with a strange beast (Doug Jones) over Glenn Miller and hard-boiled eggs in the cold war secret government facility where the creature is trapped. Michael Shannon is great fun as Elisa’s antagonist, an almost comically bigoted alpha-male colonel. SW

Live sport

Champions League football: AC Milan v Tottenham 7pm, BT Sport 1. Followed by Borussia Dortmund v Chelsea at 7pm on Wednesday.

• This article was amended on 15 February 2023 to accord with our style guidelines.

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