Gladiators
8pm, Sky Nature
Nature’s masters of war are the focus of this beautifully shot series exploring conflict zones, ranging from jungle to tidelands. We begin at a rare, year-round waterhole in the African savannah. Needless to say it’s oversubscribed, with beasts including elephants, lions, honey badgers and scorpions relying on it for life. Sean Bean narrates as the battles for water get under way – with an extraordinary miniature war between ants and termites. Phil Harrison
McDonald & Dodds
8pm, ITV1
Tala Gouveia and Jason Watkins’s crime-fighting pair have brought cop chemistry, guest stars and top murder-solving skills to the Bath-based drama. The finale has a string of suspicious deaths at weddings, including a vicar and a bride, as well as plenty of tension between the two sleuths. Hannah Verdier
Titanic in Colour
8pm, Channel 4
The impact of the Titanic tragedy is unavoidably lessened by its usual rendering in black-and-white. This series addresses that, with colourised footage from on board the spectacular, doomed vessel. The opening episode explores the ship’s construction in Belfast before capturing her as she sailed proudly off into the north Atlantic on her maiden voyage. PH
John Wilson’s American Greats at the Proms
8pm, BBC Four
This Sinfonia of London evening performance is conducted by John Wilson, with a programme including Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue (celebrating its centenary), plus rarer transatlantic treats, such as jazz legend Wynton Marsalis’s Herald, Holler and Hallelujah! and Copeland’s 21-minute ballet on Billy the Kid. Ellen E Jones
Vienna Blood
9pm, BBC Two
The artful odd-couple crime drama set in 1900s Austria returns for a fourth series. Freud disciple Max (Matthew Beard) has barely put down his holiday luggage before gruff copper Oskar (Juergen Maurer) drags him back into the fray. Psychological insights are required to track down a mole who could torpedo the entire Austro-Hungarian empire. Graeme Virtue
Saucy! Secrets of the British Sex Comedy
10pm, Channel 4
After the bawdy slapstick innocence of the first wave of British sex comedies, the business becomes more serious in the concluding part of this documentary, with the arrival of David Sullivan and his discovery of a loophole that allowed the publication of much more explicit material and introduced UK porn’s first megastar, Mary Millington. PH
Film choice
Mission: Impossible, 10.15pm, ITV1
Given the all-out bombast of the most recent sequels, revisiting Tom Cruise’s first outing as Ethan Hunt in 1996 feels a bit like travelling back to the distant past. This is a much slower film than you might remember, filled with tension and intrigue rather than pure spectacle. Still, it isn’t hard to spot the green shoots of the formula. More than once, Brian De Palma’s direction carefully introduces you to a plan then gleefully flings a bag of spanners at it. The iconic CIA headquarters break-in may still be the most meticulously formulated set piece of the entire series. Stuart Heritage
Concrete Utopia, 12.20pm, 9.45pm, Sky Cinema Premiere
Consider Concrete Utopia an overlooked banger. Set in a post-apocalyptic Seoul that has levelled all but one skyscraper, this film is about the efforts of the residents not to be overwhelmed by the surge of outsiders looking for shelter. As far as issues go, the film is not afraid to gun for as many targets as possible. It’s about the housing crisis and the dehumanisation necessary to maintain anti-immigrant rhetoric. But the plot moves at such a crack, and the performances are so electric, that it never feels as if you’re being force-fed your vegetables. SH
Live sport
Olympics 2024, 8am, BBC One
Jake Jarman in the gymnastic vault final, plus the men’s 100m final, and the individual dressage.
