A Very British Space Launch
10pm, Channel 4
It is easy to mock the likes of Richard Branson for their rich-guy self-indulgences around space travel. But this documentary shows the remarkable science behind the 2023 attempt to put his rocket system into space. Elements of the enterprise do bear traces of the ageing hippy that Branson is but, as the narration puts it, they are still dealing with “essentially a highly controlled bomb”. Everything has to be exactly right. Spoiler alert: it isn’t. Phil Harrison
Murder Trial: The Disappearance of Renee and Andrew MacRae
9pm, BBC Two
A remarkable two-part documentary telling the story of the murder trial of William MacDowell, an 80-year-old man accused of killing his former lover and their three-year-old son in 1976 and concealing the murders for 45 years. The film gains in-court access to the defence and prosecution teams; the result is a striking insight into an unusual tragedy. PH
The Tower
9pm, ITV1
The downbeat cop drama returns for a second season, stripped across the week. The ramifications of last season’s botched investigation are still unspooling and Lizzie (Tahirah Sharif) is considering herself lucky to still have a job. Meanwhile, Gemma Whelan’s stern DS Sarah Collins has been thrown a difficult and distressing cold case. PH
David Hockney: A Celebration
9pm, Sky Arts
A mini-season of Hock docs starts with what is basically a South Bank Show: Melvyn Bragg and David Hockney chat illuminatingly about the artist’s childhood, career breakthroughs and seemingly bottomless creative wellspring. Jack Seale
Miracle Workers: End Times
9pm, Sky Comedy
The offbeat comedy anthology starring Daniel Radcliffe and Steve Buscemi returns. This time, a dim Mad Max-style road warrior (Radcliffe) is adjusting to life in post-apocalyptic suburbia with his ex-warlord partner. The opening double bill is cartoonish – think “raunchy Flintstones” – but fun. Graeme Virtue
Starstruck
10pm, BBC Three
Rose Matafeo’s smart comedy about a woman in an on-off relationship with a film star returns for a third season. Two years have passed since Jessie and Tom’s last hook-up but they are doomed to bump into each other, this time at the worst wedding ever, at which Jessie plays a full, excruciating part. They can’t keep meeting like this, surely? PH
Film choice
Women Talking (Sarah Polley, 2022), Prime Video
Sarah Polley’s intensely moving drama won the Academy Award for best adapted screenplay this year – it’s a story in which words carry life-changing weight. A group of women in a Mennonite religious community gather in a barn to decide what to do after the men are arrested for tranquillising and raping many of them. The horror of this plays out in their involved arguments over staying or leaving: from Rooney Mara’s softly spoken Ona and Jessie Buckley’s forgiving Mariche to Claire Foy’s furious Salome. Faith and justice do battle in a sensitive, superbly acted tale. Simon Wardell
The Man With the Golden Arm (Otto Preminger, 1955), 8.45pm, Talking Pictures TV
Frank Sinatra showed his chops as a dramatic actor in Otto Preminger’s down’n’dirty yarn. He plays Frankie Machine – a former addict poker dealer, out of jail and back in his urban Chicago neighbourhood of dive bars and strip joints. Cocky but brittle, he is bent on becoming a drummer but, as the local heroin kingpin warns, “the monkey never dies”. A few knockbacks later, a wired Frankie is desperate for his next hit. Featuring a jagged jazz score by Elmer Bernstein, it’s a twitchy, propulsive story of temptation and redemption. SW
Live sport
Tennis: US Open, 3pm, Sky Sports Main Event Day one at Flushing Meadows.
