9pm, Channel 4The 2019 murder of the journalist Lyra McKee in Derry was a grim reminder that, while the Troubles are in abeyance, it’s still a stretch to describe them as being over. Filmed across seven years, this three-part documentary gains impressive access to the detectives hunting for Lyra’s killer. It’s intense and gripping: the team struggle to persuade any witnesses (there were more than 150) to come forward and gradually realise that they are, in fact, investigating the leadership of the New IRA.
Phil Harrison 8pm, Sky OneThis Walking With Dinosaurs-style series is parked in the Triassic era, a period when evolution was forcibly redirected by extinction events. But the programme makers know you can make a looming ice age relatable by telling the story of a plucky little critter: in this case, a squat young ischigualastia dealing with food scarcity. Graeme Virtue 8pm, U&AlibiBack to 1946 London for more genteel, meticulous detective work with Mark Gatiss’s bibliophile sleuth, Gabriel Book.
Series two begins in the world of mediums as Book examines a seance resulting in the apparent killing of Harold Sneed (an enjoyably louche Jason Watkins). For all the supernatural woo-woo, could the answer be surprisingly earthbound? PH 9pm, ITV1There’s a whiff of The Thursday Murder Club to the latest outing for Ben Miller’s compulsive criminologist as he finds himself at the scene of a violent murder in a posh retirement village.
The fact that DS Winters (Barney White) hates his guts could derail the case. Might a joint therapy session help? GV This series promises new revelations concerning one of the most serious unsolved crimes in British legal history.
In 1991, somewhere between her home and that of her parents, 18-year-old Nicola Payne vanished. She hasn’t been seen since, but the police have been unable to make any progress towards uncovering her fate. PH 10pm, Sky DocumentariesBack in 1985, the ideas propagated by Greenpeace hadn’t quite reached the mainstream.
However, its campaign to stop French nuclear testing in the South Pacific – which culminated in the bombing of the titular boat – was a turning point. This lively, fascinating documentary hears from many of those directly involved. PH The Day Shall Come (Christopher Morris, 2019), 1.25am, Film4Chris Morris’s scathing 2019 satire about the US government’s “war on terror” and the innocents caught up in it may be the most neglected of his brilliant career, but in its plausibility (“Based on a hundred true stories,” a title card notes) and bleak comedy it deserves more love.
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