Sunday 24 April
Rugby Union: England v Ireland
BBC Two, 11.45am
England, one eye firmly on October’s World Cup, have been imperious so far as they bid for their third successive Women’s Six Nations Grand Slam. Ireland recovered from defeats to Wales and France to beat Italy in the third round of matches, but England should have more than enough at Welford Road (kick-off noon) to set up a titanic winner-takes-all clash against France in Bayonne next weekend. On Saturday, Scotland head to Stadio Sergio Lanfranchi, Parma, to face Italy in a potential wooden spoon playoff – both sides are still looking for their first win of this year’s tournament (BBC Scotland/iPlayer, 7.15pm). GO
Formula 1: Emilia Romagna Grand Prix
Sky F1, 12.30pm; Channel 4, 6.30pm
We’re only three races into the 2022 season, yet Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen both lie more than 40 points adrift of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in the Drivers’ Championship. An early blip or a sign of things to come? We’ll know more after this fourth race, at the Imola Circuit, Italy – which happens to be the home of Ferrari. Forza. GO
Our Changing Planet
BBC One, 7pm
A two-part documentary marks the launch of an ambitious seven-year BBC project, in which half a dozen well-known presenters monitor six of the planet’s most endangered ecosystems and meet local people attempting to reset the balance. First up, we find Steve Backshall having a rather lovely time swimming with giant manta rays in the crystal-clear waters that surround the Maldives in the Indian Ocean. It looks like paradise, but of course there’s trouble there, too, as the coral reefs that surround and protect the islands, and provide home to an extraordinary wealth of marine life, are among the ecosystems most under threat from global warming.
Also on the subject of warming, Chris Packham heads to the not-so-frozen north to give viewers a sense of the shocking rate at which Iceland’s glaciers are currently melting. And in Cambodia, Ella Al-Shamahi introduces viewers to “the Amazon of Asia”, the Cardamom Mountains rainforest, whose unrivalled richness of biodiversity is under threat from poachers and traffickers. She also reports on how the construction of dams along the Mekong – built to benefit growing urban populations – is wreaking havoc on wildlife and fishing communities. GO
Gaslit
StarzPlay
Julia Roberts and Sean Penn head a stellar cast in this drama looking back at the Watergate scandal that toppled President Richard Nixon. It centres on the “insane but shockingly true” story of Martha Mitchell (Roberts), wife of Attorney General John Mitchell (Penn), whose involvement in exposing the scandal caused her own life to unravel spectacularly. GO
Grace
ITV, 8pm
Following on from last year’s short series, John Simm returns in four more two-hour adaptations of Peter James’s bestselling crime novels featuring Brighton-based detective Roy Grace. This opener gets things off to another grisly start as Grace comes to believe that two not-obviously connected deaths are the work of the same sadistic serial killer. GO
Gentleman Jack
BBC One, 9pm
Having set up home together, Anne Lister (Suranne Jones) encourages Ann Walker (Sophie Rundle) to launch a charm offensive. And while the arrival of the railway in Yorkshire piques Lister’s business interest, it’s not long before she’s distracted by another dilemma – a broken-heart plea from Mariana (Lydia Leonard) to visit. GO
The Sex Lives of College Girls
ITV2, 10pm
This HBO college comedy doesn’t break much new ground but it doesn’t need to, with dialogue that’s as sharp as the performances, and real heart. Pauline Chalamet, Amrit Kaur, Renee Rapp and Alyah Chanelle Scott shine as four freshmen students at a New England college, living away from home for the first time and determined to make the most of their freedom. GO
Brothers in Dance: Anthony and Kel Matsena
BBC Four, 10pm
The BBC’s ongoing Young Dancer 2022 competition (7pm) has turned Sunday evenings into dance night on BBC Four. This film looks at how Swansea-based brothers Anthony and Kel Matsena, two of the most in-demand emerging artists on the UK dance scene, are making their mark by combining their shared passion for dance and theatre into a distinctive style. GO
Falklands: Island of Secrets
ITV, 10.15pm
Amid a rash of films commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Falklands War, Marcel Theroux and director Jon Blair cast a rather darker light on the islands, investigating the suspected murder of a young soldier and historic sexual abuse allegations that haunt the British Overseas Territory. GO
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) ★★
ITV2, 5.35pm
Going back to a dinosaur-infested island continues to be a bad idea in this rickety franchise potboiler, directed by the usually dependable JA Bayona (The Orphanage, A Monster Calls), here sadly on Spielberg-cribbing autopilot. Half eco-disaster thriller, half spooky mansion creep-’em-up, this feels somewhat half-formed at times but benefits from the significant star power of Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard.
Ride the High Country (1962) ★★★★
5Action, 7.10pm
The film that put Hollywood maverick Sam Peckinpah on the map. Only his second feature, it re-examined the classic Western, depicting the final adventure of two ageing gunfighters (Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott) as they traipse through the dying embers of the frontier age. The entertaining action is underpinned by the men’s regretful ruminations. A masterclass in Peckinpah’s unobtrusive film-making, and a sign of things to come.
Passengers (2016) ★★
Channel 4, 11pm
Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence star in this claustrophobic sci-fi drama, wherein a technical malfunction causes Jim (Pratt) to awaken from his sound stasis-sleep on a spaceship travelling to colonise a new planet, 90 years before the ship is due to arrive at its destination. Desperately seeking some form of companionship, he wakes Aurora (Lawrence). The romance is clumsy, but the space shots are glossy and artfully done.
