Alan Carr, Danny Dyer, Jenna Coleman, Jimmy Carr and more!
This week's best telly includes the return of Alan Carr's hit comedy Changing Ends, the second series of Channel 4's hit drama Suspect, as well as Danny Dyer and Ryan Sampson's new comedy for Sky Max.
Elsewhere, Jenna Coleman leads BBC One's newest thriller The Jetty, Jimmy Carr helps rebrand Dave into U&Dave with Battle in the Box and Natalie Portman stars alongside Moses Ingram in Apple TV+'s newest drama, Lady in the Lake.
Here are 6 TV shows you can't miss this week...
1. Changing Ends
Saturday 13th July at 9pm and 9.30pm on ITV1
RETURNING COMEDY
Following its launch on ITVX in 2023, Alan Carr's Changing Ends, which is based on his own life in Northampton in the 1980s growing up as the son of a fourth division football manager, became the most-watched comedy ever on the service, with over 7 million streams.
Series two picks up shortly after the first as young Alan, played by Oliver Savell, contends with impending puberty and feeling sidelined by his family, Graham Carr, played by Shaun Dooley, is distracted by Northampton Town FC who are battling for promotion can he be there for his son when he most needs him?
In the opening episode, it’s 1987 and while the Cobblers top Division 4, Alan has the minefields of puberty, bullies and advances from Kay to deal with. If only he had self-belief, then, like the Cobblers, he could be in a league of his own.
1-2/6 Continues weekly. All episodes available on ITVX at launch
2. The Jetty
Monday 15th and Tuesday 16th July at 9pm on BBC One
BRAND NEW DRAMA
Jenna Coleman stars as rookie detective Ember Manning in Cat Jones' new thriller for BBC One, The Jetty.
When a fire tears through a holiday home in a scenic Lancashire lake town, Detective Ember Manning must work out how it connects to a podcast journalist investigating a missing persons cold case and an illicit ‘love’ triangle between a man in his twenties and two underage girls.
But as Ember gets close to the truth, it threatens to destroy her life – forcing her to re-evaluate everything she thought she knew about her past, present and the town she’s always called home.
Described as much a coming-of-age story as a detective thriller, The Jetty asks big questions about sexual morality, identity and memory, in the places that Me Too has left behind.
1-2/4 Continues weekly. All episodes available on iPlayer at launch
3. Battle in the Box
Tuesday 16th and Wednesday 17th July at 9pm on U&Dave
BRAND NEW REALITY TV
As Dave rebrands to U&Dave, Jimmy Carr is kicking off proceeding by hosting the channels new competitive comedy and reality hybrid Battle in the Box, in which celebrities must battle it out for pride, prizes and floorspace, whilst living inside a small box for a full day and night.
Across four tense double-bills, eight celebrity pairs must spend 24 hours in the box. When the clock starts, two teams will move into a completely empty box divided by a moveable wall with nothing but a toothbrush. Once inside, they will only have cameras and each other for company - no beds, tables, chairs or home comforts.
Over the course of the day and night, they will need to earn everything by winning a series of physical and mental challenges all set by the orchestrator of this chaos, Jimmy Carr. Winning a game means more space and luxuries for the lucky duo. But there's a catch: more room for one team means less for the losers, as the Box's sliding wall forces them into an ever-smaller space. And, with games set around the clock, the tide - and the wall - can turn at any time.
In the first double-bill it's Joe Swash and Seann Walsh versus Harriet Kemsley and Lara Ricote.
1-2/8 Continues weekly. All episodes available on U at launch
4. Suspect
Wednesday 17th and Thursday 18th July at 9pm and 9.30pm on Channel 4
RETURNING DRAMA
Channel 4's gripping psychological crime drama, Suspect, is back for a second series with Anne-Marie Duff returning as psychotherapist Dr Susannah Newman, who is embarking on a desperate quest to find out the truth about her daughter Christina's tragic death.
In the opening episode, Susannah is in a dark place, grieving the loss of her daughter, when she's caught off guard by a visit from a mysterious new client called Jon, played by Dominic Cooper.
Susannah isn't taking on clients, but Jon pleads that he needs her help to battle his smoking addiction. Taking pity on Jon, Susannah tries to help, but as she takes Jon through his hypnotherapy session, she's shocked when he reveals that he's a professional killer who has killed girls for money. And he will kill another tonight.
Before Susannah can ask more, Jon emerges from his trance and escapes. Susannah is determined to find Jon and stop him from killing again.
1-4/8 Continues weekly. All episodes available on Channel 4 at launch
5. Mr Bigstuff
Wednesday 17th July at 9pm and 9.30pm on Sky Max
BRAND NEW COMEDY
Ryan Sampson and Danny Dyer star as estranged brothers Glen and Lee in Sky Max's new comedy Mr Bigstuff.
Created and authored by Ryan Sampson, Mr Bigstuff explores broken families, brotherhood, manhood and carpet sales. Glen is a nervy perfectionist and carpet salesman striving to live the suburban ideal, whilst Lee is an alpha male with a prescription drug addiction and a biscuit tin full of their dad’s ashes.
Glen and his fiancée Kirsty, played by Harriet Webb, share a perfect, perfectly mundane life together. Sure, Glen’s got crippling erectile dysfunction and Kirsty has a secret shoplifting habit, but they’re happy. That is until Lee comes crashing into their lives, whilst on the run from a past that’s quickly catching up with him.
The trio are forced together: a perfectionist, a fantasist and an anarchist all living under the same roof in an Essex cul-de-sac. It’s not long before their ‘perfect’ lives start to unravel faster than the weave of a cheap carpet.
1-2/6 Continues weekly. All episodes available at launch
6. Lady in the Lake
Friday 19th July on Apple TV+
BRAND NEW DRAMA
Based on Laura Lippman's 2019 novel, Apple TV+'s newest drama, Lady in the Lake, is an unexpected tale of the price women pay for their dreams. It follows what happens when the disappearance of a young girl grips the city of Baltimore. On Thanksgiving 1966, the lives of two women converge on a fatal collision course.
Natalie Portman stars as Maddie Schwartz, a Jewish housewife seeking to shed a secret past and reinvent herself as an investigative journalist, whilst Moses Ingram plays Cleo Johnson, a mother navigating the political underbelly of Black Baltimore while struggling to provide for her family.
Their disparate lives seem parallel at first, but when Maddie becomes fixated on Cleo’s mystifying death, a chasm opens that puts everyone around them in danger.
1-2/7 Continues weekly
Comments