What day is it?!
As we enter that weird period between Christmas and New Year where no one really knows what day it is, hopefully a few more festive specials and returning favourites will help ease you in as we approach 2025.
Top of the Pops returns with Clara Amfo delivering the Review of the Year, Taskmaster welcomes 5 new celebrities for its New Year Treat and there's a Christmas Special of Beyond Paradise to enjoy on BBC One.
Elsewhere, The Split returns with a two-part special set in Barcelona and Diane Morgan's Philomena Cunk is back with her most ambitious quest to date!
Here are 5 TV shows you can't miss this week...
1
CHRISTMAS SPECIAL
TOP OF THE POPS:
REVIEW OF THE YEAR 2024
Friday 27th December at 6pm on BBC One
Top of the Pops returns to see out 2024 with a special Review of the Year, as Clara Amfo looks back over the musical stories and highlights of 2024 with a mix of global stars, breakthrough artists and some of the biggest music moments of the year.
Featuring some of the standout performances of 2024, including Dua Lipa and Coldplay at Glastonbury, Sam Smith celebrating ten years of their first album, In The Lonely Hour, at the BBC Proms and pop superstars Sabrina Carpenter at Radio 1’s Big Weekend in Luton and JADE on Later… with Jools Holland.
Plus Cara will take a look at some of the big music stories of the year, including country music dominating the charts and a few seminal album anniversaries, from Oasis’s Definitely Maybe to ABBA’s Waterloo.
Also talking about their 2024 are US star Teddy Swims and British breakthrough singer-songwriter Myles Smith, who reflect on their incredible year. And in true Top of the Pops fashion, Clara reveals the top ten biggest-selling songs of 2024.
STREAM ON BBC IPLAYER
2
CHRISTMAS SPECIAL
BEYOND PARADISE
Friday 27th December at 9pm on BBC One
For this year's Beyond Paradise Christmas special, whilst home alone watching family videos, Bob encounters a surprise visitor... his late wife’s ghost, Linda, who has a haunting demand: get out!
When there’s a second unsettling encounter and writing on a mirror, Humphrey and the team are called in to investigate. Esther is deeply sceptical, but Humphrey is more than happy to dive into his first haunting.
Surely there’s a rational explanation?
STREAM ON BBC IPLAYER
3
RETURNING DRAMA
THE SPLIT: BARCELONA
Sunday 29th and Monday 30th December on BBC One
Two years on from the third and final series, formidable family lawyer Hannah Defoe, played by Nicola Walker, and her family are back and have gathered for a beautiful wedding at a magnificent vineyard, nestled in Catalonia’s wine region.
Set over one weekend, The Split: Barcelona will introduce us to a host of new characters, including Archie Moore played by Toby Stephens as well as glamorous hosts Alvaro and Valentina, played by Manu Fullola and Romina Cocca.
The two-part special will explore the themes of love, legacy, and modern marriage, through a sparkling cast of characters that audiences know and love.
STREAM ON BBC IPLAYER
4
NEW YEAR SPECIAL
TASKMASTER'S NEW YEAR TREAT
Sunday 29th December at 9pm on Channel 4
Alex Horne has spent his Christmas feverishly polishing Greg Davies' coveted Golden Eyebrows Trophy in preparation for the fifth annual Taskmaster’s New Year Treat.
This year, the five brave celebrities battling to win that trophy by donning gloves, regretting things and moving water are: former England and Liverpool footballer David James MBE, mathematician, science presenter and academic Professor Hannah Fry, Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis CBE, singer-songwriter and All Saints star Melanie Blatt, and actor and The Royle Family star Sue Johnston OBE.
Which of these stars, each renowned in their fields, will impress the Taskmaster the most and ring in the new year by grabbing Greg's golden eyebrows, the most coveted prize in all of showbiz?
STREAM ON CHANNEL 4
5
RETURNING COMEDY
CUNK ON LIFE
Monday 30th December at 9pm on BBC Two
Pioneering documentary maker Philomena Cunk, played by Diane Morgan of course, returns with her most ambitious quest to date: venturing right up the universe and everything to examine life and existence in an attempt to find out the point of it all.
Along the way, she interrogates experts on subjects from the big bang to biology and art to artificial intelligence. Really get to the nub of it.
Comments