Take a Hike

Monday

BBC Two, 6.30pm

Take a Hike, a new series in which five hikers compete for the title of ultimate guide, could just as easily have been called Come Hike With Me. Each week sees a different hiker take the lead, judged by the others on their route, picnic, views and fun.

In this first episode, taxi driver Helen leads the team on a tour of Ilfracombe’s coastline. The scenery speaks for itself, but Helen’s filter-less delivery might just undo their beauty and ruin her score.

Spice Girls: How Girl Power Changed Britain

Tuesday

Channel 4, 9.00pm

Following the success of the RTS Award-winning Jade: The Reality Star Who Changed Britain, the same directing duo, Rob Coldstream and Clare Cameron, are serving up another social history lesson through the lens of celebrity.

Using the story of the Spice Girls (to this day, the best-selling girl band of all time), the film will retrace the evolution of modern feminism, from their rise in the ‘ladette culture’ of the 1990s through to their recent world tour during the #MeToo movement.

Help

Thursday

Channel 4, 9.00pm

Jodie Comer and Stephen Graham star in this hard-hitting drama written by Jack Thorne (His Dark Materials) and Marc Munden (Utopia) looking at the care home coronavirus crisis.

Comer stars as care home worker Sarah, a smart young woman who, after years of feeling like she’s never fitted in, finally finds her feet in her job at a Liverpool care home. Graham plays 47-year-old Tony, a man suffering with Young Onset Alzheimer’s, who forms a special connection with Sarah despite his bouts of confusion and violent outbursts.

When the coronavirus pandemic hits in March 2020, Sarah and her colleagues work tirelessly to protect those in her care, despite being poorly prepared and ill-equipped. Yet the dire conditions make the residents’ suffering and isolation extremely traumatic, and the carers heroic efforts can only do so much.

Sex Education

Friday

Netflix

Returning for a highly anticipated third series, Sex Education sees Jemima Kirke (Girls) join the cast as the new puritan headmistress of Moordale school, who intends to turn it back into a ‘pillar of excellence’ with an order of abstinence for the school’s randy students. 

The new series will reunite the now beloved cast including Asa Butterfield as Otis, Emma Mackey as Maeve, Ncuti Gatwa as Eric, Aimee Lou Wood as Aimee, and Gillian Anderson as Jean.

The new school year sees Otis partaking in casual sex, Jean managing her unexpected pregnancy, Eric and Adam (Connor Swindells) navigating life as an official couple and Otis and Maeve struggling to communicate their romantic feelings for each other.  

Friday

Young Rock

Sky Comedy, 8.00pm

A new sitcom that sees Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson looking back on his colourful life as he runs for President in 2032.

Interviews and conversations send him off on a series of flashbacks to one of three periods of his life: as a ten-year-old in Hawaii; as a high school student in Pennsylvania; and as a college student and football player at the University of Miami.

It’s a revealing look back at the life and times of The Rock, and a peak behind the curtain of the wild world of professional wrestling.