Tensions rise between old money aristocrats and the nouveau riche in The Gilded Age, a Blue Eye Samurai seeks vengeance in 17th Century Japan, and Rhod Gilbert shares his battle with cancer.
Rhod Gilbert: A Pain in The Neck
Monday
Channel 4, 9.00pm
In 2022, comedian Rhod Gilbert was diagnosed with stage four head and neck cancer. Now, in a one-off documentary for Stand Up to Cancer, Gilbert will be revealing his journey from diagnosis to recovery through a series of personal video diaries.
Gilbert takes us through his ups and downs, chemo and radiotherapy, but always with his trademark mordant sense of humour.
The Gilded Age: Series Two
Monday
Sky Atlantic, 9.00pm
Dubbed the ‘American Downton Abbey’, creator Julian Fellows swaps the Crawley family's Yorkshire Dales for opulent high society New York.
With economic change comes change in status, and rivalries grow on East 61st Street. George (Morgan Spector, Homeland) and Bertha Russell (Carrie Coon, The Leftovers), considered the nouveau riche, live across the street from the old moneyed Agnes van Rhijn (Christine Baranski, Mamma Mia) and Ada Brook (Cynthia Nixon, Sex and the City).
While the freshly affluent Bertha is prepared to battle her way to the highest rung on the social ladder, polite society has to place their loyalty once and for all and choose between two competing opera houses: the old money Academy of Music, and the new money Metropolitan Opera.
All the Light We Cannot See
Thursday
Netflix
This adaption of Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel comes from Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, and Night at the Museum director Shawn Levy.
Set in a Nazi-occupied French coastal village, All the Light We Cannot See explores friendship and love against a backdrop of violence and fear. The cast is led by Aria Mia Loberti in her debut as Marie-Laure, a blind French teenager running a secret radio station to build morale in the war effort.
Unbeknownst to her, one of her listeners is a teenaged German soldier (Louis Hofmann, The Forger), using her show as a source of escape from the atrocities he has been involved in.
Blue Eye Samurai
Friday
Netflix
An animated series from husband-and-wife team Amber Noizumi and Michael Green, the latter being the screenwriter behind Logan and Blade Runner 2049.
In 17th Century Japan, the borders are closed. It is rare to see anyone non-Japanese in the Edo period, but Mizu (voiced by Maya Erskine, Man Seeking Woman) is on a quest to find each of the four white men left in Japan – and kill them.
This is a mission of vengeance, as Mizu explains it herself in the trailer. “One of them took my mother and made me… a monster,” she says, examining her blue eyes in the blade of a sword.
Both Mizu’s half-whiteness and her gender mean revenge is not a luxury she can afford, so she conceals both before setting out to kill her father.
The Voice UK
Saturday
ITV1, 8.25pm
Singers and seasoned judges Will.i.am, Anne-Marie, Sir Tom Jones and Olly Murs will all return to the big red swivel chairs to find the next generation of singing talent.
In a competition designed to disassociate voice from appearance, the judges sit facing away from the contestants, and only turn to see them if they approve and push the big red button. The celebrity singer then coaches their contestants through singing ‘battles’, knockout rounds, and live performances, until one is crowned winner.
Last year's winner, Anthonia Edwards, a nurse from Blackheath, has gone on to release her debut EP and support Billy Ocean.
