This week's TV sees Martin Freeman star as a troubled police officer in The Responder, Himesh Patel and Mackenzie Davis lead the new post-apocalyptic dystopian series Station Eleven, and Ashley John-Baptiste meets young people who have been separated from their siblings in care.
The Responder
BBC One
Monday, 9pm
Martin Freeman stars as Chris Carson, a morally compromised urgent response officer working for the police in Liverpool. Written by former policeman Tony Shumacher, the series follows Chris as he struggles to keep a grip on his mental health and marriage amid the intense pressures of the job.
In the series opener, Chris comes to the aid of a young heroin addict who his friend Carl intends to harm. Unknown to Chris, his colleagues are keeping a close eye on him, convinced he is corrupt.
The Mind of Herbert Clunkerdunk
BBC Two
Tuesday,10pm
Comedian Spencer Jones (Upstart Crow) returns as his alter ego Herbert in the wildly surreal comedy series The Mind of Herbert Clunkerdunk.
The first episode of series two sees Herbert preparing for an audition that would redefine him, but first he and his wife Bonny Kindle (Lucy Pearman) need to get ready for their daughter Woman Child’s birthday party.
Watch our event with the cast and crew of the series here.
Split Up In Care - Life Without Siblings
BBC iPlayer
Wednesday
Having grown up in foster care, BBC reporter and RTS Scholars Ambassador Ashley John-Baptiste spent most of his life believing he was an only child. In his mid-twenties, he received a life-changing message from a man on social media telling him that he was his brother.
Like Ashley, some children grow up in care completely unaware of their siblings, but many more children do know about their siblings but are split up once in care. With around half of sibling groups in care separated, Ashley sets out to find why this is happening and speaks to young people whose lives have changed forever by the impact of separation.
Katie Price’s Mucky Mansion
Wednesday
Channel 4, 9.00pm
Headlines dubbed Katie Price’s pad the “Mucky Mansion” after the 10-acre property fell into disrepair. Now, Price has set about renovating it and her life for a new Channel 4 documentary.
Designing the perfect bedrooms for her children, carrying out a kitchen makeover and replacing chimney pots, the series shows an all new side to the ex-glamour model.
Station Eleven
Sunday
StarzPlay
Patrick Somerville (Maniac) adapts Emily St. John Mandel’s post-apocalyptic page turner, Station Eleven, for a series that looks set to make many year-end lists.
And that is in spite of its eerily timely premise: when a flu pandemic collapses civilisation, its survivors attempt to rebuild the world anew while holding onto the best of what was lost. Among them are a nomadic theatre troupe performing the works of Shakespeare – their star actress Mackenzie Davis’ Kirsten - who encounter a violent cult led by a man whose past is unknowingly linked to one of its members.
In the first episode, Himesh Patel (Don’t Look Up) continues his excellent run of form as Jeevan, a drifting online content creator turned surrogate father to a young Kirsten (Matilda Lawler) when the pandemic hits Chicago.
