What to watch on TV this week: 22nd - 28th March

Bosch: Legacy is also coming back for its third and final season on Prime Video, while Bridget Christie's comedy The Change is back for season 2 on Channel 4.

When it comes to unscripted shows this week, hard-hitting documentary Brianna: A Mother’s Story will air on ITV1, Neil & Martin's Bon Voyage will bring laughs on U&Gold, and fans of property shows can look forward to the new season of Grand Designs on Channel 4.

Here, you'll find our top picks for this week – read on for our full choice of what to watch.

This City Is Ours

Release date: Sunday 23rd March, 9pm, BBC One

If you’re after an upbeat, cheering new drama this is… not it. It is solid Sunday night fare, though, that stars Sean Bean as Ronnie – the head of a drug racket in Liverpool who’s considering stepping back and retiring from the operation. That’s where Michael (James Nelson Joyce) comes in. And really, this is Michael’s story.

He’s trying for a baby with girlfriend Diana (Hannah Onslow) and has his eye on the top job in the hopes that stepping up will secure his family a better future. Getting there, however, won’t be easy: he’ll have to get his hands dirty. And bloody. Standing in his way is Ronnie’s son Jamie (Jack McMullen) who wants to muscle in, plus it seems like not everyone in the tight-knit cartel can be trusted…

Created and written by Stephen Butchard (The Last Kingdom, Good Cop and recent Disney Plus drama Shardlake, also starring Bean) this is a steely and measured (if, so far at least, largely unremarkable) heart-pounder, boosted by a firm ensemble that includes Julie Graham, Laura Aikman and Saoirse-Monica Jackson.

Frances Taylor

Neil & Martin's Bon Voyage

Release date: Tuesday 25th March, 9pm, U&Gold

It takes about 30 seconds for old mates Neil Morrissey and Martin Clunes to start behaving badly. They might have been friends for 40 years and now be bus-pass age, but they laugh, joke and drink almost as much as those ne’er-do-wells Gary and Tony did in the '90s sitcom that made their names.

They’re taking a celebratory road trip around France, which is now Neil’s second home, having all sorts of fun experiences, such as wine tasting (“Oh, I’d love to know what wine tastes like,” guffaws Martin), canoeing down a river admiring the sights, cycling through vineyards and exploring a massive sand dune.

But mainly they make each other laugh... a lot. It’s not like Martin’s previous travelogues which, while amiable and thoroughly enjoyable, did have a note of seriousness about them as well as offering useful information. This is mainly about the pair’s relationship, their reminiscing and laughter… did I mention that they laugh a lot?

Jane Rackham

The Change season 2

Release date: Tuesday 25th March, 10pm, Channel 4

Bridget Christie’s comedy about ageing, gender and community returns with Linda (Christie) put on trial in her Forest of Dean idyll after fabrications about her past come to light. Conversely, as news spreads about the chore ledger that drove her to escape domestic tedium, the “Mick Lynch of dusting” also finds herself a reluctant messiah. Co-director Mackenzie Crook brings the same keen eye for the natural world as he did for Detectorists, while the unimprovable ensemble do justice to a tender and often hilarious script.

Gabriel Tate

The Studio

Release date: Wednesday 26th March, Apple TV+

Another series about Hollywood’s favourite subject: itself! Here, Seth Rogen is Matt – a recently-promoted movie studio executive who wants to make arthouse films but instead finds himself having to create soulless franchises. Can he appease his boss (an excellently-menacing Bryan Cranston) and therefore manage to cling onto his job – and his integrity?

It’s a wonder no-one trips over there are so many names dropped (Charlize Theron, Martin Scorsese, Steve Buscemi – all of whom end up cameoing) and if the premise seems familiar, it’s similar to last year’s Sky comedy The Franchise. Although that managed to have more laughs and be less pleased with itself.

Frances Taylor

Grand Designs season 23

Release date: Wednesday 26th March, 9pm, Channel 4

Dismantling a Second World War landing craft isn’t the usual start to Grand Designs, but this is no ordinary project: to create a floating home on a tidal estuary. This innovative and ambitious build is befitting of the couple behind it: designer Sarah and architect Howard, who have worked together for 30 years and really want to push the boat out for what could be one of their final ventures. He boldly states their “perfect project is something that’s almost unimaginably difficult”.

He certainly gets his wish. Taking apart the 80-year-old vessel currently in the mooring proves a huge challenge, while the phenomenally complex build requires a lot of polystyrene, glue… and swearing.

Frances Taylor

Bosch: Legacy season 3

Release date: Thursday 27th March, Prime Video

It's not quite as hard-boiled and taut as the original Bosch used to be, but the spin-off - which still stars Titus Welliver as Harry Bosch, although he's no longer an LAPD detective - is still a fine crime drama. The third season is slated to be the last, and promises to stir up big secrets from Bosch's past. First, though, he and his acolytes inside and outside the police force have a potentially lethal stalker and a mysterious gunpoint mugging to investigate.

Jack Seale

Brianna: A Mother's Story

Release date: Thursday 27th March, 9pm, ITV1

The murder of Brianna Ghey in 2023 was shocking and incomprehensible. She was 16 and lost her life in the most horrendous and brutal manner at the hands of unfathomably young perpetrators. Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe were both aged 15 when they killed her.

As we see through snippets of social media videos in this affecting documentary, Brianna and Scarlett had been pally. They’d met at school and did the usual teenage stuff together: colouring their hair, going to McDonald’s. The fact Brianna believed Scarlett to be a friend is a detail that Brianna’s mother Esther Ghey understandably finds especially painful.

It’s horrible and hard to hear the details of this case, particularly regarding the extent of the injuries inflicted on Brianna and to read the depraved text messages between Ratcliffe and Jenkinson, who regularly viewed horrendously warped content online.

In the wake of her daughter’s death, Esther has been campaigning vigorously for changes she hopes can help protect young minds. “If I can make something positive out of what’s happened to her,” she says. “Then it keeps her memory alive.”

Frances Taylor

Beyond Paradise season 3

Release date: Friday 28th March, 8pm, BBC One

There are some notable homages to classic crime dramas in this opener to series three, the first of which is in the premise, as Devon-based detectives Humphrey and Esther are forced to work alongside their Cornish counterparts after a body is found on the county border. The Bridge, anyone?

But the more substantive reference is to Columbo, which you’ll understand after witnessing Humph’s fixation on an intimidating local councillor (played by Hugh Dennis) who has links to the dead man. The episode doesn’t go so far as to show you the crime being committed in the opening minutes, but the cat-and-mouse game that ensues has the air of Peter Falk toying with his prey.

And then there’s the solution, elements of which echo almost directly a 1990s outing for Columbo. Now, I’m not going to reveal the episode to which I’m referring (and I’m certainly not going to say who’s guilty here in Beyond Paradise either), but email RT if you spot the similarities.

David Brown

Death in Paradise season 14 finale

Release date: Friday 28th March, 9pm, BBC One

Not since the days of Patrick McGoohan grappling with a large, white inflatable balloon on a beach has a TV character fought so hard to leave a seemingly idyllic location. But where Number Six on The Prisoner failed, Mervin Wilson (Don Gilet) is hoping to succeed as he says what he hopes will be his final goodbyes to colleagues.

But all that is before a dead body is found in the shack Mervin has called home these past few months and his police team are tasked with ruling their boss out as a suspect. London may be calling, but circumstances appear to be conspiring to keep the detective inspector on the island for a while longer.

David Brown

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