What to watch on TV this week: 14th - 20th December
Strike: The Ink Black Heart and the Strictly Come Dancing final are among our picks for what to watch on TV this week.
As we head into the final weeks of the year, some of the biggest events of the calendar are about to be broadcast, including The Royal Variety Performance and Sports Personality of the Year.
They aren't the only one-off shows airing this week, as Michael McIntyre's 25th Year Stand-Up Special is also set to air, as is a one-hour celebration of Dame Maggie Smith, and a documentary about the making of Last Christmas, titled Wham! Last Christmas Unwrapped.
Speaking of Christmas, there are of course a number of specials set to air this week, including ones for Charlie Cooper's Myth Country, The Great British Sewing Bee and Never Mind the Buzzcocks.
Meanwhile, if it's drama you're looking for, the new season of Strike is about to start airing on BBC One, while Based on a True Story returns to Sky Max and Virgin River is back on Netflix.
Last but not least, this week marks the season finale of Strictly Come Dancing - but who will lift the Glitterball trophy and be crowned this week's champion?
Here, you'll find out top picks for this week – read on for our full choice of what to watch.
Strictly Come Dancing season 22 final
Release date: Saturday 14th December, 6pm, BBC One
No matter which celebrity has made it this far in the competition and no matter which couple actually lift the glitterball trophy, there is one pair that are absolute winners as far as Strictly viewers are concerned: Chris McCausland and Dianne Buswell. Fans have been in awe at how someone who is blind has managed to dance like this and how she has managed to teach him the steps, let alone trust him with lifts. Other performances may have been more technically proficient but theirs have been positively joyous to watch. He’s been a favourite since the first episode.
The show has been a fabulous, glittery distraction for the past 13 weeks, culminating in tonight’s finale when each couple dances three times (their choice, the judges’ choice and a show dance). Craig Revel Horwood, Motsi Mabuse, Shirley Ballas and Anton Du Beke can voice their opinion – and they’ve certainly done that very loudly and occasionally controversially this season – but tonight it’s only the public vote that counts.
Jane Rackham
Michael McIntyre’s 25th Year Stand‐Up Special
Release date: Saturday 14th December, 8:35pm, BBC One
Bumptious comedian Michael McIntyre has been making audiences laugh since the late 1990s. The cheekiest of chappies, McIntyre will never be mistaken for a cutting‐edge comic, but he’s become a reliable Mr Saturday Night; a slick, safe mainstream comedian who’s very good at what he does.
Celebrating a quarter of a century in comedy is this special recording of his latest smash-hit stand-up show, Macnificent (although shouldn’t that be ‘Mcnificent’?). Filmed at the London Palladium, it’s his usual scampering barrage of perplexed everyday observations delivered with a giggly chipmunk twinkle.
Paul Whitelaw
Dame Maggie Smith: A Celebration
Release date: Saturday 14th December, 8:35pm, ITV1
Recipient of the triple crown of acting – having won two Oscars, four Emmys and a Tony, among many others – Dame Maggie Smith certainly earned her place as a national treasure. Tonight, ITV lavishes a new hour-long special on the star, who died in September, aged 89. Close friends and colleagues offer heartfelt recollections about a career that spanned the better part of 70 years, with Smith’s voice among the chorus courtesy of archive footage. Before that, though, is a chance to watch 2019’s Downton Abbey, in which Smith’s Dowager Countess prepares for a royal visit to the country pile and shares a memorably sparky rapport with Imelda Staunton’s lady-in-waiting.
Josh Winning
Wham! Last Christmas Unwrapped
Release date: Saturday 14th December, 8:35pm, BBC Two
Andrew Ridgeley says returning to Saas-Fee in Switzerland is like a pilgrimage. It was 40 years ago that he, along with Pepsi, Shirlie and a motley crew of his and George Michael’s friends, were here to film the video for Last Christmas (the song that, were it not for Band Aid, would’ve landed them 1984’s Christmas number one).
As the longtime chums reunite in the Swiss village to reminisce for what is a celebratory, melancholic doc, the charming anecdotes flow like the real wine that was used at the dinner table in the video. Interestingly, it was also Andrew’s grandmother’s broach used in the video (it temporarily got lost mid-shoot), while George made sure his hood was up in the outdoor scenes after his blow-dry was ruined in a snowball fight.
The nostalgia continues into the evening with a compilation of Wham!’s BBC appearances at 9.35pm, a repeat of George Michael at the BBC (10.35pm) and the film Last Christmas (12.05am).
Frances Taylor
The Royal Variety Performance 2024
Release date: Sunday 15th December, 8pm, ITV1
We’ve seen them restoring tumbledown Italian houses together, but tonight Amanda Holden and her “TV hubby” Alan Carr swap DIY overalls for considerably more glamorous gear to host an evening of something-for-everybody entertainment in the presence of King Charles.
Topping the bill is the Rocketman himself, Elton John, who, with husband David Furnish, also introduces a number by the cast of his new musical The Devil Wears Prada. There are also performances from this year’s Britain’s Got Talent winner Sydnie Christmas, Eurovision winner Nemo and disco queen Sophie Ellis-Bextor.
Jane Rackham
Strike: The Ink Black Heart
Release date: Monday 16th December, 9pm, BBC One
JK Rowling’s brooding detective Cormoran Strike (Tom Burke) returns after a two-year absence — and things are looking uncharacteristically bright for him and business partner Robin (Holliday Grainger). With a tough case firmly behind them and Christmas coming up, they head out to celebrate Robin’s birthday. Now, surely, they’ll finally stop messing about and realise they love each other.
Only joking! Of course, something goes wrong, and when we jump forward a few weeks the sleuthing duo are more awkward with each other than ever. Without question, it’s the perfect time for a new case to ease the tension — so enter stage left Edie Ledwell (Mirren Mack), the creator of a popular cartoon, who’s being terrorised by an online stalker.
Soon, Strike and Robin are back interviewing suspects and infiltrating chatrooms to try and track down “Anomie”, who’s more dangerous than your average keyboard warrior. As usual there are exciting foot chases, red herrings and a butcher’s dozen of possible suspects. If only the secret of true love was as easy to solve…
Huw Fullerton
Based on a True Story season 2
Release date: Monday 16th December, 9pm, Sky Max
Married couple Ava (Kaley Cuoco) and Nathan (Chris Messina) spend the entirety of their screen time in this inky black comic thriller in a flat spin, that sustained air of panic due to the continued presence in their lives of Matt (Tom Bateman), the serial killer in whose crimes they’ve unwittingly found themselves complicit.
At the start of this second season, however, Matt is claiming to be a changed man. He’s now man-bunned, heavily bearded and going big on white linen, his current hangout being a wellness retreat in Mexico. But the group’s instructor is advising Matt to release his inner beast. And, quite frankly, that’s one monster which ought to remain caged and on a short chain. So, will Matt relapse? And are Ava and Nathan destined to find themselves caught up in his mayhem once again?
David Brown
BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2024
Release date: Tuesday 17th December, 7pm, BBC One
Gary who? Clare Balding, Gabby Logan and Alex Scott will be hosting tonight’s shindig from Media City in Salford, where we can expect plenty of time for the exploits of Team GB and ParalympicsGB in Paris, another cracking Six Nations tournament and some extraordinary cricketing achievements, as well as a few farewells (for now at least) to British sporting icons including Gareth Southgate, Andy Murray, Jimmy Anderson and Tom Daley, who are leaving the biggest stage.
In terms of contenders, given Max Verstappen’s throttling of Lando Norris’s startling F1 championship charge, it looks like a two-way fight between an elite competitor and a sportsman whose athletic gifts may, on the surface, seem a little more elusive. Keely Hodgkinson was the undoubted British star of the Paris Olympics, capping a stunning season with an astonishingly dominant victory in the 800m. Teenager Luke Littler, meanwhile, came from nowhere to become the biggest name in darts since Phil Taylor, compensating for defeat in the PDC World Darts Championship final by winning almost everything else.
Gabriel Tate
Never Mind the Buzzcocks Christmas special
Release date: Wednesday 18th December, 9pm, Sky Max
The set is dressed with trees and tinsel and team captain Daisy May Cooper is back from maternity leave, but to begin with this “Never Mind the Baubles” is a little Grinch-like with its festive cheer. If anything the flurry of after-hours gags is stepped up for the special — at one point team captain Noel Fielding even says to host Greg Davies, “You’re going to get letters about that.”
But all is forgiven when a Christmas legend joins Daisy’s team from an ID parade, Jamali Maddix show’s he is word-perfect on the song Bob the Builder and a mighty four-piece from yesteryear pops up to sing the show out. But who will lift the Christmas crown? Daisy May... or could Noel be the first?
Mark Braxton
Virgin River season 6
Release date: Thursday 19th December, Netflix
It's spring in beautiful, remote northern California, and the sound of wedding bells is in the air. Having bought a farm together in season five, Mel and Jack (Alexandra Breckenridge and Martin Henderson) are getting married, and the sixth season of a very satisfying romantic drama unashamedly wallows in every milestone along the way. The planning, the bachelor and bachelorette parties and the rehearsal dinner all bring their own dramas, but long-term fans know by now to expect the unexpected but not the unhappy. Flashbacks to Mel's parents in the 1970s spice up the schmaltz.
Jack Seale
The Great British Sewing Bee Christmas special
Release date: Thursday 19th December, 9pm, BBC One
Here’s an early Christmas cracker for you… complete with naff jokes such as why can’t Christmas trees sew? Because they drop their needles. Boom boom.
Sara Pascoe returns as the presenter, joining Esme Young and Patrick Grant (aka Scrooge and the Grinch) who are judging the festive sewing of four celebrities. Seated behind the sewing machines are EastEnders’ Kellie Bright (although Esme is also dressed as a soap opera landlady), H from Steps, who says he has “all the gear but no idea”, Geordie Shore’s Charlotte Crosby, who is loudly competitive, and comedian Fatiha El-Ghorri, who flirts hilariously with Patrick from the off. The challenges are an advent calendar, a onesie transformation, and a made-to-measure outfit inspired by a Christmas number one.
It’s all wonderfully jolly, despite everyone suspecting that one celeb secretly has some sewing experience while the traditional knees-up finale includes Patrick dressed as a Christmas tree and Esme attempting to jive. It’s, er, sew good.
Jane Rackham
Charlie Cooper's Myth Country: Winter Solstice
Release date: Friday 20th December, 10pm, BBC Three
A festive special with a difference, since it involves leaving Christmas behind in the unpleasant 21st century and seeking out the alternatives. The various winter festivals that take place around England, usually in market towns that bear a vaguely malevolent ambience, are the perfect fodder for a show in which This Country star Charlie Cooper is to some extent a documentary host and to some extent a fictional character called Charlie Cooper, and we are never quite sure how much of each we are seeing.
Charlie goes to Devon for barrel burning and to Gloucestershire for morris dancing, all the time resisting the call from his father to return home for a traditional Yule. But once he’s gone pagan, is there any way back?
Jack Seale
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Authors
James Hibbs is a Drama Writer for Radio Times, covering programmes across both streaming platforms and linear channels. He previously worked in PR, first for a B2B agency and subsequently for international TV production company Fremantle. He possesses a BA in English and Theatre Studies and an NCTJ Level 5 Diploma in Journalism.
