What to watch on TV this week: 9th - 15th November

Of course, that's not all. Midsomer Murders is also back for a new episode, while the current season of Taskmaster is coming to an end this week on Channel 4.

When it comes to brand new programmes, there are documentaries such as Her Majesty the Queen: Behind Closed Doors and The Real Fatal Attraction on the schedule, as well as dramas including Say Nothing and Cross.

Finally, viewers can look forward to this year's Children in Need live show on Friday, which is being hosted by Ade Adepitan, Chris Ramsey, Lenny Rush, Vernon Kay, Rochelle Humes and Mel Giedroyc.

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

Yellowstone season 5 part 2

Release date: Sunday 10th November, Paramount Plus

Well timed to counter chat about Territory on Netflix being "the new Yellowstone", the original Yellowstone finally returns to finish off what is definitely, probably its last ever season. Don't expect much of departed star Kevin Costner but do expect a rollercoaster of violence and betrayal, as the fate of the Montana ranch that has caused ructions for generations is decided. Last time we saw them, two key members of the Dutton family were plotting to kill each other - it's not going to get any less fraught from there.

Jack Seale

Midsomer Murders: Dressed to Kill

Release date: Sunday 10th November, 8pm, ITV1

The murderers of Midsomer are renowned for being original thinkers, but even they are repeating themselves. Not that I’m keeping a spreadsheet of slaughter, but this is the second time somebody has been crushed to a death in an overly tight corset.

The first was a bride back in 2018, whereas here it’s someone who wasn’t relishing the prospect of there being a drag queen event in the neighbourhood. So, not only has this latest victim been left breathless by a bodice, but she was first incapacitated with a sparkly pink stiletto. Talk about killing it with style.

As we discover, there are secrets to uncover, though pathologist Fleur isn’t one for subterfuge: she confesses to having once been part of a drag duo, and it seems her alter bego Ava Heartburn is seeking a new Morgan Donor.

David Brown

Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light

Release date: Sunday 10th November, 9pm, BBC One

We’ve waited almost 10 years for this dramatisation of Hilary Mantel’s novel. But it’s been worth it. The performances – especially those of Mark Rylance as the enigmatic Thomas Cromwell and Damian Lewis as the capricious Henry VIII – are riveting.

The look, all candlelight and draughty corridors, makes it feel authentic and, although we all know the story’s outcome, it still manages to be intriguing.

It's 1536 and Cromwell has been so clever at navigating the complexities of court since the king dispatched Anne Boleyn and married his third wife, Jane Seymour (Kate Phillips), that he’s been made Lord Privy Seal. It’s a powerful position, but "the butcher’s dog", as he calls himself, needs all his political skill to survive. "Your whole life depends on the next beat of Henry’s heart or his smile or his frown," he’s warned.

The success of this epic is also down to director Peter Kosminsky, who talks to John Wilson about his experiences and the influences that shaped his career in This Cultural Life at 10pm on BBC Four.

Jane Rackham

Her Majesty the Queen: Behind Closed Doors

Release date: Monday 11th November, 9pm, ITV1

Not as the programme title or our picture may suggest, a film about life at Buck House, but a subject very close to Queen Camilla’s heart: domestic abuse. The statistics are appalling. Around three women in the UK die each week as a result of domestic abuse.

However, the abuse doesn’t have to be physical. Many women silently endure coercive control because they’re ashamed, don’t recognise what’s really happening, fear the consequences of speaking out, suspect they won’t be believed or don’t know of a safe place to go.

The Queen shows herself to be remarkably empathetic as she talks to charity workers, politicians and victims of domestic abuse. Despite improvements to the law and attitudes, she’s determined to raise public awareness of abuse and give the women a voice. Talking publicly about it is a start because what happens behind closed doors is easy to ignore. As Cherie Blair says: "People are uncomfortable about judging what people do in the privacy of their own home."

Jane Rackham

Bad Sisters season 2

Release date: Wednesday 13th November, Apple TV+

Sharon Horgan’s brilliantly smart and surprising drama gets a very welcome second season which, based on these opening two episodes at least, is shaping up to be just as dark and delicious as the first. Particularly with the stellar addition of Fiona Shaw to the cast as the superficially well-meaning, yet ambiguously sinister, sister of Roger (Michael Smiley).

But first, we begin with a cliffhanger – literally. Eva (Horgan) has reversed perilously close to the edge of a crag with her sisters inside. Oh, and an ominous outline of something or someone in the boot. Something is afoot. But whatever is taking place on this dark, windy precipice will be for later.

The titles (which are again stuffed with neat visual clues to the plot) roll, and we instead find Grace (Anne-Marie Duff) gearing up to wed her second husband. Eva is cautious about why she wants to get married again so soon; Becca (Eve Hewson) tells her to "stop waiting for something to go wrong". But in the lives of the Garvey sisters, things rarely go right.

Another juicy mystery is teed up, and not every secret will remain buried. Or should that be submerged…

Frances Taylor

The Real Fatal Attraction

Release date: Thursday 14th November, 9pm, ITV1

In 2013, Birmingham barrister Iqbal Mohammed and Anisah Ahmed started an affair. However, when she eventually found out he was already married, she was furious and wanted revenge. The retribution escalated from threatening texts through allegations of rape, the staging of a kidnap and even a stabbing.

While Mohammed accepts that he was wrong to cheat on his wife and lie to Ahmed about his circumstances, he did not deserve the punishment the latter meted out. Mohammed, as well as the detectives involved at the time, take us through this jaw-dropping 'Fatal Attraction' case.

Jane Rackham

Say Nothing

Release date: Thursday 14th November, Disney Plus

The critically-acclaimed book of the same name was a best-seller and an award-winner when it was released in 2018. Now it receives a powerful adaptation for the small screen.

Based on a true story amid The Troubles, the narrative spans four decades and several generations. In 1972, masked men arrive at the door of Jean McConville. She’s forcibly taken from her home and her 10 children are left distraught. Meanwhile, after young sisters Dolours (Lola Petticrew) and Marian (Hazel Doupe) take part in a civil rights march that ends in violence, they’re soon on a path to joining the IRA. The pair become embroiled in a world of armed robberies and car bombs.

Almost 30 years later, Dolours (Maxine Peake) finally, but anonymously, tells her story.

Frances Taylor

Cross

Release date: Thursday 14th November, Prime Video

Hopes will be high that Amazon can do for Alex Cross what it’s already done for Jack Reacher and turn a crime fiction favourite into a TV hit. Like Reacher, Washington DC homicide detective and forensic psychologist Cross has been underserved on the big screen in the past, so it’s reassuring to find that actor Aldis Hodge has the necessary swagger his predecessors lacked.

Yet the series itself lacks focus: it begins at a slow pace, takes some sadistic segues before arriving at an oddly disjointed climax. But Hodge’s hero credentials are never in doubt, and a second season is already in the works.

David Brown

Taskmaster season 18 finale

Release date: Thursday 14th November, 9pm, Channel 4

The end is near, and as five intrepid comedians vie for glory (or, at least, a bump in their stand-up tour ticket sales), it couldn’t be closer. For the first time in years, the Taskmaster grand final isn’t a foregone conclusion, with any of the contenders in for a shot at taking home Greg Davies’s trophy.

Well, almost anybody — Rosie Jones’s attempts this series, while enthusiastic, haven’t put her as high on the scoreboard as Jack Dee and Andy Zaltzman, or won her as many episodes as Emma Sidi. Still, stranger things have happened — maybe she or fellow lower scorer Babatunde Aleshe could still take it.

Even aside from the tension of a possible upset, it’s a good final. One always suspects team Taskmaster hold some of the best performances for the season’s finale, and accordingly this week’s tasks — which include an ambiguous command to "present the goose" and a deceptive chair-counting game — feature lows and highs for everyone. Vintage Taskmaster, basically – long may it reign.

Huw Fullerton

Silo season 2

Release date: Friday 15th November, Apple TV+

Dingy and bleak but very cleverly constructed, this dystopian drama returns for season 2 having delighted fans with a fantastic cliffhanger twist last time out. The game has changed for the intrepid Juliette (Rebecca Ferguson) and her thousands of comrades, left behind living in a massive underground bunker to avoid the nuclear hellscape outside. Can Juliette survive? Can the malign rule of the authoritarian bunker government survive?

Jack Seale

Children in Need Live Show 2024

Release date: Friday 15th November, 7pm, BBC One

As well as raising plenty of money for deserving young people, the appeal night for Children in Need also serves as a shop window display for beloved BBC brands. Chief among them being Doctor Who, the Christmas preview of which is billed as a "world exclusive", presumably because we’ll be seeing it before the US, where the show is now a bigger deal thanks to Disney+.

Alongside that glimpse into our festive future, there’ll be a visit to the Salford studio from the Gladiators, who ought to find lifting any oversized cheques an absolute doddle, while the Strictly Come Dancing professionals are joined by a "global superstar". Tay Tay doing a Tango? Queen Bey’s Quickstep? We can but hope.

Also in the mix is a saddle-sore Paddy McGuinness discovering how much his cycling challenge has raised, the return of Graham Norton’s red chair seeing the fate of some famous faces being decided by kids from some CiN projects, plus a CBeebies Bedtime Story for any preschooler being given special dispensation to stay up later than usual. Well, it is for a good cause.

David Brown

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