What to watch on TV this week: 18th - 24th January

Of course, there's still plenty of drama and scripted shows for viewers to sink their teeth into this week too, from Martin Clunes's new thriller series Out There on ITV1 to Kaitlin Olson's Disney Plus procedural show High Potential and new Leo Woodall conspiracy thriller Prime Target on Apple TV+.

Meanwhile, shows returning for a new season this week include spy thriller The Night Agent on Netflix and comedy series Harlem on Prime Video, which is back for its third and final season.

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

Gladiators season 2

Release date: Saturday 18th January, 5:50pm, BBC One

They’ve taken on Strictly Come Dancing, Celebrity MasterChef, The Wheel and more over the past year. Now the Gladiators, including Montell Douglas as Fire, get back to the day job and back into the wincingly tight Spandex.

Along with the fake tans, an extra layer of gloss seems to have been applied to season two (an elaborate pre-titles sequence goes hell for leather in amping it all up a notch). There are also new games (a fan favourite from the original version makes a comeback) and new Gladiators are promised for later in the season, while referee Mark Clattenburg dials the ham up to 11. Legend appears to have spent as much time honing new arrogant clap backs as he has in the gym, and even Barney Walsh feels marginally less as though he’s on a 'come to work with your dad' day.

It adds up to an hour of Saturday-night family entertainment that’s as solid as the Glads’ abs.

Frances Taylor

Michael McIntyre's Big Show season 8

Release date: Saturday 18th January, 6:50pm, BBC One

Michael McIntyre isn’t usually the one left looking like a stunned mullet, yet that’s just what happens in this reliably-stuffed first episode of a new season.

As he sneaks into the home of Sam Thompson and Zara McDermott in the middle of the night to spring a quiz on them, neither is expecting him. "So it really was a risk," says McIntyre, who explains that usually someone is in on what’s about to happen. "And as you will see, it’s a risk that didn’t completely go to plan." It’s all made even more awkward by the fact that, since filming, the reality TV pair have reportedly split up. Hopefully what unfolds here – pies to the face, questions about their relationship – isn’t to blame…

As ever, this is a show where chaotic but warm-hearted japes abound. Alan Carr, Jamie Oliver and Wet Wet Wet’s Marti Pellow (in particular) prove to be very good sports.

Frances Taylor

Out There

Release date: Sunday 19th January, 9pm, ITV1

We’re used to Martin Clunes behaving badly on screen, but the moral greyness on display in this county lines drug-dealing drama feels decidedly different.

In the past, his characters – be it the laddish Gary or the rude Doc Martin – have always felt deserving of our empathy despite their flaws. Here, though, in his role as a farmer confronting malign forces in his rural Welsh community, there’s a sense that Clunes wants to at least stress-test the bond he has with audiences.

For Nathan Williams is an obdurate man with a bullish streak and someone who’s set to make some highly questionable decisions when it comes to the land that his family has farmed for generations.

Key to events is Nathan’s teenage son Johnny (Louis Ashbourne Serkis), who, in this opening episode, begins to be ensnared by the tendrils of a drug gang extending its operations out from urban areas into the British countryside. You can find out tomorrow at 9pm how Nathan reacts to this threat and whether Clunes makes the unusual move of properly breaking bad.

David Brown

Prime Target

Release date: Wednesday 22nd January, Apple TV+

In a conspiracy thriller with a touch of The Da Vinci Code about it, a strong cast power through the shameless silliness of the set-up and story. Leo Woodall (The White Lotus, One Day) is Edward, an obsessive maths whiz whose maverick talents are, in the eyes of his tutor Robert (David Morrissey) and Robert's archaeology professor wife Andrea (Sidse Babett Knudsen), equally exciting and worrying. When Edwards tries to investigate the untapped power of prime numbers, the sinister surveillance operation that is closely monitoring the Cambridge University mathematics department (!) quickly claims its first victim.

Jack Seale

The Night Agent season 2

Release date: Thursday 23rd January, Netflix

Quietly, this espionage thriller was one of the best dramas of 2023, so it's very welcome back for a second season. Peter Sutherland (Gabriel Basso) began the show as a low-level FBI employee with a chequered past but, having seen off a massive government conspiracy single-handed, his strong morals and fearsome resourcefulness are now put to work as a proper agent of Night Action, US intelligence's elite fixing force. Soon he's hunting a mole within the CIA and, as the stakes rapidly rise, Peter can as usual trust nobody but himself.

Jack Seale

High Potential

Release date: Thursday 23rd January, Disney Plus

Looking for a smart new police procedural? Here’s a corker. It's one of those where the regular cops are joined by a maverick "consultant", in this case a woman who is the LAPD's office cleaner - until they find out she has a sky-high IQ and a photographic memory. The script is snappy and, as the hyper-intelligent Morgan - a chaotically eccentric single mum - Kaitlin Olson is a fantastically entertaining lead.

Jack Seale

Harlem season 3

Release date: Thursday 23rd January, Prime Video

Sharper and funnier than most shows about gangs of pals in their 30s supporting each other through myriad work and relationship crises, Harlem is back for a third and final season. That means big decisions, about careers but mainly about who these women want to be and who they will settle down with. As ever, the dialogue, often delivered during nights at New York cocktail bars or boozy brunches where home truths are told, perfectly captures the rude robustness of lifelong best friends.

Jack Seale

The Traitors season 3 final

Release date: Friday 24th January, 8:30pm, BBC One

This season of Traitors could be remembered as the year of unnecessary secrets. More than ever, this crop of contestants went into this stylised game of betrayal pretending to be other people, be that a soldier acting like a ditzy nail technician, a priest who threw away her dog collar or a Welsh woman who was actually English.

Though that’s not the only theme this year. While the series has always had its ruthless moments – especially from the murdering Traitors – it feels like this time the Faithfuls were sometimes just as vicious, with the nicer contestants rarely getting as far as their more calculating teammates.

Though whether this approach will carry anyone to that £120,000 jackpot is another matter – if just one Traitor is left at the end tonight, they’ll steal it all. At the time of going to press, it was unknown who’d be making that choice at the final roundtable, but you can find out their reactions to the ending on companion show The Traitors: Uncloaked, which moves to BBC One tonight for an extended episode.

Huw Fullerton

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