Pick of the day: Secrets and Spies: A Nuclear Game
9pm, BBC Two
Television dramas can make a difference, as we saw with Mr Bates vs The Post Office. But that is nothing on the 1983 NBC drama The Day After, which imagined the aftermath of a nuclear war and which was watched by 100 million Americans, including president Ronald Reagan. It encouraged Reagan to take a softer line on the Soviet Union, where a new man was on the way up: Mikhail Gorbachev. This fascinating ongoing history series looks at how MI6’s Soviet double agent Oleg Gordievsky (Martin Munro) facilitated a meeting between Margaret Thatcher and Gorbachev – before Gordievsky was sold out by a CIA double agent.
Location, Location, Location
8pm, Channel 4
Kirstie Allsopp and Phil Spencer are in Yorkshire, where more space is key for their house hunters. Kirstie’s with active couple and NHS workers Emily and Joe, whose rent is coming to an end, and who are having trouble finding a perfect first home which is big enough for all their belongings. Meanwhile, Phil’s search for space is even more pressing – he’s with a family of five who are sleeping between two bedrooms.
Race Across the World
9pm, BBC One
The latest series of the travel contest has coincided with our chilly spring, making the destinations – especially the checkpoint at Koh Phi Phi (as seen in The Beach) look doubly enticing. The four remaining pairs must now drag themselves away from this idyllic spot and make their way through Malaysia to the Indonesian island of Sumatra. But with funds becoming low, work is also a necessity – siblings Betty and James at a diving school, Viv and Stephen at a beach bar and Alfie and Owen planting mangrove trees.
The Gathering
9pm, Channel 4
Helen Walsh’s thriller series continues with Natalie (Vinette Robinson) seeing her plan to secure her daughter Jessica (Sadie Soverall) a spot on the national tumbling gymnastics team come to fruition, at Kelly’s expense. However, Jessica’s performance suffers when she faces a backlash from her angry teammates. An acute anxiety-induced asthma attack should be a wake-up call, but the single-minded Natalie sees an opportunity…
Painting Birds with Jim and Nancy Moir
9pm, Sky Arts
Jim Moir has a readily appreciative audience in wife Nancy, who laughs uproariously at all his jokes. The couple are chortling their way through Derbyshire this week, on the lookout for dippers, apparently Jim’s favourite aquatic songbird. Dippers are also a sign of good water quality, we are informed, as they prey mainly on aquatic insects, which are very sensitive to changes in water. Joining them is fellow bird painter and ex-EastEnders actor Nitin Ganatra.
Inside No 9
10pm, BBC Two
After nine series of these tales of the unexpected, there can surely be no surprise at the imaginative way in which Steve Pemberton accomplishes his Taskmaster tasks. And after last week’s stellar guest cast, this week’s knotty yarn is a two-hander between Pemberton and co-writer Reece Shearsmith. The former plays a psychotherapist who saves a man (Shearsmith) from leaping to his death from a bridge. But is it a good idea to bring this stranger back to his remote house?