TV Times top picks for tonight
What’s on telly tonight? Here the TV Times team of expert reviewers highlight the best shows on Thursday 31st May
Ambulance, 9pm, BBC1
A busier-than-usual 12-hour shift for the West Midlands Ambulance service, since it’s the last Saturday before Christmas… and we all know what that means. Six hours in, and with over a thousand calls already dealt with by the Control Room, Tash and Marek are about to take a meal break when they are scrambled to a major incident in Birmingham. The pair are among the first to reach the worst crash the police have seen in 20 years. Rating: *****
Million Pound Menu, 9pm, BBC2
The heat is on in the kitchen as more aspiring restaurateurs try to prove they’ve got what it takes. Chef Ronnie and barman James want £200,000 to launch their debut restaurant, Hollings, bringing classic British food and drink to the suburbs. Meanwhile, South African Graham wants £500,000 to turn his unique street food venture The Cheese Wheel – fresh pasta infused with, and served from, a huge cheese! – into a restaurant chain. While the Hollings boys are under pressure as their commitment, business plan and occasionally bullish attitude raise eyebrows, Graham is gamely expanding his menu, but his commercial inexperience gives concern. Will either restaurant get a dream investment? Rating: ****
Nicholas and Alexandra, 8pm, Yesterday
In this concluding episode, historian Dr Suzannah Lipscomb reveals how the devotion of Tsar Nicholas II and wife Alexandra to each other blinkered them to the grim reality of life in Russia in 1916. As death, war, starvation and corruption ruled the lives of ordinary Russians, the couple’s letters were about playing dominoes and how much they missed each other. The only thing that angered people more than the couple’s incompetence was their reliance on Rasputin – the holy man who became the scapegoat for their disastrous reign. But even Rasputin’s murder couldn’t save the monarchy: soon the reign of the tsars was over and Russia was plunged into a brutal civil war. Rating: ****
More previews tomorrow.
