On TV tonight, meet the ambitious home improvers in C4's Help! We Bought a Village, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss battle it out in Our Next Prime Minister on BBC One, Long Lost Family continues on ITV, new documentary Girl, Taken drops on Paramount Plus and Super Surgeons: A Chance at Life continues on C4. Here’s what you shouldn’t miss on TV tonight.
- Our hand selected recommendations for what's on TV tonight include four TV shows, a film, live sport and the latest trending need-to-binge-on-now box set
- Keep up to date with the latest soap spoiler storylines on TV tonight with our daily soap synopsis
- For more information about what’s on TV tonight see our TV Guide
What's on TV tonight
Our expert TV journalists have picked the best things on TV tonight...
Best TV shows on TV tonight
Help! We Bought a Village, 4pm, C4
If you think a bit of DIY at the weekends is an effort, then spare a thought for the bonkers Brits in this series, showing daily, who have bought entire European villages that need mega rebuilds just to make them habitable. Today, we meet Yorkshire couple Carl and Francesca, who have spent 16 years renovating an abandoned village in Italy. Meanwhile, Kent landscapers Paul and Yip have just purchased a derelict hamlet in Normandy for the price of a family car. But they have a renovation mountain to climb, especially as it takes them almost an hour to mow a small path through the thick vegetation just to access one of the properties!
★★★ HD
Our Next Prime Minister, 9pm, BBC One
The battle to be our next Prime Minister heats up as the two remaining candidates, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, take part in a live television debate. Sophie Raworth chairs the event as the two Conservative hopefuls go head-to-head to try and impress before the final vote. In the previous round of voting Rishi Sunak was still in the lead but the numbers were getting closer (137 for Sunak, 113 for Truss) so expect the gloves to come off in a fierce war of words.
★★★ JL
Long Lost Family, 9pm, ITV
Even by Long Lost Family’s standards, tonight’s episode is a major tear-jerker. Andrew grew up knowing he was adopted. In 2014, he received a letter from the Long Lost Family team saying that his birth mother, Patricia, was searching for him, but because his adoptive father was dying from dementia at the time, Andrew, now 52, didn’t reply. And when he finally felt ready to meet Patricia six years later he was too late – Patricia had died from a heart attack just 11 months earlier. Get ready for a very emotional reunion when cameras follow Andrew as he reunites with his younger half-siblings, Lisa and Barry, who reveal how Patricia never forgot her eldest child.
★★★★ HD
Girl, Taken, Paramount Plus
In April 1997, Celeste Nurse found herself trapped in every new mother’s worst nightmare when another woman kidnapped her three-day-old baby from a Cape Town hospital. This remarkable documentary (accessed via paramountplus.com) tells the story of how she found her daughter, Zephany, by pure chance some 17 years later, only for the fairy-tale reunion she’d long imagined to become a painful process that left the teenager torn between her biological family and the one who had raised her. It’s a captivating, moving and hopeful tale that ponders identity, family and whether time can heal even the deepest scars.
★★★★ SMA
Super Surgeons: A Chance at Life, 10pm, C4
This three-parter, filmed over a year at The Royal Marsden hospital, London, follows surgeons tackling complex and groundbreaking surgery. In this second episode, Peter, 70, has an aggressive tumour in his tongue. Professor Vin Paleri must establish whether Peter would survive a high-risk procedure to reconstruct his throat using soft tissue from his leg. This is not a programme for the squeamish, but does offer a fascinating glimpse into the world of pioneering medicine.
★★★ MC
Best box set to watch on TV tonight
Sanditon, season 2, ITV Hub
This adaptation of Jane Austen’s unfinished novel ended its first season on a major cliffhanger when heroine Charlotte (Rose Williams) left Sanditon heartbroken after true love Sidney (Theo James) married another woman to save his brother from financial ruin. As season two begins, Sidney is no longer around and a tragedy brings Charlotte back to Sanditon along with her sister Alison (Rosie Graham). Though Charlotte has sworn off romance, there’s no shortage of eligible men hoping to court her, like dashing war veteran Colonel Lennox (Tom Weston-Jones). As before, it’s a delicious Regency treat with a refreshingly modern (sense and) sensibility.
Best film to watch on TV tonight
The Kid Who Would Be King, 6.40pm, Film4
Fantasy adventure following 12-year-old Alex (Louis Ashbourne Serkis, son of actors Lorraine Ashbourne and Andy Serkis) who accidentally finds King Arthur Excalibur’s sword when he's hiding on a construction site to escape the bullies at his new school. The discovery leads him to the legendary wizard Merlin and a fierce battle against the evil Morgana (Rebecca Ferguson) to save the world from destruction.
Live Sport
- Women's T20 Cricket, England vs South Africa, 6pm, BBC Two
Soaps on TV tonight
- EastEnders, 7.30pm, BBC One
- Emmerdale, 7.30pm, ITV
- Coronation Street, 8pm, ITV
- Hollyoaks, 6.30pm, C4
- Neighbours, 6pm, Channel 5
- Home and Away, 6pm & 6.30pm, 5Star
If you watch just one thing on TV tonight…
Don't miss Help! We Bought a Village on TV tonight — and meet the brave folk taking DIY to a whole new level.
Not found anything you want to watch on TV tonight? Check out our TV Guide.
Happy viewing!
