TV Tonight: our highlights for Monday, Nov. 8

By Joanne Lowles
last updated

'The Tower' is just one of the gems on TV tonight.

Gemma Whelan plays DS Collins.
Gemma Whelan plays DS Collins. (Image credit: ITV)

On TV tonight, new crime drama The Tower starts on ITV, former politician Ed Balls starts work at a Scarborough care home in Inside the Care Crisis on BBC2 and MasterChef: The Professionals returns to BBC1. Here’s what you shouldn’t miss on TV tonight.

  • Our hand selected recommendations for what's on TV tonight include three 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

The Tower, 9pm, ITV

TV tonight JImmy Akingbola and Gemma Whelan star.

Jimmy Akingbola and Gemma Whelan star. (Image credit: ITV)

Gemma Whelan leads a great cast in this crime thriller with contemporary themes. DS Sarah Collins (Gemma) investigates when a child refugee and a veteran cop are found dead at the bottom of a tower block. Up on the roof, Sarah finds rookie PC Lizzie Adama (Tahirah Sharif), her boss DI Kieran Shaw (The Deceived’s Emmett J Scanlan) and a traumatised five-year-old boy. The tragic incident is just one strand of a web that proves to be very tangled indeed. Continues tomorrow.

★★★★ VW

Inside the Care Crisis with Ed Balls, 9pm, BBC2

TV tonight St Cecilia’s resident Phyllis with Ed Balls

St Cecilia’s resident Phyllis with Ed Balls. (Image credit: BBC)

Care homes were plunged into crisis when Coronavirus struck last spring, yet many believe that the care sector was already in deep trouble long before the pandemic reached our shores. This series follows Ed Balls, who took the painful decision to place his mother in care three years ago, as he works in St Cecilia’s nursing home in Scarborough to find out what has gone wrong. It’s an admirable approach that earns Ed the respect of his new colleagues, with the former politician soon discovering that he has become part of a team that feels their challenging work is deeply undervalued.

★★★★ SMA

MasterChef: The Professionals, 7.35pm & 8.30pm, BBC1

TV tonight Marcus Wareing, Gregg Wallace, Monica Galetti

Marcus Wareing, Gregg Wallace and Monica Galetti get ready to judge the new batch of professionals.  (Image credit: BBC1)

Another 32 chefs brave the pressure under the watchful gaze of judges Marcus Wareing, Gregg Wallace and Monica Galetti. In the first of tonight’s two episodes, nerves get to the contestants in the skills test when the first four attempt a monkfish dish. ‘The skills test can throw them because they think we’re trying to trick them,’ says Monica, ‘but it’s about them giving us a glimpse of what they can do’. Continues on Thursday and Friday. 

★★★★ HD

Best box set to watch on TV tonight

Showtrial, season 1, BBC iPlayer

TV tonight Tracy Ifeachor and Celine Buckens as Cleo and Talitha

Tracy Ifeachor and  Celine Buckens as Cleo and Talitha. (Image credit: BBC)

If you’ve missed this thrilling legal drama that’s currently showing on Sunday nights on BBC1 (and that's brought to us by the same people who made Line of Duty), then catch the whole five episodes on BBC iPlayer now. The drama follows the investigation into the disappearance of a Bristol student and the arrest and trial of a fellow student, Talitha Campbell, charged with conspiring to murder her. Celine Buckens impresses as the latter, a troubled posh girl whose behaviour threatens to alienate the duty solicitor, Cleo Roberts (Tracy Ifeachor), assigned to defend her. A fascinating look at how attitudes towards class and gender can impact the legal process. 

Best film to watch on TV tonight

The Naked Gun, 11.05pm, Channel 5

Having already introduced the character of the inept police lieutenant Frank Drebin in the short-lived TV comedy series Police Squad!, the comic trio behind Airplane! resurrected him for what was to become the first of three hit big-screen misadventures. Having begun his career as a straight actor, Leslie Nielsen has a whale of a time sending up his slightly stuffy screen persona as the inept Drebin, here foiling a plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II. Co-star Priscilla Presley proves an unexpected comic talent, too.

Live Sport

  • ICC Men's T20 World Cup, 1.30pm, Sky Sports Main Event/NOW
  • FA Cup, Dagenham & Redbridge v Salford City, 7pm (k-o 7.45pm), ITV4

Soaps on TV tonight

If you watch just one thing on TV tonight…

Don't miss The Tower on TV tonight – a tense crime drama.

Not found anything you want to watch on TV tonight? Check out our TV Guide. 

Happy viewing!

Joanne Lowles
Joanne Lowles
Freelance writer and editor

Joanne Lowles has been writing about TV since 2002. After graduating from Cardiff University with a Postgraduate Diploma in Magazine Journalism, she worked for All About Soap magazine covering the ups and downs of life on the cobbles, the square and the Dales. 


Next came nearly 10 years at TV Times magazine as a writer and then deputy features editor. Here she spent many happy days interviewing the biggest names in entertainment and visiting the sets of some of our most popular shows including Downton Abbey, Call the Midwife and Strictly Come Dancing. 


With a love of nature and wildlife she’s also interviewed the leading experts in this area including David Attenborough, Chris Packham and Steve Backshall. She’s also travelled the world visiting Mongolia, Canada and South Africa to see how the best in the business make the most brilliant natural history documentaries. 


Freelance since 2013, she is now is a digital writer and editor for What to Watch, previews the best on the box for TV Times mag each week and loves being constantly surprised, entertained and informed by the amazing TV that she is lucky enough to watch.