TV Tonight: our highlights for Tuesday, Nov. 30

Ed Balls discovers more about his family history.
Ed Balls discovers more about his family history. (Image credit: BBC)

On TV tonight, former politician Ed Balls is the final celebrity to have the Who Do You Think You Are? treatment as this fascinating series comes to a close on BBC1. On C4, Miriam and Alan: Lost in Scotland continues with plenty of raw onions and honest conversations and there's a new series of the brilliant Amazing Hotels on BBC2. 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

Who Do You Think You Are? 9pm, BBC1

TV tonight Ed Balls

Ed at HMS Victory, Portsmouth. (Image credit: BBC)

Many of the celebrities who research their family history discover that their ancestors did some good in their lives. So we feel poor Ed Balls’ pain when he unearths a grim story about his three-times paternal grandfather William Dunbar’s time as a doctor at a 19th-century workhouse. Meanwhile, there are sad findings, but also some pride, as the former MP looks into his maternal line and learns that his four-times great-grandfather Christopher Green went to prison in the early 19th century as the result of a fight for his rights. An engrossing end to what has been another tip-top series. 

★★★★ CC 

Miriam and Alan: Lost in Scotland, 9pm, C4

TV tonight Alan Cumming and Miriam Margolyes.

Alan Cumming and Miriam Margolyes. (Image credit: C4)

Onions, golf and friendship sum up this final episode as actors Alan Cumming and Miriam Margolyes conclude their Scottish travels. After a quick trip to a champion butcher to make their own kosher haggis and vegan white pudding, they try to enjoy a round of golf, but it’s not really the sport for them. Then they visit Alan’s lovely mum, eat a lot of raw onions (Miriam has one every day for breakfast) and head to the majestic Abbotsford, once home to novelist Sir Walter Scott. 

★★★ JL 

Amazing Hotels, 8pm, BBC2

TV tonight Monica and Giles at your service!

Monica and Giles at your service! (Image credit: BBC)

Monica Galetti and Giles Coren are packing their bags for a fourth series and the first stop on their latest trip is ION Adventure Hotel in the Icelandic wilderness. Guests here probably won’t get a tan, but they can watch lava spew from an active volcano, take an ice-cold swim between two of Earth’s tectonic plates and walk underneath a glacier. Yet what sets this series apart is seeing the presenters earn their keep, and in the hotel’s kitchen Monica is particularly impressed by the geothermal rye bread, which is baked in the warm earth. 

★★★★ SMA

Best box set to watch on TV tonight

The Beatles: Get Back, Disney+

TV Tonight The Fab Four.

The Fab Four. (Image credit: Disney+)

An absolute must for Beatles fans, this three-part, six-hour documentary from The Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson is made up of unused footage from the 1970 documentary Let It Be, which captured the Fab Four as they wrote, rehearsed and recorded the album of the same name. While the original film conveyed this as a fractious experience, Jackson’s series showcases the fun the band – together with producer George Martin and guest keyboard player Billy Preston – were having as they raced to finish 14 tracks ahead of a TV special that never happened. Musos will enjoy hearing familiar songs as works in progress, as well as the jam sessions, jokes and famous rooftop performance.

Best film to watch on TV tonight

Mahanagar, 2.45am, C4

Director Satyajit Ray continues his domination of Indian cinema with this delicate, but utterly compelling, portrait of the changing role of women in 1960s India. Madhabi Mukherjee is the wife of bank clerk Anil Chatterjee who has to face old-fashioned disgrace when she gets a job as a saleswoman. A charming – and still relevant today – minor masterpiece. 

Live Sport

  • Snooker: UK Championship, 1pm, BBC2
  • Women's World Cup Qualifier, England v Latvia, 6.15pm (k-o 7pm), ITV4

Soaps on TV tonight

If you watch just one thing on TV tonight…

Don't miss Who Do You Think You Are? on TV tonight – Ed Balls has a rollercoaster ride with his ancestors as the good, the bad and the ugly are revealed. 

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

Happy viewing!

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.