Pick of the WeekThe Tony Blair StoryTuesday, Wednesday & Thursday, Channel 4, 9pm
Nearly 30 years after Tony Blair led a New Labour sweep to power, this three-part documentary, airing on three consecutive nights, unpicks the life and legacy of one of the most controversial figures in British politics. Blair was seen as the architect of a resurgent political left, and was to the fore in bringing about the Belfast Agreement, which brought an end to the Troubles, but his halo was tarnished when he dragged Britain into a war in Iraq, subscribing to the Bush administration’s lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. More recently, the news that Blair would be a key figure in US president Donald Trump’s so-called Board of Peace for Gaza has been met with mixed reaction. The series director Michael Waldman had unprecedented access to Blair, his wife, Cherie, and their children, and will try to get an insight into Blair’s thinking at different pivotal points in his career, asking some tough questions of the former PM.
HighlightsYellowjacketsSunday, UTV, 10.15pm
Melanie Lynskey, Christina Ricci, Tawny Cypress and Juliette Lewis in Yellowjackets. Photograph: Paramount
Christina Ricci, Juliette Lewis and Melanie Lynskey head the cast in this horror/thriller series that jumps in time between the 1990s and the present day. It has already run for three seasons on streaming channels, but now it’s coming to what they still call terrestrial TV, so strap yourself in for a wild ride to the edge of wilderness – and madness. It all begins when a girls’ high school soccer team find themselves lost in the mountains of Ontario following a plane crash. Soon it becomes clear that if the girls are going to survive in this snowy wasteland, they’re going to have to eat something more substantial than aircraft pretzels. Like, total ick. Still, what happens on tour stays on tour, and in the present day, the girls, now grown up, are trying to get on with their lives, but their dark secret is in constant danger of resurfacing. Don’t watch this straight after dinner or you might, like, totally barf.
Jane Rea’s Bloomin’ WildMonday, BBC One, 8pm
Jane Rea’s Bloomin’ Wild. Photograph: BBC NI/Below The Radar
Jane Rea is a floral artist who lives on her family farm in Shilnavogie, deep in the Antrim hills. In this new series she invites us in to her colourful life, filled with blooms of all hues, and shows us how to make beautiful floral arrangements to brighten up the dull days of winter. Rea grows her plants in a restored polytunnel, including peonies, lavender and eucalyptus, but she also has to look after other aspects of farm life, including growing potatoes (known as prootas in this Ulster-Scots region) and, inevitably, lambing season.
Fukushima: Days That Shocked The WorldTuesday & Wednesday, Channel 4, 10.30pm
What is left of the city after a tsunami wiped away the gas station, which caused a fire and burnt down the whole town. Photograph: Toshiharu Kato/Japanese Red Cross/IFRC via Getty
On March 11th, 2011, the most powerful earthquake ever to hit Japan caused widespread devastation, and was quickly followed by a huge tsunami that brought a 40m wall of water crashing into the east coast, sweeping everything away for 10km inland. Nearly 20,000 people died in the disaster, but the country immediately faced another catastrophe when the tsunami crippled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, triggering a nuclear meltdown. This two-part documentary series takes us through that fateful day and its aftermath, using testimony from survivors and witnesses, and asks how, despite Japan’s advanced technology, technicians struggled to contain the radioactive leak.
Neven’s English Food TourWednesday, RTÉ One, 8.30pm
Chef Neven Maguire completes his culinary tour of England’s northeast in this final programme in the series. After watching some of the mouthwatering dishes Maguire has learned to make on his trip, we have a new-found respect for Geordie cuisine. Maguire ends his tour where he began, in the city of Newcastle, but first he stops off at magnificent, medieval Raby Castle, where he learns the recipe for pan-fried venison from the castle’s herd of red and fallow deer. In Newcastle, Maguire takes a tour of the area known as “Grainger Town”, built by Richard Grainger in the early 19th century, and visits a monument to former British prime minister Earl Grey, a contemporary of Daniel O’Connell who helped abolish slavery, and gave his name to the famous tea. Newcastle is where the Greggs bakery chain originated, and Neven samples the company’s most famous product, its sausage roll. He rounds up his trip with a visit to the Kiln Cafe, a restaurant and pottery, where the owner, Richard Cullen, makes Maguire a special bowl on his potter’s wheel, and Cullen’s mum, Susan, bakes him some fresh pastries.
First Timers on the Front LineWednesday, Virgin Media One, 9pm
First Timers on the Front Line. Photograph: Virigin Media
Being a student paramedic is demanding enough, but once you’ve done your training, then it’s time to get thrown in the deep end. This new four-part docuseries follows newly qualified paramedics in Ireland as they tackle actual emergencies for the first time. In Dublin we’ll meet trainee Rebecca Tuite, whose mother, Deirdre, is an old hand at the job, while in Mayo we’ll meet young paramedic Ryan Gaffney, and in Limerick we’ll learn how personal loss led Annemarie Woodage into the profession.
Swindlers Wednesday, RTÉ One, 9.35pm
Swindlers: Lian Knight, who was married to Thomas Ruttle. Photograph: RTÉ
In May 2015 a gang of burglars broke into a farmhouse in Co Limerick and found the badly decomposed bodies of a man and a woman, in what seemed to be a double suicide. The man was local father-of-two Thomas Ruttle, and the woman was identified as Julia Holmes, a serial fraudster, originally from Co Tyrone, who had been sought by the Garda, the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the FBI and had been convicted of property fraud in Texas. Over a four-decade career as a conwoman, Holmes used up to 40 aliases as she swindled millions out of numerous people on both sides of the Atlantic. She was also a serial bigamist, claiming to be married to Tuttle even though she hadn’t divorced her two previous husbands. The first episode of this new true crime series tells the story of Holmes through the recollections of her victims, the law enforcement officials who pursued her and the journalists who reported on her crimes. The series will also illustrate the huge impact such crimes have on victims, their families and the wider community. Her final victim, Ruttle, may have paid the highest price. With the net closing in on Holmes, it’s believed she may have conned him into entering a suicide pact.
Cecil: The Lion and the DentistThursday, Channel 4, 10pm
In 2015 a wealthy American dentist, Walter Palmer, went on a hunting safari to Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe and killed himself a lion. But his prize trophy was not just any old lion, but the king of them all: a huge African lion known as Cecil who was also the park’s biggest tourist attraction, and the subject of a University of Oxford research programme. It wasn’t long before the killing sparked worldwide outrage and calls for better protection of endangered species. This feature-length documentary tells the story of Cecil’s life and death, and delves into the tensions between conservationists and hunters and the safari operators who make big money from tourism.
Streaming56 DaysFrom Wednesday, February 18th, Prime Video
56 Days: Dove Cameron and Avan Jogia. Photograph: Jan Thijs/Amazon Content Services LLC
Fans of the bestselling novel by the Cork author Catherine Ryan Howard will be looking forward to this Prime Video adaptation starring Dove Cameron and Avan Jogia, but there’s a caveat: the setting has been moved from Dublin to Boston, and the whole Covid-lockdown backdrop has been removed. But the sultry, sexy action is there, as is the clever plotline revolving around a young couple, Oliver and Ciara, who meet in a supermarket and embark on a sizzling relationship that ends in murder. But who killed whom? When homicide detectives find a badly decomposed body in Oliver’s apartment, they have to work out what happened, and that of course means a flashback to their first meeting, 56 days earlier.
The Last Thing He Told MeFrom Friday, February 20th, Apple TV
Jennifer Garner in series two of The Last Thing He Told Me. Photograph: Apple TV
Jennifer Garner returns as Hannah Hall in the second series of the mystery-thriller hit based on the bestselling novel by Laura Dave. Following the sudden disappearance of her husband, Owen (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), Hannah finds herself up against the notorious Campano crime family, but she also finds a deeper connection with her stepdaughter, Bailey (Angourie Rice). In series two, Owen finally reappears after being on the run for five years, and now Hannah has to take some desperate measures to reunite her fractured family.