Pick of the WeekThe Young OffendersFriday, BBC One, 9.30pm
Dig your Billy Murphy masks out of the attic and rejoice – Conor and Jock are reunited in the long-awaited fifth series revolving around the lives, loves and larceny of two petty criminals in Cork. Why has it taken so long for the pair to team up again? Well, don’t forget, Jock has been banged up in a Colombian jail after a botched attempt at becoming a drug mule. But somehow he’s managed to escape and stow away on a ship heading for Cork (lots of ships going back and forth from Colombia to Cork), and now he and Conor are ready to regain control of their home territory and become the crime kingpins they’ve always wanted to be. They also set out to make life better for their families and friends – and of course only end up making things worse, while Conor’s attempts to win back the love of his life look like being a losing game. Alex Murphy and Chris Walley star as Conor and Jock, with Hilary Rose returning as Mairéad, Dominic MacHale as Sergeant Healy and Shane Casey as the bold Billy Murphy. The series starts on RTÉ One at 10.30pm on Saturday April 4th, but you can stream the entire series on the RTÉ Player from 7am Friday morning.
HighlightsGraceSunday, UTV, 8pm
Grace: John Simm as detective superintendent Roy Grace. Photograph: ITV
John Simm didn’t think he’d be doing more than two series of the cop drama based on the bestselling novels of Peter James, but here he is, reprising his role of Brighton detective Roy Grace in the sixth series, and he couldn’t be more delighted. Series five proved one of ITV’s most popular shows last year, and viewers will be eager to find out what happens in the aftermath of the unmasking of Grace’s boss, assistant chief constable Cassian Pewe (Sam Hoare), as a corrupt cop. The new series has four feature-length episodes – Left You Dead, Capture You Dead, Dead Man’s Game and One of Us Is Dead – and finds Grace still haunted by the disappearance and murder of his wife, Sandy, and dealing with new revelations about Sandy’s gambling debts and her entanglement with the notorious Benchdale organised crime gang. Not to mention that Sandy was also having an affair with Grace’s jailed former boss. With all this going on, Grace still has to solve crimes, and plan his wedding to Cleo (Zoe Tapper), but the Benchdale gang are looking to collect on a debt owed by Sandy – and if they don’t get paid, Grace’s young son Bruno will be next to die. In the opening episode, Grace and his policing partner Glenn Branson (Richie Campbell) are investigating the case of a local property developer whose wife appears to have been abducted.
BabiesMonday, BBC One, 9pm
Babies: Paapa Essiedu as Stephen and Siobhán Cullen as Lisa. Photograph: BBC/Snowed-In/Amanda Searle
Irish actor Siobhán Cullen is building up quite an impressive CV, starring in acclaimed comedies The Dry and Obituary, and in the surreal Netflix series Bodkin. Now she stars alongside Paapa Essiedu for a series that dispenses with the quirkiness to focus on an ordinary couple dealing with pregnancy loss and all the heartbreak and life challenges that come with it. Lisa and Stephen are in their 30s and desperate to become parents, but one miscarriage after another tests their resilience and relationship to breaking point. This intimate six-part drama follows the couple as they work hard to stay together and support each other as they continue to try for a baby against all the odds.
Hatton Garden: The Great Diamond HeistWednesday, Channel 4, 10pm
Millions of pounds worth of stolen jewels from London’s Hatton Garden remain unaccounted for. Photograph: Metropolitan Police via Getty Images
It takes some neck to break into a high-security vault and make off with a multimillion haul of jewellery and precious stones. You might expect the gang behind the notorious 2015 heist in London’s Hatton Garden to be young and dynamic, but the thieves turned out to be older criminals embarking on one last caper and hoping to retire with their newly acquired riches. It didn’t work out that way, though. This documentary details how the ageing gang members were caught, and follows the twists and turns, betrayals and mishaps that led to their eventual capture. But not all the swag was recovered, and the programme looks at what happened to the millions of pounds worth of stolen jewels still unaccounted for.
Race Across the WorldThursday, BBC One, 8pm
Race Across the World series six begins in Palermo. Photograph: BBC/Studio Lambert
You wouldn’t leave the house to go to the shops without your mobile phone and debit cards, but are you brave – or foolish – enough to abandon the iPhone and plastic to take a long and perilous journey from Europe to Asia, on a budget of just 26 quid a day? In series six of Race Across the World, five teams set off from Palermo in Sicily to take a route across Italy, Greece, Turkey, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, and the first team to reach the final destination in Mongolia wins the £20,000 prize. They’ll be going from the sunny Mediterranean to the freezing Mongolian steppes, but they won’t be able to use air travel. Instead they’ll have to use their resourcefulness to find cheap routes over land and over water, with no internet access and no phones to help them navigate the route, and no bank cards to bail them out of any sticky situation. The teams include 19-year-old Liverpool besties Jo and Kush, the youngest pair in the race; siblings Katie (20) and Harrison (23), whose close bonds are sorely tested by this task; junior doctor Molly (23) and her dad, geography teacher Andrew (54); and in-laws Mark (66) and Margo (59), who have put aside their family squabbles and become firm friends. But will their friendship survive having to share a double bed? John Hannah is your narrator for this latest travel adventure.
Click to Kill: The AI War Machine – DispatchesThursday, Channel 4, 10pm
Who will gain the upper hand in the new technological arms race? Photograph: Genya Savilov/AFP via Getty Images
Technology is changing the face of modern warfare, with drones deployed against enemy targets, and artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly used to gain advantage on the battlefield. This edition of Dispatches looks at how military forces in Ukraine, Iran, Gaza and Venezuela use AI to carry out dangerous military operations, taking out targets with even greater precision, and killing enemy troops with just a click of a mouse. But how precise are these wifi weapons of war, and has the new style of remote-controlled warfare the potential to create more civilian casualties and cause more widespread death and destruction? And who will gain the upper hand in the technological arms race?
Other VoicesThursday, RTÉ2, 11.05pm
Other Voices: Dermot Kennedy
It’s the final episode in series 24 of the evergreen music show, and it’s definitely ending with a bang, as the entire programme is devoted to one of Ireland’s biggest singer-songwriters, Dermot Kennedy. Kennedy has just released his third album, The Weight of the Woods, and is playing two big shows at Dublin’s Aviva Stadium on July 11th and 12th, but here’s a chance to catch him in the intimate setting of Dingle in Co Kerry. He brings viewers and listeners on a new musical journey, with a few familiar stops along the way from his already bulging back catalogue of beloved hits. Recently, he performed a secret gig at Avondale Forest Park, unveiling tracks from the new album, and by all accounts it was something special, so get comfy and be ready to get healed in the company of one of Ireland’s finest.
StreamingIf It’s Tuesday, It’s MurderFrom Tuesday, March 31st, Disney+
If It’s Tuesday, It’s Murder: Álex García and Inma Cuesta. Photograph: Disney+
The Tuesday Murder Club? Only Murders on a Tuesday? It seems the dullest day of the week is now the deadliest, in this new Spanish murder mystery series created by Carlos Vila and starring Álex García, Inma Cuesta, Ana Wagener, Pedro Casablanc and Biel Montoro. The plot revolves around a disparate group of Spanish tourists on a weeklong organised holiday in Lisbon, staying in a crumbling old hotel whose days of grandeur are long in the past. But no sooner have they checked in than one of the travellers is found dead – and everyone in the group is a suspect. Luckily, four of the tourists are true crime buffs, and they take it upon themselves to deploy their amateur detective skills to unmask the killer in their midst. It’s a race against time as they try to solve the murder before they have to pack up and go home.
Your Friends & NeighborsFrom Friday April 3rd, Apple TV+
Your Friends & Neighbors: Olivia Munn, James Marsden, Jon Hamm and Heather Lind. Photograph: Apple TV
Mad Men’s Jon Hamm is back in the neighbourhood for a second series of the suburban crime drama, so lock away your family jewels and – most importantly – bury those family secrets so deep he’ll need a JCB to dig them out. Hamm stars as desperate ex-husband Andrew “Coop” Cooper, who has lost his high-flying job as a hedge fund manager, and is divorced from his cheating wife, Mel (Amanda Peet). What’s an unemployed financier to do all day hanging around in his affluent Westmont Village neighbourhood? Rather than WFH (wallow from home), Coop decides to rob his neighbours’ gaffs instead – but soon he learns that there’s more valuable goodies to be found besides Rolexes, art and diamonds – and more danger lurking in every dream home. In series two, Coop is keen to expand his burglary business, but the arrival of a mysterious new neighbour (played by James Marsden) threatens to upend his plans.