What to watch on TV this week: 9th - 15th August

Another thriller series, Butterfly, is also set to arrive on Prime Video, while Swedish crime drama Beck is returning for its 10th season on BBC Four. Meanwhile, reality TV fans can look forward to the arrival of the highly anticipated second season of Love Is Blind UK.

Meanwhile, this Friday also sees the 80th anniversary of VJ Day, with programmes to mark the occasion airing throughout the week. One in particular to note is VJ Day 80: The Nation's Tribute, which will air on BBC One on the day itself.

Here, you'll find our top picks for this week – read on for our full choice of what to watch.

Outlander: Blood of My Blood

Release date: Saturday 9th August, MGM+

Based in part on author Diana Gabaldon's early ideas for a series of prequel novels, this spin-off from one of the biggest historical romance dramas in TV history has a simple premise. The original was a love story between a Second World War nurse and an 18th Century Highland warrior, facilitated by her travelling back in time to meet him; this is a double-barrelled romance introducing each protagonist's parents.

At first our focus is entirely in Scotland, where the MacKenzie clan is mourning its dead Laird, and myriad schemers are circling: other clans want to capitalise on the family's weakness and take their land, while menfolk are after beautiful daughter Ellen (Harriet Slater). She, however, only has eyes for Brian Fraser (Jamie Roy), a bastard son whose love for Ellen can never be socially acceptable. Meanwhile in the 1910s, a young couple are holidaying in the Highlands... all the building blocks of Outlander are here, from swooning romance and tough politics to the odd blast of sex and violence. Fans should soon acclimatise to the new era.

Jack Seale

Beck season 10

Release date: Saturday 9th August, 9pm, BBC Four

Remember Beck? The long-running steady Eddie of crime dramas is back for a new series, and it’s as absorbingly downbeat as ever. (I say series, but don’t get your hopes up: there are only two episodes.)

Hangdog detective Martin Beck has been on Swedish screens since 1997. He was in his 40s then – now he’s in his 70s and sidelined from the Stockholm murder squad he once led. Heaven knows why he hasn’t just retired; it can’t be because he loves the work.

In fact, Martin barely features in this 51st episode. We focus instead on his headstrong grandson Vilhelm (played by Valter Skarsgård – son of Stellan). Vilhelm is a young uniform copper who hasn’t entirely processed the trauma he experienced in the last series, when he was taken hostage. He now believes he has a key insight on a case where a trio of gunmen posed as couriers to steal watches from a dodgy accountant.

The procedural stuff is fine but it’s the deeper emotions of the story that leave more of a mark, and the touching dynamic among the team of detective colleagues who know each other almost too well. It builds to an unexpectedly moving climax.

David Butcher

Ridley season 2

Release date: Sunday 10th August, 8pm, ITV1

Adrian Dunbar returns to police Sunday night telly not in his Line of Duty persona but as the eponymous retired detective, jazz crooner and grieving widower who helps former protégé DI Carol Farman (Bronagh Waugh) to solve crimes in Lancashire.

This time they’re investigating a jewellery robbery by a gang of young lads on stolen mopeds that ends with one of them in the morgue. While it’s obvious there are links to organised crime, the investigations are complicated by Ridley’s troubled young source who’s getting too attached to one of the suspects.

It’s standard police procedural fare with nods to other TV tecs and a solid supporting cast that includes Julie Graham, John Michie, Terence Maynard, Georgie Glen, John Henshaw and Suzanne Packer.

Jane Rackham

In Flight

Release date: Tuesday 12th August, 9pm, Channel 4

Getting a phone call from your distraught teenage son to tell you he’s been arrested for murder after a bar fight in Sofia, Bulgaria, is the stuff of nightmares. To then be approached by a creepy guy who says if you don’t do exactly as he says and smuggle three kilos of heroin back from Istanbul, your imprisoned son will be killed, is… well, indescribable. Even if you agree, you run the risk of getting caught, losing your job and being banged up in a Turkish jail for 20 years while your son will probably still end up dead. But what choice do you have?

This is the traumatic scenario facing flight attendant Jo Conran (Katherine Kelly) in this tense six-part thriller created by Mike Walden and Adam Randall. There are nail-biting moments as she walks through customs, even though her ex-lover and customs officer Dom (Top Boy’s Ashley Thomas) is on duty, and Stuart Martin is horribly menacing as her blackmailer Cormac Kelleher. Jo’s living hell continues tomorrow and Thursday.

Jane Rackham

Alien: Earth

Release date: Wednesday 13th August, Disney+

It’s 2120 and just two years before the events of 1979 film Alien in writer and creator Noah Hawley’s (Fargo, Legion) prequel series. It disregards the events of Prometheus and Alien: Covenant and takes place mainly on Earth, which is ruled by five large corporations and is a place where cyborgs (humans with biological and artificial parts) and synthetics (humanoid robots with artificial intelligence) live among humans.

When the young genius and CEO of Prodigy Corporation Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin) launches hybrids (humanoid robots in adult bodies with human consciousness taken from terminally ill children), the intelligence race is well and truly on for ultimate dominance. Deep space research vessel USCSS Maginot, operated by the Weyland-Yutani corporation, crashes on Earth, bringing with it five alien species, including the Xenomorph. Seeing it in crowd-pleasingly drooling, hissing glory is worth the watch alone. Wendy (Sydney Chandler) and her fellow hybrids investigate the crash site, driven by the need to find her brother, medic Hermit (Alex Lawther)…

Laura Rutkowski

Love is Blind UK season 2

Release date: Wednesday 13th August, Netflix

Falling in love through a wall sounds like utter madness, but that’s exactly what people do in this popular reality dating show, where they don’t see each other before they propose (they needn’t worry, as everyone is typically very good-looking anyway). They must then go on holiday together before trying to integrate into each other’s lives.

Of the six couples who made it to the altar in series one, two are still going strong – there’s even a baby on the way. The latest singles include Aanu, who sings at weddings (could that include her own?), dating app creator Jack, spiritual Patrick who is guided by his spleen (yes, really) and 29-year-old Sarover, who has never been in a relationship. Married presenters Matt and Emma Willis return to preside over the drama.

Laura Rutkowski

Butterfly

Release date: Wednesday 13th August, Prime Video

The twinkle and bustle of Seoul gives this solid espionage thriller a refreshingly different visual palette. We begin in a swanky hotel, where a visiting politician is about to be on the end of an audacious assassination attempt, orchestrated by a private intelligence agency with seemingly vast resources - but there is one rogue, highly trained field operative at large in the city who seems to have a different motive. That man, David, is played by Daniel Dae Kim, once of Lost, and when we discover why he's so keen to intercept Rebecca, the young assassin played by Reina Hardesty, an unusual spy duo is born.

Jack Seale

VJ Day 80: The Nation's Tribute

Release date: Friday 15th August, 11:30am, BBC One

With the allied victory over Japan 80 years ago, a relieved, exhausted Britain greeted the end of the Second World War. Although thousands of service personnel and POWs would have to wait months or years to be demobilised and reunited with their loved ones, the fighting was finally over.

The British Legion marks the anniversary with a service of remembrance this lunchtime at the National Memorial Arboretum near Lichfield in Staffordshire. BBC cameras and presenting stalwart Paddy O’Connell will be there to bring us the ceremony — and to set events in historical context.

With several of the last remaining VJ Day veterans in attendance, it should be a stirring tribute and a poignant chance to remember those who served. There will be music, readings and testimony from veterans, plus — of course — a flypast from the Red Arrows along with aircraft from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight.

And if you can’t catch the programme, it’s worth setting your alarm as a reminder for the national two-minute silence that takes place at 12 noon.

David Butcher

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