TV Times top picks for today
What’s on telly tonight? Here the TV Times team of expert reviewers highlight the best shows on Thursday 22nd March
Big Cats About the House, 8.00pm, BBC2
Tiger expert Giles Clark has been hand-raising big cat cubs for more than two decades, but when he was asked to save a five-day-old jaguar he knew it would be one of his toughest challenges yet. In the first episode of this new three-part series, Giles takes the tiny black jaguar, named Maya, back to his house when her mother rejects her soon after she’s born. There are plenty of obstacles to overcome before Maya starts to becomes part of the family at the Big Cat Sanctuary in Kent, where Giles is the manager. This opening chapter might melt your heart, but there are also tense moments when Giles begins to suspect that the young cub isn’t developing as she should. Rating: ****
Contagion! The BBC4 Pandemic, 9.00pm, BBC4
Do you know what the Government considers to be the biggest risk to life in the UK? It’s not terrorism or war; it’s flu. In the past century there have been four pandemics, the worst of them in 1918 when the Spanish flu killed 100 million people worldwide. In this one-off documentary we meet the experts working to prevent and manage the next big outbreak. Dr Hannah Fry spearheads an experiment to simulate a deadly virus, using app technology to ‘infect’ and track volunteer users to see how far they travel and how many people they come into contact with. The results are astonishing and will help scientists predict how disease spreads and what can be done about it. Rating: ****
Martin Luther King by Trevor McDonald, 9.00pm, ITV
On 4 April 1968 Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. To mark 50 years since his murder and to celebrate his life, Sir Trevor McDonald travels to the US to get closer to one of his heroes. He learns that Dr King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech was actually off the cuff, and speaks to black role models, including Naomi Campbell, about King’s legacy. Rating: ****
More previews tomorrow
