TV Tonight: Our highlights for Thursday, May 11
Inside No 9 is just one of the gems on TV tonight.
On TV tonight, there's another twisted tale in Inside No 9, Jane McDonald travels to Cape Verde, and Dalgliesh season 2 continues. Here's what you shouldn't miss on TV Tonight.
- Our hand-selected recommendations for what's on TV tonight include 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
Inside No 9 season 8, 10 pm, BBC One
Online dating can be a minefield, as Vicky (the often underrated Claire Rushbrook (most recently seen in BBC One’s Magpie Murders) discovers. She risks more than a broken heart when she logs on for a series of Zoom dates in this week’s dark and twisted Inside No 9 tale from Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith.
The charity-shop worker wants to put herself out there after spending years caring for her late mother and in Jai (People Just Do Nothing’s Asim Chaudhry) she feels she might have made a connection. With guest stars including Mathew Horne and Frances Barber, it’s an eerie tale that preys on our fears and assumptions in equal measure.
★★★★ SMA
Cape Verde with Jane McDonald, 8 pm, Channel 5
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This week, Jane’s heading to the island of Sal, part of the Cape Verde archipelago. ‘I’m underweight!’ she exclaims at the airport check-in. ‘That means I can buy things!’ And that’s the appeal of this series – none of that ‘we’ve been given exclusive access to this secret room’ nonsense that you get with some celebrity travelogues.
Jane does everything regular holidaymakers do, from taking a coach transfer to the hotel to enjoying excursions and activities. On Sal, she hops on an electric bike for a guided tour and books a beach restaurant with a difference – the price includes being taught how to catch your own dinner!
★★★★ JP
Dalgliesh season 2, 9 pm, Channel 5
With first-class performances and engagingly twisty whodunnits, the crime drama’s second run has been a treat and, thankfully, a third is on its way! In this week’s two-part finale, DCI Dalgliesh (Bertie Carvel) stumbles across murky family secrets when a suspicious death takes place in the grounds of a museum containing a ‘Murder Room’ with displays connected to creepy crimes from decades gone by.
Meanwhile, confident new recruit DS Tarrant (Alistair Brammer) continues to make his presence felt and DS Miskin (Carlyss Peer) is still living in the shadow of last week’s challenging events… Concludes tomorrow.
★★★★ CC
A passion project for actor Dougray Scott, this crime drama (previously on BritBox) is adapted from the novel by Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh. It centres on an Edinburgh cop who is battling demons and haunted by the past. Scott stars as DI Ray Lennox, who grudgingly teams up with new partner DS Amanda Drummond (Joanna Vanderham) to investigate the disappearance of a schoolgirl.
Lennox featured in Welsh’s earlier book Filth, made into a film starring James McAvoy as the dissolute, corrupt and misanthropic detective. The tone of Crime is more emotional, but this hard-hitting series retains Welsh’s distinctively dark comic touch and razor-sharp, authentic-sounding dialogue.
★★★★ IM
Best box set on TV tonight
Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, Netflix
We’ve all fallen in love with the scurrilous court gossip of Bridgerton in recent years, and now we get a chance to find out how the colourful and competitive world of ‘the Ton’ came to be in this six-part spin-off. Set decades before the main drama, this prequel tells the story of the 17-year-old Queen Charlotte (India Amarteifio) and her bittersweet romance with husband King George III (Corey Mylchreest). It’s an intimate glimpse into a lavish world and unmissable viewing for Bridgerton fans.
SMA
Best film on TV tonight
The Shawshank Redemption, 9 pm, BBC Four
A banker is wrongly jailed for his wife's murder and over the course of a life sentence he forms a close friendship with a fellow inmate. He also earns a position of trust as book-keeper to the corrupt prison governor - but makes an enemy of his benefactor as he tries to clear his name. Frank Darabont's drama, starring Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, Bob Gunton, William Sadler, Clancy Brown and Gil Bellows.
Soaps
- EastEnders, 7.30 pm, BBC One
- Emmerdale, 7.30 pm, ITV1
- Hollyoaks, 6.30 pm, Channel 4
- Home and Away, 6 pm, 5Star
Live Sport
- Live Premier League Darts, 7 pm, Sky Sports Main Event
- UEFA Europa Conference League: West Ham United v AZ Alkmaar (Kick-off 8.00pm), BT Sport 1
If you watch just one thing on TV tonight…
Don't miss Inside No 9 on TV tonight.
Not found anything you want to watch on TV tonight? Check out our TV Guide.
Happy viewing!
Lucy joined the WhatToWatch.com team in 2021, where she writes series guides for must-watch programmes, reviews and the latest TV news. Now she works for our sister site TechRadar in the same role. Originally from Northumberland, she graduated from Oxford Brookes University with a degree in Film Studies and moved to London to begin a career writing about entertainment.
She is a Rotten Tomatoes approved film critic and has a huge passion for cinema. She especially loves horror, thriller and anything crime-related. Her favourite TV programmes include Inside No 9, American Horror Story, Stranger Things and Black Mirror but she is also partial to a quiz show or a bit of Say Yes to the Dress!