TV Times top picks for tonight
What’s on telly tonight? Here the TV Times team of expert reviewers highlight the best shows on Friday 2nd November
Homecoming, Amazon Prime Video
Julia Roberts takes her first major TV role in this intriguing, claustrophobic series, an adaptation of the hit podcast. Julia plays Heidi Bergman, a counsellor at the mysterious Homecoming Transitional Support Center, where US soldiers are sent to prepare for a return to civilian life. Flash forward a few years and Heidi is now working in a grim diner, where a man from the government is asking strange questions… With a fine cast including Boardwalk Empire’s Shea Whigham and Bobby Cannavale, it starts slowly, but with clues drip-fed throughout you'll soon be gripped. Rating: ****
Portillo’s Hidden History of Britain, 9pm, Channel 5
Travel lover and former politician Michael Portillo is back rooting around more abandoned locations, while delving into their intriguing pasts, from a disused cinema to a long-forgotten submarine. Tonight’s episode sees Michael visit the Cambridge Military Hospital in Aldershot, Hampshire where, in 1916, a young surgeon named Harold Gillies developed a pioneering skin graft procedure called the tubed pedicle. Not only did Gillies’ trailblazing technique rebuild the shattered faces of hundreds of badly injured World War One soldiers, but it paved the way for him to perform the first ever sex-change operation. Fascinating viewing. Rating: *****
Made in Great Britain, 9pm (times vary), BBC2
Steph McGovern and her four modern-day craft experts give Willy Wonka a run for his money tonight when they head to York and discover the city’s rich chocolate history. They learn how a small craft trade evolved into a multi-billion-pound industry, by making a posh chocolate drink from the Georgian era, experiencing how brick dust was added to create a cheaper, but dangerous, Victorian drink, and attempting to make 1930s-style Kit-Kats. A tasty episode full of fascinating facts. Rating: ****
More previews tomorrow.
