Week 13 highlights

14 March 2012

Here are the best programmes on Channel 4 for week 13, Saturday 24th - Friday 30th March. If your birthday falls in week 13, you regularly eat until you are violently sick, you soil yourself several times every day, your favourite game is hiding behind a muslin and then pulling it off your head, and you are absolutely, indescribably beautiful. (NB This rather unscientific analysis is based on a research pool of one, my daughter Elsie, who will be a year old on Sunday 25th March).

Fate sees Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall joining a skateboarding troupe in Clitheroe.

 

Saturday 24/03/2012
9pm
The Million Pound Drop Live 1/10
The Million Pound Drop Live returns for a new series over the next five consecutive weekends. Davina McCall will be guiding pairs of contestants as they face the daunting Drop in the hope of taking home some seriously big money. There will be some surprise twists along the way. And joining the latest pairs of contestants there will be some familiar faces playing for charity.

 

Sunday, 25/03/2012
5:50pm
Avatar
(2009) Twelve years after the hugely successful Titanic, James Cameron returned to filmmaking with another spectacular, this time set in outer space and part-animated (and originally released in cutting edge 3D). When disabled ex-Marine Jake Sully replaces his recently killed brother on a mission to the distant world of Pandora, he discovers that the mining company Resources Development Administration plans to drive off the planet's native inhabitants (a tribe of 12-foot-tall blue humanoids) for the precious mineral unobtainium. With orders to infiltrate the Na'vi, Jake finds himself falling in love with beautiful alien Neytiri, but complications soon ensue. Starring Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver and Zoë Saldana. Network premiere.

 

Sunday, 25/03/2012
9pm
Homeland 6/12: The Good Soldier
Part six of the compelling US thriller starring Claire Danes and Damian Lewis. The director of the CIA berates Saul and Estes over Hamid's suicide and the fact that he managed to smuggle a razor blade into the safe house. Carrie suggests that someone on their side may have given it to Hamid and pushes for everyone who came into contact with him to submit to a polygraph test. Carrie is certain it was Brody who gave Hamid the razor, and when the director gives her the go-ahead for the polygraphs, she's convinced she'll soon have proof.

 

Monday, 26/03/2012
8pm
China: Triumph and Turmoil 3/3
In the final programme of the series, Niall asks what China's growing global presence and aggressive nationalism mean to all of us. China's supercharged economic growth signals a seismic shift in political power from West to East. The series ends with Niall raising a chilling uncertainty: ‘Can we somehow manage the transition from West to East in a way that is peaceful, not violent? On the answer to that question depends not just the prosperity of the world, but its future peace.'

 

Monday, 26/03/2012
9pm
Embarrassing Bodies 4/10
Dr Christian helps a patient with a vasectomy. Dr Dawn meets a woman whose bowel condition has left her with shocking stomach scars. She also meets a woman who needs advice about her head-banging bedtime behaviour. The seaside tour continues as the truck stops off at Skegness, where there's a man with a wriggly bottom, and another man with a worrying lump on his testicles. Dr Pixie hits the streets and helps the women of Skegness get the measure of obesity. And Dr Christian asks a team of BMX bikers to produce a sperm sample.

 

Tuesday 27/03/2012
9pm
Big Fat Gypsy Weddings 7/7
While the traditional way of life is evolving, the large extended family unit remains at the heart of the Traveller community. Celebrations are always a family affair and in The Family, the final episode of the current series, Irish Traveller family the Mcfadyens celebrate key life events over a series of months. Recently convicted Josie is planning the christening of her six-month-old daughter, but still finds the time to decorate her electronic tag with bling. The family is also excited about the release of the family patriarch Chris from prison, who they plan to pick up in a stretch limousine.

 

Tuesday 27/03/2012
10pm
Facejacker 1/6
Kayvan Novak, star of BAFTA winning Fonejacker, returns for a second series of the ground-breaking BAFTA-nominated Facejacker. Once again Novak dons elaborate prosthetics to showcase his amazing array of characters and voices. Novak takes his characters into real-life situations where they sometimes charm but often baffle members of the public. And this time he's going global by also unleashing some of his best-known characters in America.

 

Wednesday 28/03/2012
8pm
Four Rooms 2/8
The new series continues as more members of the public look to sell vintage treasures for life-changing sums of money. Four of Britain's top dealers in art, antiques and collectibles wait in separate rooms, each prepared to spend their personal fortunes if the right item comes through their door. This episode features a dress worn by Amy Winehouse, a bottle of champagne signed by the Ashes-winning cricket team, a waxwork autopsy, a slice of the Queen and Prince Philip's wedding cake, and Kate Middleton's car.

 

Wednesday 28/03/2012
9pm
One Born Every Minute 13/14
A celebrity adds a touch of glamour to the delivery suite in this episode. TV presenter Myleene Klass opens a new birthing pool and causes a stir on the maternity ward.  Delivery suite manager Gail Wright has to rehearse her speech and gets all in a dither about how to coordinate the grand opening.

 

Thursday, 29/03/2012
8pm
Get Your House in Order 2/6
Sylvia Stewart is struggling under the remnants of decades of out-of-control shopping. The 59-year-old widow is a self-confessed bargain hunter who estimates that she has spent around £100,000 amassing everything from furniture and ornaments, to dried flowers and empty milk bottles. Embarrassed by the state of her house, and with her son David desperate for his mother to change, Sylvia is determined to turn around her home and life.

 

Thursday, 29/03/2012
10pm
Death Row 2/3
Death Row tells the fascinating and controversial story of crime and the death penalty. Over the period of a year, Werner Herzog has interviewed inmates in America as they await their death and uncovered brutal stories of rape and murder. The second portrait is of James Barnes. Sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his wife, Barnes had already spent eight years behind bars when he became a practising Muslim. During Ramadan, he called in homicide detectives, and confessed to a previous murder of a woman.

 

Friday, 30/03/2012
11:35pm
The Mad Bad Ad Show 4/6
The Mad Bad Ad Show is a comedy entertainment series hosted by Mark Dolan. Going beyond the traditional question and answer games of the common or garden panel show, The Mad Bad Ad Show brings together an original mix of challenges, comic banter and a bit of ad land insight. Team captains Micky Flanagan and Mark Watson are both joined by a famous guest and an ad industry insider to be quizzed about classic ads from the past, present and overseas. In the fourth show the ads are themed around public information films, and Micky and Mark are joined by Lorraine Kelly and comedian Josh Widdicombe.

 

For highlights of programmes on More4, E4, Film4 and 4Music, please visit the Listings section of the site (available to registered users only).