Sunday, December 22, 2024

TV tonight: finally, things get serious on the Strictly dancefloor

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Strictly Come Dancing

BBC One, 6.15pm

Now, as the nights draw in and everything starts to feel a bit more Strictly, the competition starts properly. After the rush of introductions and missed steps in the opening episodes, the judges’ scores to date are collated, and the celebrity dancers compete for public votes. Comedian Chris McCausland and Love Island finalist Tasha Ghouri look like big contenders. Jack Seale

Classic Soul: Later … With Jools Holland

8.30pm, BBC Two

An irresistible night of soul songs performed for Jools over the last 30 years. Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together, Bobby Womack’s Across 110th Street and Anita Baker’s I’ll Take You There are here, along with hits from more icons of the genre including Solomon Burke, Bettye LaVette and Sade. Hollie Richardson

Apples Never Fall

9.15pm, BBC One

The slick family mystery starring Sam Neill and Annette Bening in sun-drenched Palm Beach, Florida, continues. With Joy (Bening) still missing, the claustrophobic closeness of the community starts to become clear, as does Logan’s somewhat intense relationship with his father. All is not as it seems in the Delaney family. Phil Harrison

The Battle for Black Music: Paid in Full

9.30pm, BBC Two

Payback time… Smokey Robinson speaks on The Battle for Black Music: Paid in Full on BBC Two. Photograph: Hector Rodriguez/BBC/Pink Towel Inc/Zinc TV London

We have reached the 1950s in this powerful documentary series about exploited Black musicians – and Black-owned labels and the agenda-changing artist Sam Cooke, who was sick of others profiting from him, are taking on the system. Today, he is regarded as “the OG” blueprint for the likes of Jay-Z and Stormzy. HR

Password

10.10pm, ITV1

Stephen Mangan continues to struggle to keep a handle on team captains Daisy May Cooper and Alan Carr’s blatant innuendos in this word-based gameshow (Cooper’s favourite word is “harder”, apparently). Can they help contestants Sanjay and Diana win some money? HR

The Killing Kind

11pm, ITV1

Defence barrister Ingrid (Emma Appleton) is determined to make progress in her investigation of Belinda’s death, but keeps getting distracted by memories of her ex-fiance, and the present-day actions of her lover turned stalker. If only Ingrid was as conscientious about her love life as she is about her spreadsheets. Ellen E Jones

Film choice

Wolfs, out now, Apple TV+

It’s not quite Ocean’s Fourteen, but the reunion of George Clooney and Brad Pitt in Jon Watts’s nimble caper offers up the same easy charm and easy-on-the-eye star quality. They play underworld fixers who are both called on when Amy Ryan’s New York district attorney ends up with a dead young man (Austin Abrams) on her hotel room floor. He’s not dead, actually, but he does have a bag full of drugs he’s due to drop off. Amid some choice bickering and oneupmanship, the duo join forces to tidy up the loose ends before dawn, while the skills Watts honed in his Spider-man trilogy are used well, particularly in a fun, frantic chase through the nighttime backstreets. Simon Wardell

Inside Out 2, out now, Disney+

Mixed emotions … Embarrassment, Anxiety, Envy and Ennui in Inside Out 2 on Disney+ 2. Photograph: Pixar/AP

The terrific 2015 animated comedy gets a worthy sequel. With puberty now hitting our human protagonist Riley, her original five dominant emotions – Sadness, Fear, Disgust, Anger and Amy Poehler’s upbeat Joy – just won’t cut it. Enter the likes of Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Envy (Ayo Edebiri) and the hilariously French Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos) to complicate the 13-year-old girl’s life, and Joy’s best-laid plans. It’s frantic, colourful business as usual despite a new director, Kelsey Mann, and rather too many new characters. SW

Apartment 7A, out now, Paramount+

A prequel to Rosemary’s Baby featuring a minor character from that satanic classic probably wasn’t on anyone’s wish list. But directed by Natalie Erika James, creator of the superb horror Relic, and starring the estimable Julia Garner, there is a lot to like. Garner plays Terry, an aspiring dancer gifted a large flat in a New York apartment block by creepy old couple Minnie (Dianne Wiest) and Roman (Kevin McNally). But they have plans for her … With post-MeToo themes of gaslighting and coercive control to the fore, it’s a retread that finds fresh angles on familiar scares. SW

Nostalgia, 10pm, BBC Four

That nostalgia is a double-edged sword becomes all too apparent to the protagonist of Mario Martone’s tender, angry 2022 drama. Felice (Pierfrancesco Favino) returns to Naples from Cairo after 40 years away to visit his ailing mother. The dream of returning to his roots tugs at him, despite the shameful reason for his departure as a teenager and the continued baleful presence of the mafia. The city itself – dirty, dangerous, beautifully labyrinthine – is a vital presence in the film, watching over Felice as he settles into a place he thinks he knows but, fatefully, doesn’t. SW

Live sport

Premier League Football: Newcastle v Man City, 11am, TNT Sports 1 Followed by Wolves v Liverpool at 5pm on Sky Sports Main Event.

Cycling: Road World Championships, 11.15am, Eurosport 1 The women’s road race from Uster to Zurich in Switzerland.

Premiership Rugby Union: Saracens v Sale Sharks, 3pm, TNT Sports 1 Followed by Northampton Saints v Exeter Chiefs at 5.15pm.

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