Our definitive guide to the best telly on air next week!
Next week we've got a fresh batch of contestants and the return of the nations most loved competition The Great British Bake off! Gogglebox also returns for its 16th Series on Friday nights at 9pm. A great weekend ahead for sport we have the semi finals of the Heineken Rugby Champions cup on Saturay as well as F1 Race highlights from the Russian Grand Prix on Sunday.
Monday 21st September
Married At First Sight Australia - 7.30pm on E4
Brand new: Six weeks after the experiment ended, all the participants reunite for the first time since the experiment began for a final explosive dinner party.
Brain Surgeons: Between Life & Death - 9pm on C4
How do our brains make us who we are? This new series follows patients undergoing life-changing brain surgery at the Neurological Centre in Southampton - one of Britain's foremost neurosurgical units, where some of the most difficult and complex operations in the country are performed. In every operation, surgeons are hoping to save a life. But they are also entering one of the most mysterious places on Earth - the inside of our heads; with each operation a chance to learn more about how our brains work. Twelve-year-old Matthew faces a gruelling two-day operation to remove an extremely rare tumour deep in his mid-brain, next to his pineal gland. This is a region key to the functioning of sight, muscles, hearing and sensation. With access to the hospital's team of top paediatric surgeons, the programme follows the doctors' attempts at a delicate and risky operation which, if successful, will save Matthew's life. Brain surgeons are now saving lives in situations that would have been impossible until recently. This series follows surgeons to the medical frontier.
Tuesday 22nd September
The Great British Bake Off - 8pm on Channel 4
The Great British Bake Off is back but this time, under exceptional circumstances and with some changes. Brand new host Matt Lucas joins Noel Fielding, and as we all adapt to the challenges 2020 has brought us, 12 new bakers form a bubble and enter the iconic white tent to tackle brand new challenges set by Judges Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith. The series kicks off with Cake Week, and in their first Signature challenge the bakers get the opportunity to put their twist on the classic Battenberg. Next under the gingham cloth await the ingredients for the Technical challenge and one of Paul's favourites: turning out a fruit sponge. Finally, the bakers pay tribute to their heroes in the Showstopper challenge, giving them a chance to express their creativity and an opportunity for the judges to see what inspires this year's bakers. But do they have the skills to translate it into cake? Twelve bakers in the bubble, three new challenges, but only one can be crowned star baker. Who will be serving up a slice of pure joy, and who will be going home?
The Write Offs - 9.30 pm on Channel 4
Imagine not being able to read a text message or the destination of a train, or use the internet. Over eight million people in Britain wake up to that reality every day. Sandi Toksvig hosts this new, uplifting two-part series that explores Britain's staggeringly low adult literacy rates, offering a diverse group of eight adults - aged from 22 to 66 years old - a life-changing opportunity to overcome the one thing that has always held them back. Each week for four months the group receive intensive individual one-to-one tuition to learn the basic skills necessary for many everyday situations. Along the way, Sandi gathers the group every four weeks to face a new, entertaining challenge in the real world that puts their new-found literacy skills to the test, before all their hard work culminates in an emotional final test held in front of their family, friends and teachers. With different personal motivations for wanting to improve their literacy, the group are united in their quest to shed the shame and lift the stigma around illiteracy. In the first episode, the group meet each other and Sandi Toksvig for the first time, as the mammoth challenge that awaits them becomes a reality when Sandi immediately puts them to the test. After the first four weeks of individual tuition, the group come together for a travel-based challenge to assess their improving reading skills, as they're paired up and tasked with reading maps, signs and arrival and departure boards in order to make it to lunch in the Peak District with Sandi. For 22-year-old mum Emily, who hasn't left her hometown alone for the last four years, will this be a step too far? Stay-at-home dad Craig, who's 30, is used to getting lost, but in the past has always called his mum for help. But without his mum on hand, how will he manage? After a further four weeks of lessons, Prue Leith joins Sandi to challenge the group with a cookery task to test their new-found writing and reading skills, as they write a shopping list and visit a supermarket before following and cooking a chicken pie recipe for Prue to taste. For 66-year-old factory worker and town crier Tommy, it's the first thing he has ever cooked, but how will it go down with Prue? And in an emotional visit to Tommy's workplace in Stoke, he reveals that one of his lifelong ambitions is to write and read a thank you letter to his colleagues and staff. Can Sandi help him realise his dream?
Wednesday 23rd September
Salvage Hunters - 8pm on Really
Drew explores the world’s biggest travelling vintage funfair, a pub where everything is for sale and an illuminations depot packed with pop art.
Grayson Perry’s Big American Road Trip - 10pm on Channel 4
In 2019, award-winning artist and social commentator Grayson Perry travelled across the US, on a custom-built motorbike that he designed for the trip. His goal was twofold: to explore some of the big cultural and political fault lines in America - divisions around race, class, identity and economic opportunity - and to make some art about what he found. Since then, the coronavirus pandemic and the protests against racial injustice and police violence that have erupted across the US have brought such divisions into sharper focus. Grayson makes three journeys to different parts of the US, spending time with people from varied walks of life. As America heads towards a crucial presidential election, Grayson tries to understand what might be done to overcome the growing divisions in the nation (and in our own). In the first trip, Grayson travelsto the American South. From Atlanta, Georgia to Washington DC, Grayson tackles head-on arguably the oldest and most intractable division in the US: race. By 2045, the US will be a 'majority-minority' country. Spending time with members of the African-American community, Grayson tries through their eyes to understand the increasingly deep cultural and political divisions in the US. There's Atlanta, Georgia, a booming, diverse metropolis at the forefront of change. In DC, he explores older ideas of African-American success with members of the city's so-called 'Black elite'. Throughout, Grayson reflects on 'White privilege' and tries to understand how this might be shaping today's culture wars.
The whole series is available on All 4 for free, to stream or download, following the transmission of episode 1, on 23 September.
Thursday 24th September
Insert Name Here - 8.20pm on Dave
New. Josh Widdicombe is joined by Desiree Burch and Kate Williams and Richard Osman is joined by Katy Brand and Nish Kumar.
A Year In The New Forest - 9pm on More 4
A Year in the New Forest charts a year in the life of the animals and people who call this ancient forest their home. Telling the story of each season as it passes in this rich ecosystem, this documentary series explores a remarkable, precious and traditional way of life. As the land cools and the days shorten, the leaves turn golden and one of the great spectacles of the forest begins: the red deer rut. Giant, the largest deer in the forest, fights for supremacy, while other forest inhabitants prepare for winter. As the pigs search for acorns, people search for rare fungi and the last of the year's rare flora.
Friday 25th September
The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice - 8pm on Channel 4
As The Great British Bake Off triumphantly returns to our screens, An Extra Slice is back to bring us more treats from the tent. Each week Jo Brand welcomes a panel of celebrity Bake Off fans to unpack the best bits from the show, as well as unseen footage and an exclusive interview with the baker who's leaving the competition. To get the Bake Off juices flowing, Jo welcomes presenter AJ Odudu and An Extra Slice favourite Richard Osman to discuss the new bubble of bakers and get stuck into Cake Week. Comedian and Extra Slice regular Tom Allen has invited an array of home bakers to bravely present him with their delights. Plus, Jo rummages through viewer pictures - from the quarantine queens to the kitchen crime scenes. In the first Signature challenge of the series, will the panel go batty for Battenberg? What did they make of Paul's testing Technical? And which bakers stood out as the heroes in an ambitious first Showstopper?
Gogglebox - 9pm on Channel 4
Britain's sharpest armchair critics return for a 16th series, to share more of their insightful, passionate and sometimes emotional critiques of the week's biggest and best shows.
Saturday 26th September
Live Heineken Champions Cup Rugby: Quarter Finals 12.15pm on Channel 4
Lee Mckenzie presents live coverage of the first Semi Final of 2020's Heineken Champions Cup. Miles Harrison and Nolli Waterman provide commentary. (Further details to follow once the Quarter Finals have been played)
Bone Detectives: Britain’s Buried Secrets 8pm on Channel 4
Every week, archaeologists across the UK uncover bodies. Tori Herridge and a team of scientists piece together the lives and stories behind these unexpected, unearthed bones - what happened to these people and how they came to be where they're found. In this first episode of a new run, an ordinary 19th-century Bristol graveyard is the site of a grisly find: the bodies of 13 people whose skulls had been cut open. Tori leads an investigation to find out why and uncovers a link to a local hospital, a celebrated surgeon, and the crime of bodysnatching.
Sunday 27th September
Formula 1 Russian Grand Prix Highlights 5.30pm on Channel 4
Steve Jones, David Coulthard and Mark Webber present highlights from the Russian Grand Prix. Mercedes are the only team that have won on this track since it joined the F1 calendar in 2014, with Lewis Hamilton getting four of those victories. The other teams will be hoping to buck this trend if there is to be a chance of anyone catching the German team in the Constructors' Championship.
