TV tonight: the Taskmaster spin-off that fans have been waiting for | Television

Junior Taskmaster

8pm, Channel 4
The remarkable rise of Taskmaster over the past decade proves that sometimes we just need daft, pointless telly. It’s a genius move, then, to add kids into the mix. Rose Matafeo is in charge of events and, with the help of her assistant, Mike Wozniak, sets challenges for a cohort of very spirited youngsters. It would be a mistake to underestimate these smart cookies – but that doesn’t mean they don’t also provide some hilariously stupid moments, just like the adults. Good fun for fans of any age. Hollie Richardson

Our Lives: The Boy Who Can Fly

7.30pm, BBC One
This rousing film follows 23-year-old Liam Byrne, a Scottish Base jumper and British champion in the jaw-dropping sport of wingsuit flying. It captures a year in his life as he meticulously prepares for a daring and technically tricky jump from Männlichen mountain in Switzerland – more than 2,000 metres up. Careful now. Ali Catterall

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol

9pm, Sky Max
The title may have become a mouthful – just call it “Hobo With a Hot Nun” – but season two of the Walking Dead spinoff has not lacked for action and even romance. Key characters have perished on the way to this finale but, thanks to super-zombie serum, death need not be the end. Graeme Virtue

The Cleaner

9.30pm, BBC One

Big Brum wedding … Bob Mammot (Harry Peacock) and Wicky (Greg Davies) in The Cleaner. Photograph: Jonathan Browning/BBC/Studio Hamburg UK

The wedding of the daughter of Birmingham business kingpin Bob Mammot is the recipient of Wicky’s dubious expertise this week, as the third series of Greg Davies’s sitcom concludes. The bride’s grandfather has been attacked with a baseball bat. Can Wicky save the day before Midlands royalty arrives in the shape of guests Jasper Carrott and Noddy Holder? Phil Harrison

Sweetpea

10.15pm, Sky Atlantic
Ella Purnell continues to be underutilised as wallflower serial killer Rhiannon in this comedy drama, which still doesn’t take off in the penultimate episode. As she interrogates former school bully Julia in her garage, a fellow shrinking violet in the police is hot on Rhiannon’s trail. HR

The Graham Norton Show

10.40pm, BBC One
Jennifer Lopez stars in new weepy sports drama Unstoppable, but will Graham Norton be able to get her to spill the beans on Hollywood’s biggest breakup on his couch? If not, fellow guests Kate Winslet, Dwayne Johnson and Lucy Liu are on hand with anecdotes. HR

Film choices

Heil Hynkel … Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator. Photograph: Archivio Gbb/Alamy

The Great Dictator (Charles Chaplin, 1940), 2pm, Sky Arts
A remarkable film to be made at a time when the US was yet to join the war against Germany, Charlie Chaplin’s 1940 satire is a bold, comic takedown of Hitler – ridiculing his pomposity while exposing what was then known about his violent persecution of the Jewish people. Parallel narratives follow Adenoid Hynkel, fascist ruler of Tomainia, and an unnamed Jewish barber (both played by Chaplin), doppelgangers whose lives are fated to cross. There are a few trademark skits – a food fight, a shave to the music of Brahms – but there’s a serious point to be made, and Chaplin forces it home. Simon Wardell

Surely you can’t be serious … Leslie Nielsen and Robert Hays in Airplane!. Photograph: Paramount/Allstar

Airplane! (Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker, 1980), 12.05am, Channel 4
A comedy with arguably the most gags per minute of any Hollywood film ever, this classic from Jim Abrahams and David and Jerry Zucker takes the disaster movie genre and tickles it to death. The plot is about a commercial flight where the crew are incapacitated and a traumatised former pilot (Robert Hays) has to land it – but that’s not important right now. Venerable movie actors Leslie Nielsen, Lloyd Bridges and Robert Stack gained a new lease of life by allowing themselves to be ridiculous while a series of brilliant, barely connected jokes zip by. SW

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *