One Day International Cricket: Sri Lanka v England
4.15am, Sky Sports 2
Penultimate contest in the mammoth seven-game series between these sides. England’s tour began disastrously, with Alastair Cook’s side losing the first two encounters and Cook being called on to resign as one-day captain by serial stirrer Kevin Pietersen. But their fortunes have improved since, and they are 2-3 down with two to play. Gwilym Mumford
The Home That Two Built
7pm, BBC2
Last in this series on lifestyle programming. The 90s saw Changing Rooms and Ground Force help Britain move beyond beige-splattered domiciles with weedy gardens, while BBC2 also helped coax viewers away from prick-with-fork microwave meals and towards food prepared by Jamie Oliver (write your own fork-based punchline). Then came the millennium and a shift from making homes lovingly-crafted family hubs, towards constructing cynically-fattened property pigs you could take to market for a quick buck. Mark Jones
Choir Of The Year 2014
7.30pm, BBC4
Gareth Malone hosts the final of this year’s competition from Bridgewater Hall in Manchester. The contenders are Bangor’s Ysgol Glanaethwy Junior Choir, Doncaster’s Rainbow Connection, High Wycombe’s Singers Limited, Durham’s Northern Spirit Singers, Cardiff’s CF1, and Oxford’s self-effacingly named Gargoyles. In keeping with the choral theme, it’s followed on BBC2 at 9pm by Canterbury Cathedral, a series examining the home of the Anglican church. Andrew Mueller
Mary Berry’s Absolute Christmas Favourites
8pm, BBC2
Christmas stress, like Mel and Sue’s tart-based innuendoes, is something the unflappable Mary Berry rises above. In the first of two episodes she breezes through her recipes, dishing out tips and sharing her massive knowledge of all things delicious. M-Bez prepares a fish pie for Christmas Eve based on her mum’s recipe and makes short work of Boxing Day leftovers with a raised chicken and ham pie. To finish, there’s blackberry and apple crumble tart and chocolate mousse cake. As polished as it gets. Hannah Verdier
Marvel’s Agents Of SHIELD
8pm, Channel 4
Season two continues in dark and unpredictable fashion, with this episode nicely paving the way for upcoming second world war spin-off Agent Carter starring Brit actress Hayley Atwell. In a flashback to 1945, none other than Hydra’s Whitehall (Reed Diamond) is obsessing over the obelisk. As Whitehall’s true identity is revealed, there’s yet more wrangling between Hydra and perennially put-upon agent Coulson (Clark Gregg). Elsewhere, there are further revelations about the mysterious Doctor (Kyle MacLachlan). Hannah J Davies
A Night In With Olly Murs
9pm, ITV
You’d have got long odds on Olly Murs being a breakout X Factor star, given he possesses neither good looks nor a good voice. Yet his dimpled cheeks and expert trilby deployment mean he’s gently intoxicating to mums and tweens. Slump helplessly in front of his TV special as he performs hits and gathers fellow entertainers – Caroline Flack, John Bishop, Nicole Scherzinger – to skit their way to the edge of Christmas. Shane Richie also appears, forming with Murs a lethal cocktail of cheeky-chappyness. Ben Beaumont-Thomas
Gunslingers
9pm, Quest
Hollywood has been romanticising the antics of the Wild West gunfighter for nigh on 100 years. This series dissects the history behind the fiction, through the use of strangely ponderous dramatic reconstruction and some decent talking heads, including the likes of Kurt Russell and David Milch, the creator of the peerless Deadwood. The first in the series looks at lawman Wyatt Earp and the gunfight at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, in 1881, at the height of the silver rush. Did Earp die with regrets over how it played out? Ben Arnold
The Rise Of Isis
9pm, PBS America
This Frontline documentary by Martin Smith serves as an excellent recap on the political circumstances that led to the emergence of the Islamic State. Its rise can be traced to the moment US troops left Iraq in 2011. The Shi-ite government, led by prime minister Nouri Kamal al-Maliki, immediately sidelined the Sunni minority who, more out of desperation than crazed Islamist sectarianism, turned to the ultra-hardcore Isis for protection as the US looked on complacently. Salutary if often brutal viewing. David Stubbs
