Friday’s best TV: The Crystal Maze; Teach My Pet to Do…

Friday’s best TV: The Crystal Maze; Teach My Pet to Do That

The Crystal Maze

8pm, Channel 4

While watching famous-ish faces navigate the newly revived Crystal Maze for charity has its appeal, it’s harder to see the draw of watching a random team of norms run the revamped zones. But such is the charm of host Richard Ayoade – amused, enthusiastic, with just the right amount of his IT Crowd character Moss in the mix – it is eminently watchable. Adam Buxton’s disembodied talking head, set in a jar of gloop, is another highlight of this first episode. Sophie Harris

BBC Proms 2017: Charles Mingus Revisited
7.30pm, BBC4

The fact that Mingus promoted his own legend extensively in his lifetime doesn’t make the performer and composer less worthy of commemoration; indeed, a dedicated Prom suits someone who thrived on adventurous public performances. The reputation of that music, meanwhile – bluesy and filmic – rests more on the composition than the featured soloist, and as such is almost guaranteed to survive translation. John Robinson

Teach My Pet to Do That
8pm, ITV

Teach My Pet to Do That, ITV Photograph: Plimsoll Productions

Remember when Alexander Armstrong was one half of a half-decent sketch duo – it does seem rather dim and distant, doesn’t it? This week on the presenter’s new pet-training show, Jo-Rosie Haffenden is tasked with training a five-year-old golden retriever and a chicken to wipe their feet on a doormat, while partner Nando Brown has his work cut out training a border collie from Brighton to drive a miniature car and deliver gifts to strangers. Ben Arnold

Titanic: Draining the Wreck
8pm, Channel 5

Deep beneath the Atlantic, the wreck of RMS Titanic resides in “a place as alien as the surface of the moon”. Which doesn’t seem to stop scientists and adventurers exploring her remains. This doc charts an expedition to photograph and map the wreck site, and then to create a full 3D record of what’s there. Serious stuff and eerie viewing, despite some gimmicky imaginings of siphoning away the ocean to reveal the great ship. Jonathan Wright

Kasabian at Reading Festival 2017
10.30pm, BBC4

Mainstream indie rock seems, post-Oasis, to be coasting on a plateau of retro permanence. You suspect there are boys yet unborn who will be growing half-beards, wearing checked shirts and forming Kasabian-like bands circa 2050. Tonight, Leicester’s finest anthemists headline Reading, where they last incited mass air-punching five years ago. Expect selections from their latest album, For Crying Out Loud, as well as their ubiquitous hits. David Stubbs

The Agony & the Ecstasy
9pm, Sky Arts

This was a journey into sound … In the final part of the series exploring 30 years of rave culture in the UK, Paul Oakenfold continues to probe the key movers and shakers of the genre, tracing the eddies and currents of electronica from a wellspring in Chicago to dance music’s current global standing as a multibillion-pound industry, and asks, where next, eh? Followed by Dave Pearce’s compilation of his 20 top acid house tracks. Ali Catterall

Ice Stars
5.30pm, CBBC

New series of the documentary about young figure skaters pursuing their dreams at The National Ice Centre in Nottingham. It’s a life full of 5am starts, long hours of training and the kind of discipline that might not usually be associated with teenagers. The cameras follow talented figure skating pair Josh and Kloe, who must do everything they can to impress a royal visitor. Fellow skater Ella, meanwhile, is preparing for her first solo performance. Hannah Verdier

Film choice

Allied (Robert Zemeckis, 2016)

12.15pm, 8pm, Sky Cinema Premiere
After completing a daring mission in Casablanca, 1942, Canadian special ops guy Max Vatan (Brad Pitt) and French spy Marianne Beauséjour (Marion Cotillard) return to London, marry and have a baby. But military intelligence explodes Max’s domestic bliss when they reveal that his wife could be working for the Nazis. Paul Howlett