Britain at the Bookies
9pm, BBC1
Hot on the heels of The Bank, here’s another slice-of-life series from the increasingly well-documented streets of Huddersfield. This time, the gambling industry gets the treatment and this opener does a decent job of maintaining a jaunty front while still highlighting the moral queasiness underpinning the industry. It follows shop manager Tony, high-achieving punter Sean, and the unfortunate Stuart, who traipses around the town’s fixed-odds machines squandering his benefits on the illusory prospect of a £50 windfall. Phil Harrison
Cake Bakers and Trouble Makers: Lucy Worsley’s 100 Years of the WI
9pm, BBC2
Lucy Worsley celebrates the centenary of the Women’s Institute in Britain. With her usual gusto, she tucks heartily into tales of suffragette agitators who helped found the movement in 1915 and meets the calendar girls who raised more than £3m for cancer research with sales of their nude calendar. She manages to resist the dressing-up box for this one but, man, she knows better than most how to bring an old sepia photograph to life for a TV audience. Julia Raeside
How to Get a Council House
9pm, Channel 4
Last episode of a series that has sought to depict what life beneath the bottom rung of Britain’s property ladder is really like, but which has at times fallen too comfortably in with a recent glut of programming inviting prurient judgment of the vulnerable and unfortunate. In tonight’s episode, housing officers in Portsmouth help a couple left in the lurch by a decamping housemate. We also meet a woman managing the consequences of rent arrears, and a Romanian family surviving without heating or hot water. Andrew Mueller
Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild
9pm, Channel 5
Intrepid explorer Fogle is off to Laos to track down more people who have gone to live off-grid in a fourth season of New Lives in the Wild. First up in this new series he meets ex-City boy Jon, who gives him a taste of life on a tiny island on the Mekong river with 100% humidity. By night, they go frog hunting, ie brutally hitting them over the head and eating them. By day, they work on setting up fresh-water supplies and are taught to fish by the locals, who have welcomed Jon warmly. Hannah Verdier
Lookalikes
10pm, Channel 4
Who would have thought that 1990s soap spoof Stella Street would be the touchstone for the weirder end of TV comedy in 2015? First came Murder in Successville, an immersive gameshow populated by warped versions of the likes of Harry Styles and Jimmy Carr. Now, structured reality gets in on the idea, following a David Beckham doppelganger’s lookalikes agency. Cue “wacky” moments such as “Beckham” and “Obama” acting kind-of-in-character while discussing the former’s “Chippendoubles” act in an Eastbourne greasy spoon. Rachel Aroesti
Don’t Take My Baby
9pm, BBC3
Every year, council children’s services departments assess around 11,000 cases of kids born to disabled parents, making the wrenching decision about whether the family unit is safe. This drama, based on real cases, introduces a young mother with a muscle-wasting disease and a father who is losing his sight: as well as the unforgiving early months of parenthood, they suffer the stress and indignity of supervision. Ruth Madeley and Adam Long are exceptional leads in a necessary story, beautifully told. Time for one more Bafta before BBC3 goes. Jack Seale
True Detective
9pm, Sky Atlantic
It’s fair to say that the second series of True Detective hasn’t met with the universal acclaim of the first. Some fans bemoan the relative lack of atmosphere or miss the existential heft carried by Matthew McConaughey as Rust. However, the shootout at the end of last week’s episode was a welcome jolt. This week sees the fallout of the carnage, with Vince Vaughn’s Frank on high alert, Ani convinced there is unfinished police work ahead and Paul unravelling as personal pressures mount. David Stubbs
Film of the day
Water For Elephants (6.30pm, Film4) An orphaned veterinary student joins a circus during the Depression and falls in love with the owner’s wife. Drama, with Reese Witherspoon and Robert Pattinson.
Today’s best live sport
International Test Cricket: England v Australia Coverage of the final day of the second Ashes Test between the sides, provided the outcome hasn’t already been determined … (10.30am, Sky Sports Ashes)
Cycling: Tour De France A mammoth 201km journey from Bourge-de-Péage to Gap makes up stage 16 of the prestigious race. (2pm, ITV4)
World Matchplay Darts Continued coverage of the tournament, held in the Empress Ballroom, Blackpool. (7pm, Sky Sports 1)
