Britain’s Missing Young People: Panorama
8.30pm, BBC1
If someone is sufficiently determined to disappear, it’s difficult to stop them. And every day hundreds of British youngsters do exactly that. Darragh MacIntyre explores this hidden crisis, meeting parents who have been waiting years for news about their offspring. He also considers the point of view of the police, who accept their inability to fully confront these issues but claim to struggle under the sheer weight of numbers. Phil Harrison
Forces of Nature With Brian Cox
9pm, BBC1
The country’s only true master of the erudite stoner soundbite turns his attention to pondering light. Along the way, Cox marvels at a moonbow; tells us that green – a colour associated with life – is actually “the colour life throws away” after plants absorb blue and red photons; and ends with how our knowledge of the “colour signature of a life-supporting planet” helps in assessing exoplanets. Boggling, but in a good way. Jonathan Wright
The Somme 1916: From Both Sides of the Wire
9pm, BBC2
The battle of the Somme has become so entrenched as a symbol of destructive futility that the details of the actual combat have become occluded. Historian Peter Barton sets out to rectify this, using – as the title suggests – the archives of both sides. What he discovers is as inglorious as might be expected, including the revelation that many British and French prisoners fell rather short of heroic non-cooperation under interrogation. Andrew Mueller
Eden
9pm, Channel 4
Week two of the experimental reality show in which 23 volunteers spend a year away from the hurly burly and smartphones of modern life to live in the Scottish Highlands and it’s all going harmoniously … of course it isn’t. This week, Anton is confronted by group members shirty at the amount of time he’s spending building his cabin, while there are complaints that some of the group aren’t working as hard as others. Sounds a bit like modern life. David Stubbs
Naked Attraction
10pm, Channel 4
Anxiety dreams come alive in a dating show that will melt the internet: six nude contestants vie to be chosen by a singleton who also ends up starkers. Some guff about clothing’s social signifiers is soon forgotten, as the hopefuls are judged from the bottom up; only in later rounds do they show their faces or talk. A man being rejected purely due to his penis and balls feels like a watershed that TV shouldn’t have crossed. Butchers’ windows will never look the same. Jack Seale
Coach Trip: Road To Ibiza
7.30pm, E4
The return of the cult reality show, in which “14 boisterous Brits” are crammed on to a hot coach and obliged to hairball up some deeply buried charisma, lest they get voted out by the others. Contestants to watch? Well, Amber clearly has legs – and a tattoo of a homeless Ian Beale on her right one. “I accidentally kicked a fish!” she shrieks while out swimming. “It’s probably just concussed,” soothes tour guide Brendan. Amazing. Ali Catterall
Last Week Tonight With John Oliver
10.10pm, Sky Atlantic
With his monologues-cum-lectures now something approaching a public service (we await his sizzling takedown of Pokémon Go), John Oliver has carved himself a nice little niche in the American talkshow environment. And just in time, as election season is kicking into high gear. This week’s episode airs during the Democratic National Convention, where Hillary Clinton will assume her party’s nomination for president. PM
Film choice
Robin and Marian (Richard Lester, 1976), 10.45am, More4
Lester, maker of the chevaliers-rampant Musketeers movies, is in more wistful mood in this telling of the Robin Hood legend. Sean Connery’s weary Robin returns from the crusades to confront Robert Shaw’s sheriff of Nottingham once more, but despite their heroic final duel, it’s Connery’s scenes with Audrey Hepburn as a middle-aged Marian that make the magic. Nicol Williamson, too, is a touchingly faithful Little John.
