BBC4 Sessions: PJ Harvey
9pm, BBC4
The reviews were mixed, but time will prove PJ Harvey's last album to be her best. Uh Huh Her injected the rough blues-based vitality of her early songs with a new sophistication, and tracks like Shame and The Letter are a product of a songwriting talent reaching maturity. This makes Harvey eligible for a BBC4 session, with the sanctified venue (St Luke's Church, London), small and polite audience, and unquestioned critical adulation that attends such a thing.
Will Hodgkinson
Outlaws
10.30pm, BBC3
From the production company that made This Life and Cops, this new drama takes a cynical push through the revolving doors of the UK juvenile courts, starring Phil Daniels in good form as a hard-boiled duty brief and Ray Emmet Brown as his more flappable junior partner. With its wobbly corridor tracking shots and grainy, docu-realist look, it's reminiscent of The Shield. However, its attempts at wise-ass dialogue clunk and misfire all too Britishly, while the bitty storylines fail to grab you by the throat and shove you against the wall.
David Stubbs
Films
Picnic At Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, 1975)
8pm, FilmFour
This haunting account of the disappearance of three schoolgirls in the eerie Aussie outback, circa 1900 is great on atmosphere: the weirdness of the ley-lined wilderness; the picnicking party indolent in the heat; the sexual repression of the finishing school. And there's no easy answer to the mystery, just a teasing, disturbing riddle. Stars Rachel Roberts.
The Hours (Stephen Daldry, 2002)
8pm, Sky Movies 1
Incisively adapted by David Hare from Michael Cunningham's novel (itself based on Mrs Dalloway), this is a fascinating tale of three women, in three eras. In 1923 Richmond, Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman, in much-remarked prosthetic nose) is stifled and struggling to write; in the 1950s, Julianne Moore's Laura is a mum going mad in American suburbia; and in the present day, Meryl Streep's Clarissa is a New York book editor organising a party for an old friend, an Aids-stricken poet (Ed Harris). Shadowed by suicide, the lives and emotions of the women interweave in an emotionally draining study of love and the pursuit of happiness; superbly acted, and beautifully crafted by Stephen Daldry.
The Gift (Sam Raimi, 2000)
10pm, FilmFour
Keanu Reeves turns nasty in this superior supernatural thriller: he's an adulterous wife beater and number one suspect in a brutal killing. Co-scripted by Billy Bob Thornton, this is more interesting than the average murder mystery: we're in deep-south gothic territory, with Cate Blanchett the star turn as a widowed psychic peering into her clients' strange lives. It's ingeniously plotted, full of colourfully drawn characters (the cast includes Giovanni Ribisi, Greg Kinnear and Hilary Swank) and holds some scary surprises.
Paul Howlett
