Alan Shearer: Dementia, Football and Me
10.30pm, BBC One
On his way to a Premier League record goalscoring tally, Alan Shearer proved more fearless than most at flinging his forehead at the ball. With recent studies confirming that heading a football has an immediate effect on the brain, Shearer investigates how repeated minor trauma can result in brain damage and dementia. The infamous leather balls of yesteryear are long gone, but the threat to current pro footballers is still very real. Mark Gibbings-Jones
Britain’s Forgotten Army
7pm, Channel 4
In 1917, 140,000 Chinese workers were murkily recruited to prop up the allied war effort. These men were “the sinews of war”, tasked with maintaining trenches and keeping precarious supply lines operational. Yet the contribution of the Chinese Labour Corps – which continued long after Armistice Day with the grisly work of clearing battlefields – has been minimised in official histories, an oversight corrected in this moving documentary. Graeme Virtue
Blue Planet II
8pm, BBC One
This week’s venue for scarcely believable marine activity: coral reefs. These endangered marvels are shown to be the cities of the sea, alive with colour – although in the case of the hypnotic, chameleonic cuttlefish, colour can be deadly – and full of so many species that some collaborate instead of eating each other. A spa for turtles is staffed by tiny fish, while an octopus and a grouper go into the hunting business together. Every short segment is a small masterpiece. Jack Seale
Howards End
9pm, BBC One
EM Forster’s classic novel of class relations in Edwardian England returns in a new adaptation, starring Hayley Atwell as Bloomsbury-like liberal intellectual Margaret Schlegel and Matthew Macfadyen as the unreconstructed Henry Wilcox. Sounds like a rom-com premise right there … In episode one, Margaret’s sister Helen fears there’s nothing behind the Wilcox’s solidly middle-class veneer except “panic and emptiness”. Ali Catterall
Elton John: The Nation’s Favourite Song
9pm, ITV
A countdown of the little Watford man’s most popular songs, chosen by ITV viewers, to mark his 70th birthday and hosted by David Walliams. But what will be top? Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting? Crocodile Rock? Please not Candle in the Wind as rewritten, spare us that. Contributions on this almost royal occasion come from Annie Lennox, Ed Sheeran, Bernie Taupin and, in a rare appearance on our screens, Stephen Fry. David Stubbs
MTV Europe Music Awards 2017
8pm, MTV
Rita Ora is your host for the night, so expect costume changes and collaborations. This year, the live action comes from London as the stars descend on the SSE Arena Wembley. It’s an eclectic lineup with big hitters all the way including Demi Lovato, Shawn Mendez, Kesha and the Killers. Among the UK acts who’ll be showing them how it’s done are Stormzy and Liam Payne. For the MTV-averse, the awards are also being shown on Channel 5. Hannah Verdier
Babylon Berlin
9pm, Sky Atlantic
A man runs naked through the city, a woman peruses a train carriage full of gold and a tortured prisoner is chained to the floor. Sky’s expensive noir set against a backdrop of the rise of Nazism certainly doesn’t lack for powerful, and sometimes disturbing, imagery. Less clear is the shape of its overarching plot, but then this is a slow-burn drama that is, perhaps a little too self-consciously, aimed at boxset immersion. Atmospheric and involving nonetheless. Jonathan Wright
Film choice
War Horse, (Steven Spielberg, 2011). Sunday, 2.05pm, BBC One
Spielberg’s adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s anti-war novel, by way of the marvellous play, is a tour de force of heroic action and epic, tearful emotion. Appropriately scheduled for Remembrance Sunday, it follows a headstrong horse, Joey, from rural Devon to the carnage of the first world war, pursued by devoted farmboy Albert Narracott (Jeremy Irvine) and briefly protected by a series of unfortunate Brits, Germans and French, including Tom Hiddleston’s noble Captain Nicholls. Paul Howlett
Mum’s List, (Niall Johnson, 2016), 10.10am, 6.10pm, Sky Cinema Premiere
It is a tall order to bring off this grief-stricken tale of a mum who dies of cancer, then lives on through texts and Post-it notes of advice she leaves her husband and two boys, but this is an emotionally honest and gripping family drama. Adapted from the memoir of paramedic St John Greene, it has utterly committed performances from Emilia Fox and Rafe Spall as the lovely parents. Paul Howlett
Men in Black, (Barry Sonnenfeld, 1997), 4.45pm, Channel 4
The first, very funny chapter of the sci-fi spoof in which the world is full of aliens living incognito, and the Men in Black are interstellar immigration officers. It’s their reactions to the array of space beasts that give the film its comic buzz: Tommy Lee Jones borrows a deadpan, seen-it-all-before expression from Bill Murray in Ghostbusters, while Will Smith is all wide-eyed, gobsmacked incredulity, but deep-space cool. Paul Howlett
Quantum of Solace, (Marc Foster, 2008), 8pm, ITV2
Daniel Craig’s James Bond returns – and he’s got the hump. His desire to avenge the death in Casino Royale of Vesper Lynd makes him more lethal than ever in pursuit of the obligatory global villain, Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), who plans to corner the market in, er, water or something. Anyway, it’s an action-crammed assignment that would make Jason Bourne blanch. Paul Howlett
Live sport
Rugby League World Cup: England v France The final match in Group A from Perth, Australia. 9.30am, BBC Two
Tennis: ATP World Tour Finals Day one of the top-eight tournament at London’s O2. 2pm, BBC Two
World Cup Football: Switzerland v Northern Ireland The second leg of the play-off from Bern. 4.30pm, Sky Sports Main Event
