Thursday’s best TV

Hugh Bonneville and Hugh Skinner in W1A. Photograph: Jack Barnes/BBC

The Last Days Of Charles I
8pm, Channel 5

The persistently impressive Mark Gatiss is joined by academic Hannah Dawson and the human rights barrister Geoffrey Robertson to dissect the life and death of Charles I, who ruled England, Scotland and Ireland from 1625 to 1649. The desire to try Charles for high treason saw the trial of the institution of the monarchy itself, and here the contributors examine whether Charles was the noble martyr who lost his life for both his country and his god, or a vain and deluded fool. Ben Arnold

W1A
9pm, BBC2

The glorious return of the BBC’s self-flagellating sitcom, whose second series begins with a one-hour special. Ian Fletcher (Hugh Bonneville) and co prepare for the impending royal visit of the Prince of Wales. Elsewhere, Jessica Hynes’s viciously stupid Head of BBC Brand, Siobhan Sharpe, attempts to mash-up the Beeb and Wimbledon, Entertainment Format Producer David Wilkes (Rufus Jones) has a title but not a show, and lovable doofus Will the intern might just have solved everyone’s problems by possessing a sister. Ali Catterall

Ice Rink On The Estate
9pm, ITV

This three-part series has followed ice-skating Olympians Torvill and Dean as they “give back” to their home town of Nottingham: training up a group of novice teenage skaters to perform on it, with this final episode housing the big “make-or-break” performance the genre invariably concludes with. “This has been one of our most rewarding things that we’ve ever done,” Dean tells his young charges. Let’s hope they got just as much out of the experience. Rachel Aroesti

Madam Secretary
9pm, Sky Living

New drama starring Téa Leoni as former CIA analyst Elizabeth McCord, who comes out of semi-retirement to replace the secretary of state after he is killed in a plane crash. She faces staff who hire her a stylist, stroppy teens back at home and a worry that her “masculine energy” is affecting her sex life. Elizabeth’s first job is trying to free a pair of travellers taken hostage in Syria. A promising pilot, it features a touch of The Good Wife’s gloss and the fabulously straight-talking Bebe Neuwirth as chief of staff Nadine. Hannah Verdier

Mad Men
10pm, Sky Atlantic

Mad Men may be in its final seven-episode stretch, but creator Matt Weiner is showing little urgency in wrapping things up. Last week’s episode crept along at a pace that many found disappointing, with much screen time devoted to one of the show’s least popular characters, Megan. All part of the bigger plan, you suspect, and this week’s outing looks set to nudge things up a gear, as Roger palms off a project on Don, Peggy and Pete have one of their occasional disagreements, and Joan heads off on a business trip. Gwilym Mumford

Inside No 9
10pm, BBC2

To a suburban semi, where Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith have gone a bit Mike Leigh. It’s Nana’s birthday party, thrown by Angela (Claire Skinner), the more successful of her two daughters. Into a house kept pristine by Angela’s crippling OCD blows bitter dipsomaniac Carol (Lorraine Ashbourne). Pemberton and Shearsmith are the golf-sweatered husbands waging a cold war via practical jokes. As one prank blows up a mass of secrets, the script slides effortlessly from funny to dark to desperately sad. Jack Seale