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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Andrew Mueller, Mark Gibbings-Jones, Phil Harrison, Ben Arnold, Hannah Verdier, Graeme Virtue and Paul Howlett

Thursday’s best TV: Death in Paradise; Jericho; The Great British Sex Survey

Clarke Peters as Coates in Jericho
Cometh the hour: Clarke Peters as Coates in the final episode of Jericho. Photograph: ITV

Ugly House to Lovely House with George Clarke

8pm, Channel 4

The title leaves little to the imagination. This attempt to alleviate the (clearly) still debilitating shortage of property programmes sees architect George Clarke trying to find ways to tart up dowdy or dated properties. Here, Clarke addresses a grim, pebbledashed 1970s frump besmirching glorious Glamorgan countryside. With a budget of £60,000, Clarke hires architect Greg Blee to turn the house into something more sympathetic to its surroundings. Andrew Mueller

Death in Paradise

9pm, BBC1

Final visit to the Caribbean crime capital for the current series, but there’s no end-of-term gearshift downwards with holidaymaker-cum-hardcore reveller Sian seemingly killing herself on the eve of her return to Wales. With the body alone in a locked room and a pistol in the hand of the deceased, it’s surely a simple case for the Saint-Marie constabulary. However, the victim’s cohorts carry heavy baggage of the psychological and physical varieties, making this a weighty death for Humphrey to handle. Mark Gibbings-Jones

Sky Arts Failure season

8pm, Sky Arts

A two-week season celebrating the importance of misfires and malfunctions to the creative process. First up Computer Says Show, a documentary looking at an experiment to see if a computer can create a successful musical. Surely it can’t come up with anything worse than We Will Rock You? It’s followed by Behold the Monkey, a comedy about the Spanish pensioner who botched her attempt to restore a fresco of Christ, and then a documentary on the same subject. Phil Harrison

Jericho

9pm, ITV

ITV’s period railroad drama winds up series one, with Annie (Jessica Raine) and Johnny’s (Hans Matheson) relationship out in the open, following the events of the trial. The quarry is now also a success, although the discovery of a cavern may change the fortunes of the viaduct. Meanwhile, there is peril just round the corner when a mineshaft collapses, trapping the Blackwood brothers. Clarke Peters’s Coates may be the only man equipped with the skills to save them. Ben Arnold

The Great British Sex Survey

10pm, Channel 4

A post-watershed romp through the nation’s top 10 fetishes and kinks, based on a YouGov survey. It’s not for the faint-hearted, with interviews with ordinary people who get up to all sorts in the bedroom. Psychotherapist Philippa Perry and Belgian sexologist (that’s one hell of a job title) Goedele Liekens are on hand to offer a deeper understanding of the survey results and where desires come from. The overarching message is that there’s no such thing as normal, and Liekens is a straight-talking delight. Hannah Verdier

The Best of Bad TV: Prime Time Nightmares

10pm, Channel 5

A clip show’s talking heads are a window into its soul. This second series of cheerful barrel-scraping begins with primetime TV nightmares; your guides through small-screen landmarks such the talking dog on That’s Life and the fist-bitingly awkward reveals on Changing Rooms are perennial opinion-havers including Eamonn Holmes and Vanessa Feltz. A guilty pleasure at best, although these shows are fiendishly hard to turn off once you’ve chanced upon them. PH

Sleepy Hollow

9pm, Universal

Season three of the daft supernatural drama recommences, with 18th-century stuffed shirt Ichabod Crane (Tom Mison) adjusting to life in present-day Sleepy Hollow, a veritable hellmouth of demonic activity. The Headless Horseman has fallen by the wayside, so Ichabod and his FBI partner Abbie (Nicole Beharie) have a new nemesis: the Hidden One, a Sumerian god. But with Abbie MIA in another dimension, the series is robbed of its greatest asset: the sparky chemistry between Crane and his eye-rolling, badass foil. Graeme Virtue

Film Choice

Hellboy (Guillermo del Toro, 2004) 10.40pm, Film4

The first eyeboggling outing for the do-gooding demon who’s at war with hordes of satanic bad guys. Adapted from Mike Mignola’s comic book, it’s a brilliantly imagined cross between traditional superhero fare and gory horror, while Ron Perlman brings an unexpected tenderness to the hulking, cigar-chomping, red-skinned imp with the filed-down horns that is Hellboy. Paul Howlett

Jules et Jim (François Truffaut, 1962) 11pm, Sky Arts

One of Truffaut’s biggest hits, adapted from Henri-Pierre Roché’s novel about a joyful menage a trois overshadowed by the onset of the first world war. Austrian Jules (Oskar Werner) and Frenchman Jim (Henri Serre) both fall for Jeanne Moreau’s capricious Catherine, as their carefree days give way to a new fatalism. PH

Today’s best live sport

Australian Rules Football: GWS Giants v Western Bulldogs

Coverage of the NAB Challenge match at the Manuka Oval in Canberra. 8am, BT Sport 2

The Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships

More from the Aviation Club Tennis Centre in Dubai. 11am, Sky Sports 2

Europa League Football

Liverpool and Spurs are both in action tonight. 6pm, BT Sport 2

Premier League Darts

Round four from the Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre. 7pm, Sky Sports 1

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