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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Jack Seale, Jonathan Wright, Ali Catterall, Hannah Verdier, David Stubbs, Andrew Mueller, Hannah J Davies and Paul Howlett

Thursday’s best TV: What Britain Buys; New Blood; Ramsay’s Hotel Hell

Mary Portas finds the facts in What Britain Buys.
Mary Portas finds the facts in What Britain Buys. Photograph: Sundog Pictures/Channel 4

What Britain Buys
8pm, Channel 4

Flat shoes, triathlon equipment, Gucci blouses, gourmet dog food, mismatched lounge furniture and vinyl records: these things define Britons in 2016, according to our spending habits and according to Mary Portas. Never short of a cliche, and always keen to use buzzphrases such as “she sheds” (sheds that are nice and therefore must belong to women), Portas offers a shallow but engaging peek at underlying social trends. Underwhelming statistics are up 6% on last week. Jack Seale

New Blood
9pm, BBC1

After a strong opening, the buddy-investigators drama loses its way. What’s gone wrong? One answer is there’s still too much introducing-the-characters going on, making this mid-season episode come across like a pilot. Tonight, Stefan is drawn into an investigation centred on the construction of London skyscrapers and Rash visits a building site where a labourer has died. Jonathan Wright

Freud: Genius of the Modern World
9pm, BBC4

Bettany Hughes concludes her look at zeitgeist-shaping thinkers. Tonight: the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, who got some stuff right (PTSD; the fact that memories are physically stored in the brain) and, many argue, a lot wrong, too (the emphasis on sex in human development). As Hughes says: “Not just pop science, but positively bad science.” AC Grayling adds: “It may not even be science at all.” Ali Catterall

Ramsay’s Hotel Hell
10pm, Channel 4

A new series of Gordon Ramsay’s journey across the US begins, and once again the expletive-loving chef is off to turn around the worst hotels. First stop is Island Park, Idaho, to meet Dede and Dave, the owners of Angler’s Lodge, where the rooms are dated and the food is below par. They receive Ramsay’s trademark bellowing treatment, but what is really flooring the couple is their struggle to move on from a family tragedy. Hannah Verdier

Euro 2016
7.15pm, ITV

At the time of writing, Euro 2016 has been low on goals and low on humdinger matches. Maybe that’s fatigue, or maybe it’s to do with the low-risk, low-jeopardy nature of the new, expanded format. We’re at the knockout stage now, the business end, so we can only hope that class overcomes caution. Portugal and Poland contest tonight’s quarter final. David Stubbs

The Kaws Effect
9pm, Sky Arts

Profile of the artist Kaws, which works its way back from his 2016 exhibition of mournful toy sculptures at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Kaws – AKA Brian Donnelly – adopted his pseudonym from his graffiti tag when spraying the fixtures and fittings of Jersey City and New York, before graduating to animating for Disney, and then to designing clothing, toys and sundry pop-culture baubles, including the latest update of the MTV awards’ astronaut trophy. Andrew Mueller

Most Haunted
10pm, Really

Britain’s premiere ghost hunter, Yvette Fielding, returns for a new series of the paranormal activity roadshow. This week she’s at the Lyceum Theatre in Crewe, where a ballerina who died in the dressing rooms reportedly roams. Fielding delights in explaining why theatres and prisons in particular are replete with all kinds of spirits, while a pound-store Derek Acorah named Fred waves a candle about. Really bizarre, just not in the way they think it is. Hannah J Davies

Harrison Ford in The Fugitive.
Harrison Ford in The Fugitive. Photograph: Sportsphoto Ltd/Allstar/Warner Bros

Film choice

The Fugitive, (Andrew Davis, 1993), 10pm, ITV4

Harrison Ford is poor doc Richard Kimble, fitted up for his wife’s murder by a mysterious one-armed man, and interminably on the run while trying to prove his innocence. Ford looks suitably hunted and haunted, and gallops through the big action set-pieces, but Tommy Lee Jones, as the wily marshal on his trail, is the real star. Paul Howlett

Today’s sport

Wimbledon The second round continues in SW19. Live coverage throughout the day with Sue Barker, joined by Tim Henman and newcomer Lleyton Hewitt. 1.45pm, BBC1

Cycling: Tour de France Not actual racing, but an amuse-bouche for the Tour de France as the teams present their lineups. 3.45pm, Eurosport 1

Major League Baseball New York Mets host Chicago Cubs. 12midnight, BT Sport 1

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