Christian Louboutin: The World’s Most Luxurious Shoes
9pm, Channel 4
Louboutin shoes can cost £6,000 a pair but the justification is that you’re buying an artwork you wear on your feet. The seldom-filmed Louboutin himself is a hip, charming and quotable fellow (“Taylor Swift goes fetish,” he explains of one lace-up), and seems at ease everywhere. Louboutin supplies the rich but has a factory girl model his creations pre-manufacture, remodelling as he goes. “I’m trying a Mariah Carey,” he says as he chops at one design. “Less shoe. More flesh.” John Robinson
New Tricks
9pm, BBC1
In the conclusion to a two-parter rooted in Gerry’s Life On Mars-style adventures amid corrupt coppers back in the day, things aren’t looking good for the venerable thief-taker. Specifically, he’s in the frame for murder. Luckily, Gerry has friends on his side and so (slight spoiler ahead) Dennis Waterman’s final episode plays out with Gerry trying to prove his innocence. Entertaining enough to make you wonder if the BBC decision to cancel the show was perhaps premature. It’s a guilty pleasure but it’s all right, is New Tricks. Jonathan Wright
Are Our Kids Tough Enough? Chinese School
9pm, BBC2
Second episode of this gimmicky but instructive experiment in which teachers from China attempt to bring to bear the rigours of their country’s education system upon a class of teenagers at Bohunt School in Hampshire. As might be expected, there is a measure of mutual culture shock, the kids baffled by the almost martial discipline, the teachers bemused by the relative shiftlessness and entitlement of their charges. As the gulf of incomprehension grows, the headteacher intervenes. Andrew Mueller
The Great British Benefits Hotel
9pm, Channel 5
Tweeters present your weapons, because here comes another slice of poverty porn from the Britain On Benefits Season. Does Channel 5 make shows about anything else? With the housing crisis at its peak, hotels are being used to give the homeless a place to lay their heads. They might be families with children or people desperate for the chance to get their lives together after drink and drug problems. These sorts of shows aren’t renowned for sensitivity, using “handouts” hysteria to whip up a frenzy. Hannah Verdier
Scrappers – Back In The Yard
10pm, BBC2
Second series for the docusoap following Bolton scrapyard owner Terry Walker and his wife Lyndsay. As we rejoin them, the future of the business looks shaky: the former multi-million-pound empire has painfully winched its way up from liquidation, and there’s a health and safety disaster on the cards. But there are lighter moments, too: with Lyndsay’s 50th on the way, someone has written “Happy B-Day” in her card. “B-Day?” comes the reply. “Isn’t that what you wash your arse in?” Continues on Wednesday. Ali Catterall
Aquarius
9pm, Sky Atlantic
Strange new crime drama, this. Set in the 1960s, it stars David Duchovny as a fictional LAPD detective investigating the disappearance of a friend’s daughter. Turns out the teenager has come under the spell of Charles Manson. Creator John McNamara has described this series as “historical fiction”: it takes place against the backdrop of real events, such as California’s anti-hippy curfew, and it involves real people like Manson, yet the plot, which will unfold over a full season, is entirely made up. A conceit too far? David Stubbs
The Totally Senseless Game Show
10.30pm, BBC3
This spoof gameshow, part of BBC3’s disability season, has the deliberately contentious premise of “disabling” its celebrity contestants. Those involved seem so eager to take part they were presumably in on the joke, with politicised presenter Rick Edwards going beyond the call of duty in a blindfolded round called Flick It, Sniff It, Lick It. It’s surprisingly good fun, though the backstage sketches where host Martin Dougan has to deal with TV production toadies unable to see past his wheelchair are less successful. Graeme Virtue
Film choice
Van Helsing (Stephen Sommers, 2004)
11pm, Film4
According to movie lore, vampire-hunter Van Helsing is a wise, slightly frail old chap in the Peter Cushing mode. But in this hyperactive horror spoof, Stephen “The Mummy” Sommers transforms him into Hugh Jackman’s crossbow-wielding warrior, half Indiana Jones, half his own Wolverine from the X-Men movies. A spectacular CGI-heavy yarn involving a monstrous hunchback of Notre Dame, Count Dracula and his flying vampirettes, the Frankenstein monster, the Wolf Man, and a gutsy damsel in distress (Kate Beckinsale). Paul Howlett
The Hand That Rocks The Cradle (Curtis Hanson, 1992)
11.25pm, BBC1
Rebecca De Mornay is splendidly icy as the nanny from hell, a sort of anti-Mary Poppins who terrorises the family she blames for all her woes. It’s efficiently handled by Hanson but he might have been more a little more subtle in his shading: the tone borders on a hysterical, two-year-old’s tantrum, when some of the play on the parents’ fears suggests he might have nurtured a genuinely scary movie. PH
Today’s best live sport
International Women’s Test Cricket: England v Australia Opening day of the Ashes Test, held at St Lawrence Ground in Canterbury. 10.30am, Sky Sports Ashes
SPFL Football: Dundee United v Dundee The Scottish top-flight season continues with a lively local derby. 7.30pm, Sky Sports 1
Speedway: Somerset Rebels v Edinburgh Monarchs The Oak Tree Arena in Edithmead hosts the final Premier League clash of the season for both of these teams. 7.30pm, Sky Sports 4
