Sir David Attenborough: A Life On Earth
6pm, Eden
From a precocious passion for fossils to pursuing Komodo dragons while surviving on Mars bars, this one-off filmed during Attenborough’s 2013 Australian tour is a lovely collection of anecdotes from someone who occupies a singular space in British culture as both a surrogate grandfather and the sagest of boffins. He joins Aussie broadcaster Ray Martin for what is a must-watch event for committed Attenbros. Shame there isn’t more footage from his adventures. Hannah J Davies
Battle Of Britain: Return Of The Spitfires
8pm, Channel 4
Everything being well, these 75th-anniversary celebrations for Battle of Britain day will see 40 Spitfires and Hurricanes coming together at the Boultbee Flight Academy for a flypast. Here’s a doc that offers footage of the build-up and “exclusive aerial coverage”. Dermot O’Leary presents and meets some of the last remaining members of those Winston Churchill dubbed “the few” for their part in battling the Luftwaffe over a summer when Nazi invasion looked all too likely. Jonathan Wright
One Hundred And Eighty
8pm, Sky1
If Challenge’s recent reruns of Bullseye aren’t enough to sate your thirst for dart-flinging gameshow action, here’s Davina McCall and Andrew “Freddie” Flintoff with a modern take on the format. Members of the public team up with world-class dartsmiths to compete in a series of challenges, with a prize pot on offer for the victorious coupling. Safe to assume this won’t become as popular as its Bowen-boasting predecessor, but at least Sky’s budget should ensure plucky losers can afford a cab fare home. Mark Gibbings-Jones
The Gamechangers
9pm, BBC2
Daniel Radcliffe stars in this factual drama as Sam Houser, British co-founder of Rockstar Games, who with brother Dan turned gaming upside down and caused moral panic by leading the team driving the Grand Theft Auto franchise. An unauthorised take on the phenomenal success of the game series – the latest instalment earned $1bn in three days – it also looks at how Houser butted heads with Christian lawyer Jack Thompson (played by Bill Paxton), who was determined to stop the relentless rise of the game and its influence on children. Ben Arnold
Britain’s Biggest Adventures With Bear Grylls
9pm, ITV
New series in which the roughty-toughty bivouac man explores Britain while having all manner of self-induced scrapes as he continues his never-ending quest for thrillz. Tonight he hurls himself across Cardigan Bay on a rubber ring, free-dives to terrifying depths in search of a shrimp, and then runs up Snowdownia as an encore because he’s a big, meaty show-off who doesn’t understand the meaning of the word “slippers”. Still, with all of that khaki posturing, who knew he was scared of bats? Julia Raeside
Lucy Worsley’s Reins Of Power: The Art Of Horse Dancing
9pm, BBC4
Now the undisputed queen of TV history, Dr Lucy Worsley presents the “historical angle” on television’s most popular topics, from dancing to baking. This time, she brings animals into the mix, uncovering with her own participation how horse ballet (or “manège”) was once the noblest of pursuits, by which the great showed off their accomplishment. So much for the theory. Around the beasts themselves, Worsley is mighty jumpy. Can riding instructor Ben help her improve in the saddle? John Robinson
The Changing Room
10pm, Channel 4
High street changing rooms are the places where deluded visions of elegance are thwarted by pesky reality. And now they’re the basis of a new fashion show fronted by designer Henry Holland, secreting cameras into fitting rooms of major chains to achieve his mission objective of rescuing shoppers from fashion faux pas. Despite that voyeuristic premise – Oglebox, if you will – in reality it’s a traditional What To Wear offering featuring a host lively enough not to need such a heightened concept. MG-J
Film choice
Sherlock Holmes And The Spider Woman (Roy William Neill, 1944) 5.50pm, TCM
Never mind Downey Jr and Cumberbatch: here’s the best of the vintage B-movie series, starring Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Watson. The Baker Street sleuth faces Gale Sondergaard’s evil insurance swindler who dispatches her victims with venomous spiders and – trussed up behind a target (a cardboard Hitler) in a fairground shooting gallery, with dead-eye Watson taking aim – he may have met his match. Paul Howlett
Man On A Ledge (Asger Leth, 2012) 9pm, Film4
Framed for a jewel robbery and shoved in the slammer, there’s only one sensible course of action for good cop Sam Worthington: break out of jail, clamber out on a ledge on the 21st floor of New York’s Roosevelt hotel, and wait for the preposterous-stroke-ingenious plot to work its way round to finally proclaiming his innocence (or not). Ed Harris adds bad-guy heft to a tense and slippery tale. PH
Today’s best live sport
Snooker: Shanghai Masters Day two action from China, where the wildcard and last 32 rounds take place. 7.30am, British Eurosport
Champions League Football: PSV Eindhoven v Manchester United Opening group B fixture between the sides, as United return to European football after a season’s absence. 7pm, BT Sport 2
Chapions League Football: Manchester City v Juventus A City side looking to build on their strong start to the season take on last season’s beaten finalists. 7.30pm, BT Sport Ultra HD
- This article was amended on 20 September 2015. An earlier version said incorrectly that Jack Thompson was determined to have Grand Theft Auto banned.
