Living On The Edge: Blood In The Sea
7pm, Channel 5
New series exploring the world’s harshest natural environments, hosted by anthropologist, adventurer and honorary Royal Marine green beret Chris Terrill. Last time around, he sampled the Arctic and the Sahara. Now he’s kicking off his adventures in the north-west African nation of Mauritania, travelling from the northern city of Nouadhibou down to the capital Nouakchott, encountering fishermen working dangerous waters as well as finding hidden paradises along the way. Hannah J Davies
Great Continental Railway Journeys
9pm, BBC2
Michael Portillo nears the end of his latest rail odyssey and tonight he arrives in Israel. He travels north to south, crossing through contested territory, down into Jerusalem and on towards the Negev desert. It’s a mobile history lesson set to handsome photography, tinkling pianos and gentle guitars. Soothing and informative simultaneously, it works as both active lecture and passive, ambient soul balm. Who knew that Portillo would end up being quite good on television? Julia Raeside
Liberty Of London
9pm, Channel 4
The reality doc bows out just as the Christmas shop begins, which shows Liberty at its bustling best. If you’re a fan of watching rich people buying stuff, you’ll be in your element tonight as Stelios holds an exhibition of Hermes handbags for his VIPs. Back in Christmas land, there’s a polar bear to shift, there are new staff to be interviewed, and 200,000 baubles need to be unpacked. But with the festive season offering the sales team a chance to meet their targets, the pressure is on to make it the biggest one ever. Hannah Verdier
Benefits Britain: Life On The Dole
9pm, Channel 5
After Channel 4’s success/notoriety with Benefit Street – a series that turned several Birmingham benefits claimants into celebrities – here comes Channel 5 with a similar proposition. This new documentary focuses on Blackpool, a hotspot for real-life shows given the down-at-heel, rather Morrissey song-like character of the place. Out of season, one in four people here are on benefits. Tonight we meet residents such as Liz, a single mum whose benefits are cut when she misses an appointment at social services. John Robinson
Confessions Of A Secretary
10pm, Channel 4
The series charting changing social attitudes considers life in the office over the past 50 years. Sexism looms large as we’re initially taken back to “an age before women’s lib”, which was all too often a world of booze-fuelled gawping, gropes and worse. More positively, this is also a story of hard-fought victories in the ongoing battle for equality. There are jaw-dropping moments. Thatcher’s PR man Tim Bell reflects on what he used to look for in a secretary: “Somebody who was attractive.” Jonathan Wright
The Newsroom
10pm, Sky Atlantic
Aaron Sorkin’s drama has ultimately been let down by the charmlessness of its characters. For all their drive, erudition and idealism they are impossible to warm to or embrace as human, lacking the individual quirks of The West Wing cast. As the series draws to its conclusion, however, it’s a touch more compelling, with Will facing prison for refusing to reveal the source of his documents, Sloan and Mac trying to find an acceptable 11th-hour buyer for ACN, and Jim and Hallie face testing times as she takes on a new job. David Stubbs
Down East Dickering
10pm, History Channel
What with Lords Of War and the Dukes Of Haggle, there’s a certain quarter of American reality telly that increasingly resembles a Mad Max sequel. The bartering bargain hunters (or “Dickerers”) in Down East Dickering, set in Maine, even have a post-apocalyptic-style name for city-dwellers – “flatlanders”: the kind of folks happy to snap up ol’ Tony Bennett’s junkyard finds. Bennett’s sidekick, incidentally, is called Codfish. It’s that sort of show. Tonight they flog off a Coca-Cola sign and an old soda machine. Ali Catterall
