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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Jonathan Wright, Mark Jones, David Stubbs, Andrew Mueller, Hannah J Davies and John Robinson

Wednesday’s best TV

Excellent primer … Alastair Sooke presents Treasures of Ancient Greece. Photograph: Dan Goldschmied/
Excellent primer … Alastair Sooke presents Treasures of Ancient Greece. Photograph: Dan Goldschmied/BBC

World’s Richest Terror Army
9pm, BBC2

How has Islamic State come to control so much territory? Investigative reporter Peter Taylor follows the money, charting how the group gathers funds from oil sales, ransoms, extortion and selling permits to loot treasures from archaeological sites. Featuring an interview with captured Isis leader Abu Hajjar and, depressingly, much about how and why the US detention centre Camp Bucca effectively became a recruitment and even a training centre for jihadists. Jonathan Wright

The Island With Bear Grylls 9pm, Channel 4

Grylls’s live-action take on The Sims continues, with the gender-specific groupings increasingly careworn with castaway life. On both male and female islands, empty stomachs are a concern. Ripe conditions for the men to attempt entrapping a calorie-rich caiman, a crocodile-like reptile as unappealing as a Google image search suggests. Over on women’s island (9pm, Thursday), the islanders may have finally found some suitable food, but an uninvited guest in the shape of a tornado threatens to disrupt dinner. Mark Jones

Autopsy: The Last Hours Of Robin Williams
9pm, Channel 5

Latest in the series in which forensic pathologist Dr Richard Shepherd looks into the reasons for the untimely deaths of celebrities. In past editions, he has dissected the fates of Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson; Tonight it’s the turn of Robin Williams, found dead at his San Francisco home in August, leading to an outpouring of grief as the nature of his struggles came to light. Many will argue it’s too soon for such a programme, which despite its patina of sober analysis, feels more like morbid gawping. David Stubbs

Treasures Of Ancient Greece
9pm, BBC4

Final episode of Alastair Sooke’s excellent three-part primer on the artistic legacy of Ancient Greece. This episode, subtitled The Long Shadow, considers the enduring resonance of a few especially significant Greek relics, including Praxiteles’ Aphrodite of Knidos, which Sooke credits as the first great female nude, the bronze Horses of St Mark, which were looted and paraded by an assortment of point-proving empires, and the Discobolus Palombara, an exemplar of the male physical ideal whose previous owners include Adolf Hitler. Andrew Mueller

Jane The Virgin
9pm, E4

Like fellow telenovela remake Ugly Betty, this US take on a Venezuelan series gets straight to the point with its name. Jane (Gina Rodriguez) is a trainee teacher, waitress and all-round grafter who has made a pledge to her grandmother to eschew sex until marriage. Yet her plans of an idyllic future with boyfriend Michael (Brett Dier) are derailed in this opener, when a gynaecological mishap sees her accidentally artificially inseminated with her boss’s sperm. An endearing dramedy with nods to the twisty-turny tradition of Latin American soaps. Hannah J Davies

The Delivery Man
9.30pm, ITV

There’s an odd mix of ingredients in this sitcom about a policeman-turned-midwife. Written by the team that made Channel 4’s strange, funny Green Wing, and featuring the offbeat skills of Darren Boyd, it is very much an ITV primetime comedy. The result is some verbally dexterous stuff from Boyd, alongside Paddy McGuinness’s likable gurning, and a farce-heavy plotline, in which an expectant father has trouble remembering which room he’s meant to be in, while Matthew makes the error of offending nurse Lisa’s boyfriend. John Robinson

Sensitive Skin
10pm, Sky Arts 1

The remake of the UK sitcom of the same name gathers pace. A decade on from Sex And The City, Kim Cattrall (as Davina) is still able to pull off the role of glamorous woman coping with midlife crisis with practised aplomb. Tonight, affected by brother-in-law Roger’s rant about the arts, she decides to offload her Christmas gift of piano lessons on to husband Al. Though Al is bored by the monotony of the warm-ups, piano teacher Greg takes a shine to Davina and shares with her his passion for archaeology. DS

Today’s best live sport

WTA tennis: Porsche Grand Prix The first round of the tournament in Stuttgart. 11am, BT Sport 2

IPL cricket: Sunrisers Hyderabad v Kolkata Knight Riders T20 action from Visakhapatnam. 11am, Sky Sports 1

Test cricket: West Indies v England Day two of the second Test from Grenada. 2.30pm, Sky Sports 2

Uefa Champions League: Real Madrid v Athletic Madrid The second leg of the derby-cum-quarter final in Madrid. 7pm, Sky Sports 5

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