Danger Mouse: The Snowman Cometh
5.30pm, CBBC
Christmas is cancelled! The double-length special introduces a slightly against-type Brian Blessed as a subdued Santa, and a perfectly cast Richard Ayoade as rubbish villain The Snowman. This icy fiend has atrocious bad-guy patter (“Snow you won’t!”) and a dastardly plan to overcome his apparent vulnerability to mild heat. Can Danger Mouse and Penfold thaw Earth before Christmas morning? Stay alert for a Walking in the Air gag that’s a killer, even if you’re five and don’t get the reference. Jack Seale
Journey Down the Yukon – A Soldier’s Challenge
7pm, BBC2
Ben Parkinson holds the terrible distinction of being Britain’s worst-injured surviving veteran. In 2006, while serving in Afghanistan, the vehicle in which he was travelling hit an anti-tank mine, costing the paratrooper both his legs, and inflicting many other wounds. Canoeing Canada’s Yukon river is one of many challenges Parkinson has set himself since, in aid not only of furthering his own recovery, but also of raising money for those in similar situations. Both inspiring and humbling. Andrew Mueller
Cuffs
8pm, BBC1
Last in the Brighton police series. It’s Pride weekend, and the team prepare for an influx of hepped-up revellers in massive wigs. Against this cheery backdrop we get the now customary deluge of gloom: domestic abuse, drug dealing, post-traumatic stress. Unrelentingly bleak, it lacks writer Julie Gearey’s usual light touch and, after eight episodes, the characters still lie flat on the page. Like Casualty, the insistence on at least three dreadful things happening each episode leaves little room to develop the people and relationships. Julia Raeside
Love You to Death: A Year of Domestic Violence
9pm, BBC2
This one-off film from director Vanessa Engle tells the stories of the 86 British women killed by partners and exes over the course of just one year, 2013. As well as accounts from those left behind, the name of each and every victim is uttered at some point in the film, a poignant touch that emphasises the scale and diversity of domestic abuse today. Particularly affecting is Engle’s interaction with Abigail and Isobel, nine and seven, whose father is currently in prison for their mother’s murder. Hannah J Davies
Prey
9pm, ITV
Episode two of the series in which Rosie Cavaliero again finds herself in reluctant pursuit of an ex-Life On Mars star in a Fugitive-style scenario. Philip Glenister plays prison officer David Murdoch, handcuffed to MyAnna Buring’s prisoner Jules and leaving a trail of bodies in his wake. Tonight, they seek the boyfriend of Murdoch’s kidnapped daughter. There are fun moments, including an encounter with a charity mugger, but this show tells you more about the inner workings of programme commissioners’ minds than it does police forces. David Stubbs
Peep Show
10pm, Channel 4
A date mole-mapping. Super Hans’s stag night. Jeremy’s life-coaching love triangle. Instead of an elegiac vibe, the final series of Peep Show has kept things extraordinarily lively, while allowing its characters subtly to develop in something like a believable way. Jeremy is wrestling with the challenge of getting his act together and, at 39, beginning adulthood. Mark is pursuing love and history in one person. As Jeremy’s 40th approaches, Mark faces down the latest in a series of work crises and makes a last-ditch attempt to win back April. John Robinson
Legends of Standup Christmas Special
10pm, GOLD
Another outing for John Thomson’s comic creation Bernard Righton: a formerly blue club comedian who has attained a leftwing conversion, and reconfigured his act accordingly. Bernard acts as compere on this festive clip show, introducing archival Christmas pieces by the likes of Bill Hicks, Emo Phillips and Les Dawson – all “appearing” at his club. The archival jokes are a lot funnier than Thomson’s, which is probably the point, but which makes for strangely uneven viewing. JR
Film choices
2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968) 11pm, BBC4
Kubrick’s coruscating space saga boosted science fiction into a new orbit. The enigmatic story has an alien monolith overseeing humanity’s evolution from ape to star-child, with Keir Dullea as the astronaut taking another great leap for mankind. Hal, the loopy computer, gives the most memorable performance. Paul Howlett
The Rebel (Robert Day, 1961) 12.10am, ITV3
A guffaw-filled translation of comic legend Tony Hancock from small to big screen, this was scripted by Hancock’s brilliant TV writers Galton and Simpson. They have him shifting to the Left Bank in Paris, donning beret, and founding the Infantile School of painters. It’s very droll, and a sparkling British cast – George Sanders, Dennis Price, Irene Handl – are great fun, too, without overwhelming the lugubrious one. PH
Today’s best live sport
FA Cup football: Whitehawk v Dagenham & Redbridge A third-round tie at Everton awaits the victors. 7.30pm, BT Sport 2
Championship football: Hull City v Reading The Royals, who have just sacked manager Steve Clarke, travel to Hull and back. 7.30pm, Sky Sports 1
French League Cup: Paris Saint-Germain v Saint-Etienne Last 16 tie. 7.45pm, BT Sport 1
Basketball: Chicago Bulls v Memphis Grizzlies Inter-conference clash in the NBA. 1am, BT Sport 1
