The week in TV: Better Off Dead?; Bridgerton; The Gathering; The Big Cigar – review

Daring to ask probing questions… Melanie Reid, left, and Liz Carr in Better Off Dead? Photograph: Burning Bright Productions Ltd/BBC

Better Off Dead? (BBC One) | iPlayer
Bridgerton (Netflix)
The Gathering (Channel 4) | channel4.com
The Big Cigar (Apple TV+)

Every so often, a documentary comes along that unnerves you so much you half-wish you hadn’t seen it. Better Off Dead? (BBC One) is one such programme. Presented by Silent Witness actor and disability activist Liz Carr, who’s had arthrogryposis – congenital joint contracture – since childhood, it delivers a passionate and coherent argument against assisted dying. An emotionally bruising slab of television, it’s about life and death itself.