Can You Keep a Secret?
9.30pm, BBC One
A super-funny new sitcom created and written by Simon Mayhew-Archer (producer of This Country and Such Brave Girls) and directed by Simon Hynd (Ghosts, Motherland). Recently widowed Debbie Fendon (Dawn French, on top form) needs to confess a secret to her grownup son Harry (Craig Roberts): his oddball father William (Mark Heap) isn’t actually dead. In fact, he’s hiding in the house after his £250,000 life insurance came through. Will Harry keep the family secret? And what about the widows’ club that’s popping round to support Debbie? Expect kooky hijinks and stupidly hilarious one-liners as we find out whether they can get away with it. Hollie Richardson
Patience
9pm, Channel 4
Ella Maisy Purvis returns as autistic archivist Patience, assisting York police with their most baffling cases. But her new boss DI Monroe – a brilliantly bolshy Jessica Hynes, literally roaring into the show on a motorcycle – isn’t exactly big on inclusivity. Perhaps a vampire-coded killing will provide a chance for them to bond. Graeme Virtue
Digging for Britain
9pm, BBC Two
Prof Alice Roberts starts a new series of archaeological finds in the north-west of Britain. Near Penrith, a team unearths one of the largest Roman cemeteries ever found in Britain, while in Bradford, artefacts from a compound where a Somalian community was paid to live and perform for the 1904 Bradford Exhibition are uncovered. HR
Grantchester
9pm, ITV1
A sleepy period crime drama returns for season 10. Alphy (Rishi Nair) is a hit with his parishioners, and specifically with a local librarian – but the main characters’ personal lives have to be put on hold once again when a protester against the commercialisation of Christianity apparently kills himself. Geordie (Robson Green) suspects rotten malfeasance. Jack Seale
Surgeons: A Matter of Life Or Death
9pm, Channel 5
“I haven’t got a life at the moment … it’s crippling.” Army veteran and amputee Luke is suffering with constant, excruciating nerve pain. Alongside tongue cancer patient Julian, his much-needed operation is sensitively – if graphically – captured in a new series filmed at University Hospitals Birmingham. Hannah J Davies
The Murder of Laci Peterson
11pm, Channel 4
On Christmas Eve 2002, a media frenzy was sparked in the Californian city of Modesto, when an eight-month pregnant 27-year-old, Laci Peterson, disappeared from her home. This six-part documentary explores the events that followed, with the police instantly suspecting her husband, who claimed his innocence. HR
Film choice
Trafic (Jacques Tati, 1971) 3.30pm, Talking Pictures TV
The last film by Jacques Tati to feature his much-loved Monsieur Hulot character takes aim at our obsession with motor vehicles. He stars as a designer for a car firm who is attempting to get his latest model, a gadget-stuffed campervan, from France to a motor show in Amsterdam. There is a lot of Tati’s trademark physical comedy revolving round the odd things we do while driving, including a delightfully balletic car crash scene, while the business world is depicted as a frantic mix of efficiency and idiocy. Simon Wardell
