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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Hollie Richardson, Graeme Virtue, Jack Seale, Ali Catterall and Simon Wardell

TV tonight: Paapa Essiedu stars in time-loop drama The Lazarus Project

Paapa Essiedu (left) as George in The Lazarus Project
Just an ordinary guy … Paapa Essiedu (left) as George, with Chris Fulton as Karl, in The Lazarus Project. Photograph: Simon Ridgway/© Sky UK Limited

The Lazarus Project

9pm, Sky Max

Here we go again (and again and again) with another mind-boggling time-loop drama. Paapa Essiedu is George – a seemingly ordinary guy who, after his pregnant wife gets sick in the pandemic, wakes up six months earlier to live all those days again. He learns about the Lazarus Project – a secret organisation that has harnessed the ability to turn back time whenever the world is at threat of extinction. Vitally, though, it can never be done for personal reasons. Hollie Richardson

Bradford on Duty

9pm, BBC Two

So far, this series shadowing public service workers in Bradford has been frank about the city’s social and economic problems. But if regeneration has been a buzzword, turning a disused mill into a cannabis farm is not what civic leaders had in mind. It falls to police community support officers Tom and Wojciech to sort it out. Graeme Virtue

Taskmaster

9pm, Channel 4

The final of yet another series that has found rich, warm chemistry between its five comics. Before the champion is revealed, mystery liquids must be identified (“Is it vomit?”) and Bridget Christie’s bow-legged dancing becomes a phenomenon. Jack Seale

The Real Derry: Jamie-Lee O’Donnell

10pm, Channel 4

O’Donnell claims to be nothing like her Derry Girls character Michelle – the “foul-mouthed teenager who wants to live life to the full”. One thing they do have in common: they are proudly Derry born and bred. Here, the actor explores what it is like to be a young person in Derry and chats with her co-star Saoirse-Monica Jackson. HR

The Midwich Cuckoos

10pm, Sky Max

The parents’ slow realisation that they have spawned little creeps is almost comical. “We could see that our children were special, not normal for their age – but we loved them,” one delusional mum says, embracing the fact that they all have the same stony stare and speak like droids. Then, an eventful day changes everything. HR

The Flight Attendant

11pm, Sky Max

As the dark comedy-drama continues, Cassie wakes up to find the naked CIA operative Benjamin in her bed – and potentially incriminating files in his office, which make her resemble a borderline sociopath. “I hate to say this,” Annie tells her, “but whoever is doing this to you is, um, killing it.” Then, Cassie hits the bottle again. Ali Catterall

John Cusack as Brian Wilson and Elizabeth Banks as Melinda, the woman he courts in Love & Mercy
John Cusack as Brian Wilson and Elizabeth Banks as Melinda, the woman he courts in Love & Mercy. Photograph: Roadside Attractions/Allstar

Film choice

Love & Mercy (Bill Pohlad, 2014), 11.15pm, BBC Two
Parallel timelines make Bill Pohlad’s fact-based drama about head Beach Boy Brian Wilson a more nuanced proposition than your typical rock biopic. Paul Dano plays the 1960s Brian, financially successful but pushing his artistic and mental boundaries with the (vividly recreated) production of Pet Sounds. John Cusack is the sadly diminished 80s Brian, under the thumb of therapist Eugene Landy (a sneering Paul Giamatti), but managing to court Melinda (Elizabeth Banks) – in his own odd way. Simon Wardell

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