Julia
9pm, Sky Atlantic
Sarah Lancashire returns as the 60s TV chef Julia Child for the second season of this charming drama. Julia and Paul (an equally wonderful David Hyde Pierce) are in France – with Julia feeling inspired by a loup en croûte that makes her feel like a virgin after one forkful. Back in the US, though, her editor, producer and best friend are getting antsy about her delayed return. It looks like this season is as much about their stories as Julia’s – and will be all the better for it. Hollie Richardson
Dragons’ Den
8pm, BBC One
Still going strong after 19 years (and still containing one original Dragon, the implacable Peter Jones), the venture-capital show returns. Tonight’s potential investments include a sock company that wants to create jobs for people with learning disabilities and a sunglasses company that seems to be on track already. Phil Harrison
Secret Life of the Safari Park
8pm, Channel 4
A combination of wild dashcam footage and safari-keeper interviews makes magic in this six-part series set at Knowsley, the UK’s longest drive-through safari park. Deer have roamed this land for centuries, but they sit somewhere down the species pecking order here, behind a pregnant Congo buffalo and a mischievous baboon troop. Ellen E Jones
Tonight: Can Your Diet Defeat Ageing?
8.30pm, ITV1
Twenty years after Gillian McKeith told people “you are what you eat”, Tonight’s Hayley Hassall explores the latest research to investigate whether eating the right food can help you live better as well as longer. So, what should you be eating to stay healthy in later years? Hannah Verdier
The Madame Blanc Mysteries
9pm, Channel 5
After its Christmas special, the amiable crime drama created by and starring Sally Lindsay returns for a new series. A marine biologist pockets a rare gold coin he finds during a dive, but then goes into cardiac arrest in the water. Definitely a job for Jean (Lindsay), who must investigate the possibility of foul play. PH
Mr Bates vs the Post Office: The Real Story
10.45pm, ITV1
To accompany ITV’s drama about the Post Office scandal, this startling documentary tells the story of one of the most egregious miscarriages of justice in British history. What really hits home is the brutal toll the accusations of theft took on the postmasters – and the jaw-dropping cynicism of the cover-up. PH
Film choice
Society of the Snow (JA Bayona, 2023) Netflix
The true story of the Uruguayan rugby team whose plane crashed high in the Andes in 1972 gets a dramatic but unsensationalised treatment from JA Bayona. The 16 survivors were forced to eat their dead fellow passengers, but here the cannibalism is merely one of many life-or-death struggles they face, from freezing temperatures to avalanches to attempts to seek help. Seen largely through the eyes of law student Numa (Enzo Vogrincic Roldán), it’s a gripping story of physical endurance, moral uncertainty and sheer bloody-mindedness. Simon Wardell
The 39 Steps (Alfred Hitchcock, 1935) 2.20pm, BBC Two
Along with The Lady Vanishes (showing immediately before), this espionage thriller is the highlight of Alfred Hitchcock’s British era. Robert Donat is Richard Hannay, forced on the run from London to the Scottish Highlands after a spy dies in his flat, and who involves Madeleine Carroll’s unwitting train passenger in his attempt to find out why. Pursued by police and shady killers, Donat and Carroll make a fun, sexy double act, bickering away while often handcuffed together. SW
Jour de Fête (Jacques Tati, 1949) 6.20pm, Talking Pictures TV
Jacques Tati’s debut feature was made before he had solidified his onscreen persona as Monsieur Hulot, so has a work-in-progress feel. Despite that, there is a familiar gangly, accident-prone quality to his character here, postman François, whose attempts to deliver the mail are stymied by the fair his village is staging. A film being shown about American postal efficiency fires him up, but his neighbours keep plying him with booze. Cue some of the best drunk cycling you’ll ever see, in a comedy that gives the rural way of life an affectionate ribbing. SW
• The headline and text of this article were amended on 5 January 2024. Julia is set in the 60s, not the 50s as an earlier version said.
