TV Weekly: From the RAF to Jekyll and Hyde

Telly picks for the coming week…

With unprecedented access to RAF fighter jets, drones and service personnel, Top Guns: Inside the RAF returns for a second series, flying viewers straight to the frontline.

With tensions rising in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, the RAF must face down hostile threats to carry out some of its most audacious missions in decades. Cameras inside the cockpit bring viewers into the very heart of the battle – from secret spy missions over Syria to precision strikes in Yemen and intercepting Iranian drones threatening Israel.

Top Guns: Inside the RAF follows key characters in the air and on the ground at the RAF’s busiest operational airbases in the UK and abroad, at a time of high stakes and high drama. In this episode, over the Black Sea a rookie pilot is ordered to escort a top-secret British spy plane as it gathers intelligence on Russian military activity, only to face a threat which could spark all-out war.

In Cyprus, a young weapons engineer comes to terms with a deadly task, while in Romania, RAF jets rapidly redeploy as Iran threatens Israel.

Channel 4, Tuesday, January 4th at 9pm

Award-winning actor Reece Shearsmith draws us into the strange and eerie world of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, in Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic gothic novella exploring the duality of human nature.

Gabriel John Utterson, a London lawyer, is alerted to a series of strange occurrences involving his friend, Dr. Henry Jekyll, and a sinister figure named Mr. Edward Hyde.

Dr. Jekyll has been experimenting with a potion that transforms him into Mr. Hyde, allowing him to indulge in immoral acts without guilt. But as Hyde’s actions become increasingly violent, Jekyll struggles to control his transformations, and Hyde’s personality begins to dominate…

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: The Read with Reece Shearsmith is a series of outstanding performance readings of iconic British novels. Reese was filmed on location in Bradford, 2025’s UK City of Culture.

BBC Four, Sunday, February 2nd at 9 pm, also on the iPlayer

Meet the underdogs! They might be rescued, abandoned or just plain unruly, but these imperfect pooches all have one thing in common: they need a new purpose in life.

Hosted by Alan Titchmarsh, the series underdogs will be trained by experts to do incredible jobs. Each has a vision for what these dogs could achieve; from finding people lost in the wilderness, to rescuing from water, or a film stunt dog. Channel 5 join them for the highs and lows of the training process, but time is ticking… each of them must undergo a final challenge. Will these underdogs have it in them to become superdogs?

In the first episode, Alan Titchmarsh meets energetic Sprocker Spaniel Lychee and his owner, NHS nurse Corinthia. Lychee is a ‘Lockdown Dog’… and is completely uncontrollable off the lead as he follows new scents while on his walkies. Fire investigation dog trainer Clive Gregory is challenged with training Lychee to put that nose to good use to see if he can detect the exact location of substances used to start fires. In just four weeks, he will be put to the test at a fire training centre.

Elsewhere, Freddie the poodle’s attention is all over the place due to the four members of the Rothman family’s lack of discipline. To calm down this poodle, Alan introduces dog trainer Lucy Heath to the family to work on Freddie’s focusing – with the challenge of turning him into a doggy model! Lucy is well-versed in modelling having trained her own dogs appear in some famous commercials and TV shows. Freddie will not only need to behave under the bright lights and flashbulbs of a photography studio, but he will also need to look the part. Will father and daughter John and Gabby be able to get their distracted dog to pose for the cameras, and will his portfolio be good enough to grace the cover of a leading dog magazine?

Channel 5, Tuesday, February 4th at 7 pm

Murdoch Mysteries is back for a brand-new eighteenth series with Yannick Bisson playing methodical detective William Murdoch and Hélène Joy as his impassioned wife Dr. Julia Ogden.

Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, the much-adored star of the hit Kim’s Convenience, joins the cast as Albert Choi, a highly regarded Korean police officer. Murdoch’s associates include his gruff boss Inspector Thomas Brackenreid (Thomas Craig), Constables George Crabtree (Jonny Harris) and Henry Higgins (Lachlan Murdoch), and eccentric Detective Llewellyn Watts (Daniel Maslany).

The returning cast includes Shanice Banton as ‘Violet Hart’, Arwen Humphreys as ‘Margaret Brackenreid’, and Clare McConnell as ‘Effie Crabtree’.

In episode one when Murdoch and Crabtree participate in a battlefield re-enactment one of the pretend soldiers is murdered. As series 18 begins, Detective Murdoch finds himself something of a bachelor after Doctor Ogden took a posting at a new hospital in London, taking their daughter Susannah along.

The change has led him to rent out their family home and take up residence in a rooming house where the previous tenant was rumoured to have been murdered.

Despite his long-overdue promotion to Inspector after Brackenreid was appointed Chief Constable, he realizes solving crimes is what he does best. After he forfeits the role, the stationhouse welcomes Albert Choi, a highly regarded Korean police officer played by Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, the much adored star of the hit Kim’s Convenience.

U&Alibi, Thursday, February 6th at 9 pm

For the first time in 30 years, band members Ronan Keating, Keith Duffy, Shane Lynch and Michael Graham grant rare and exclusive interview access for this three-part Sky documentary series Boyzone: No Matter What. 

Revealing their personal experiences in a band that sold over 25 million records worldwide, the boys also talk candidly about how they grappled with the true cost of global fame. And to try and help close a chapter in their lives, they confront the strained relationships and tragic events that have had a lasting impact on all their lives, families and friendships.

This series is the story of one of the world’s biggest boy bands, behind their success, fame, fall outs and tragedy, it’s time to hear their story. They were one of the most successful and iconic boybands of all time – alongside Take That – but behind-the-scenes, conflict and rivalry, betrayal and tragedy led to their falling apart.

The programmes also feature their estranged manager, Louis Walsh as they all reveal the truth of what really happened, the extraordinary highs of their meteoric rise to fame, and the huge costs that being in a boyband had on each of them.

Sky Documentaries, Sunday, February 2nd at 9pm

Alan Titchmarsh has gone to the dogs with Channel 5