Worth Watching: 'Boybands Forever' and 'Shoot to Kill'

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Welcome to Worth Watching.

Thought to give you an early roundup on how the Christmas TV schedules are shaping up. We’ll have a lot of announcements in the next couple of weeks too.

The BBC has the finale of Gavin and Stacey (and a documentary special), the much-anticipated Wallace & Gromit film, the return of Outnumbered, and two episodes of Call the Midwife. Plus Doctor Who, Gladiators, a new WHAM! documentary, Death in Paradise, and Tiddler, a new Julia Donaldson animation.

ITV has a Dua Lipa concert special, a Katy Perry special (featuring music from her new album, you have been warned), the return of Bullseye with Freddie Flintoff, and the most random countdown of the year: TikTok Top 100 2024. Not sure how I can cope watching a show that will be nearly entirely in horizontal view.

Channel 4 will have specials of The Piano (of course they are), Christmas and Hogmanay specials of Bake Off (including the return of Norman, the baker who loved pesto), and the traditional Taskmaster New Year’s Treat. More announcements to come from them, I reckon.

Channel 5 will air a Christmas special of All Creatures Great and Small. Plus, The Good Ship Murder, a totally bizarre murder mystery drama starring Shayne Ward, where he sings at the end of every episode. No, really. He does. 

All in all, not bad actually. 

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FOUR SHOWS TO WATCH THIS WEEK

Boybands Forever (BBC Two, three episodes on iPlayer from Saturday 16th) - Sound the alarm! A three-part documentary looking at the rise and fall of some of the most known boybands in the 90s and 00s! Take That! East 17! Damage! Westlife!

Featuring a wealth of archive footage and interesting interviews from many of the pop stars themselves, this series looks at the reality of becoming a household name at such a young age. It looks at the pressures of the tabloid press and management, along with the well relentless tour schedule and hardcore fans.

What I like about it is that it encounters the light and the shade of being in a pop band, without an agenda. The series is made by Mindhouse, a production company co-founded by Louis Theroux. With a keen eye for detail, they have a track record in making thoughtful, provoking documentaries on different subjects, and this one continues that record.

I recommend their series on the Lockerbie bombing (on Sky Documentaries) and on the superstars of Snooker (on BBC iPlayer.)

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Shoot to Kill: Terror on the Tube (Channel 4, both episodes) - On the 22nd of July 2005, an innocent member of the public, an electrician called Jean Charles de Menezes, was shot dead by police at Stockwell tube station after being suspected of being a terrorist.

This two-part documentary looks at the catastrophic police failures that resulted in an innocent man’s death. It is one of those documentaries on a subject that you think you know already, because you saw it on the news at the time, but you then realise that you don’t really know at all. For example, being widely reported at the time, de Menezes had not jumped the ticket barriers in the way into the station.

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