This week's best telly includes the return of television's longest-running crime drama, a return to the Upside Down for Netflix as well as a brilliant new Channel 4 comedy and more.
Here are 7 TV shows you can't miss this week...
1. Silent Witness
Monday 23rd and Tuesday 24th May at 9pm on BBC One
As Silent Witness returns for its 25th series, the longest-running crime drama anywhere in the world welcomes back Amanda Burton as Sam Ryan to star for the very first time alongside Emilia Fox as Dr Nikki Alexander.
The new series opens in Liverpool with an assassination attempt and Sam Ryan calling on the Lyell team with a plea for help seventeen years after leaving the Lyell. Sam seeks to usher in democratic health care, but the shooting of the Health Secretary and Sam’s husband pulls Dr Nikki Alexander, Jack Hodgson and Simone Tyler into a world of duplicity, intrigue and betrayal.
When the credibility of DNA testing is challenged, the bedrock of forensic science is called into question. Now uncertain of who or what they can trust, the Lyell team’s investigation draws them into confrontations with echoes of their personal histories, which threaten to unravel their present.
1-2/6 Continues weekly
2. Ricky Gervais: Supernature
Tuesday 24th May on Netflix
As Ricky Gervais returns for his second Netflix stand-up special, SuperNature sees the comedian tackle the paranormal.
In SuperNature, Gervais debunks supernatural claims, insisting that nature is super enough without us throwing mysticism into the mix. But SuperNature isn’t just a love letter to sceptics. He also offers his take on the “rules of comedy” and admits to something that perhaps even science can’t explain: spoiling the hell out of his cat.
1/1
3. Big Boys
Thursday 26th May at 10pm and 10.30pm on Channel 4
Written, created and narrated by comedian Jack Rooke, Channel 4's new comedy Big Boys is about two boys from very different ends of the “spectrum of masculinity” who become best mates at Brent Uni Freshers Week 2013 and stars Jon Pointing alongside Derry Girls favourite Dylan Llewellyn.
Dylan's character Jack is a dweeby, sheltered, closeted boy from Watford, trying to overcome grief after his dad’s passing as well as figure out what he actually wants in life. His potty-mouthed mother Peggy, played by Camille Coduri, persuades him to take up a scholarship at a local uni so he can make something of himself and not just be stuck at home, masturbating and knitting blankets to sell on Etsy.
It's there that he meets Jon's character Danny, a typically loud and proud lads’ lad. Hailing from a run-down seaside town, Danny is a few years older than every other fresher, trying to live out a lost adolescence whilst confronting the demons of his own mental health.
Living in an ex-classroom shed on campus, the boys get thrown together by the enigmatic Jules, played by Katy Wix, the head of the SU who was once a student herself a decade ago and has just never, ever, left.
They soon meet Corinne, played by Izuka Hoyle, a sharp, study-centric Scot who’s also learning to let her hair down and Yemi, played by Olisa Odele, the savvy fashion kid who at 19 has already seen it all, done it all and begrudgingly guides this gang of misfits through Freshers and beyond.
In the first episode, with a newly dead dad and a bad perm, Jack is paired up to live in a campus outbuilding with lads' lad mature student Danny and these two mismatched freshers go on their first big night out.
Read my interview with Dylan Llewellyn here.
1-2/6 Continues weekly
4. PRU
Thursday 26th May at 10pm on BBC Three
After a successful pilot in 2021, BBC Three comedy PRU returns for a four-part series and follows a group of teens, each struggling to navigate adolescence in a pupil referral unit, a school for excluded kids.
Told through the eyes of four charismatic but complex young people, for whom sometimes even the smallest of obstacles can feel like the end of the world.
In the first episode, it’s Sienna’s first day at the PRU and a chance for a fresh start. She makes a new friend in troubled Belle, reunites with a frosty old schoolmate Jaeden and crosses swords with hyperactive Halil, who is refusing to take his ADHD medication.
When Halil’s behaviour threatens the class paintballing trip, Sienna takes matters into her own hands, with disastrous consequences.
Stars Nkechi Simms, Pia Somersby, Jaye Ersavas, Michael ‘MBbants’ Boahen, Tom Moutchi, Tolu Sona, Richie Campbell, Umit Ulgen and Hannah Walters.
1/4 Continues weekly. All episodes available at launch
5. The Flight Attendant
Thursday 26th May at 9pm and 10.05pm on Sky Max
Kaley Cuoco returns to star as Cassie Bowden in the second season of The Flight Attendant who is now living her best sober life in Los Angeles while moonlighting as a CIA asset in her spare time.
But when an overseas assignment leads her to inadvertently witness a murder, she becomes entangled in another international intrigue.
1-2/8 Continues weekly. All episodes available at launch
6. The Lateish Show with Mo Gilligan
Friday 27th May at 10pm on Channel 4
Fresh from his second BAFTA win for The Lateish Show with Mo Gilligan, Mo Gilligan will put the fun back into Friday nights with more games, sketches, music and chat.
As ever, Mo will be joined in the studio by a dazzling array of famous faces from the worlds of entertainment, music and sport alongside house band, The Compozers.
Across the series, we'll be treated to hilarious sketches featuring Mo's trademark characters, more iconic Nursery Grimes, unmissable music performances and one of a kind studio games where the audience could win some incredible prizes.
Not only that, the guests will have to face members of the public with some hilarious, risqué and never-before-asked questions in Reply or Deny. Will they be able to stomach the tough questions?
In the first episode of the series, Mo will be joined by guests including Top Boy actor and musician Ashley Walters, comedian and Loose Woman Judi Love plus dancehall legend Sean Paul.
1/8 Continues weekly
7. Stranger Things
Friday 27th May on Netflix
Ahead of a fifth and final season of Stranger Things, season four of Netflix's hit drama has been split into two volumes with seven episodes in Vol.1 and an epic two-episode conclusion in Vol.2.
It's been six months since the Battle of Starcourt, which brought terror and destruction to Hawkins. Struggling with the aftermath, our group of friends are separated for the first time - and navigating the complexities of high school hasn't made things any easier.
In this most vulnerable time, a new and horrifying supernatural threat surfaces, presenting a gruesome mystery that, if solved, might finally put an end to the horrors of the Upside Down.
1-7/9 Continues Friday 1st July