Grace, Celebrity Ex on the Beach plus the return of Race Across The World… here’s your TV all sorted for this week
Imagine being stuck with someone for a 12,000km journey across the world, where no mobile phones, flights, fancy hotels, luxury transport, or bank cards are allowed.
These are the rules contestants of BBC1’s Race Across The World must adhere to, as they race from Palermo on the island of Sicily all the way to a remote village on the shores of Lake Hovsgol, in northern Mongolia via Italy, Greece, Turkey, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
For the sixth series of the Bafta-winning competition programme, five new civilian pairs put their relationships to the test and use the cash given – less than £26 per person per day – to try and cross the finish line first and win a cash prize of £20,000.
Race Across The World returns this week, and is one of the highlights of another packed seven days on TV, with plenty of new shows to watch out for. Here’s our top five that you won’t want to miss…
Tenacious detective Roy Grace returns as a chilling new crime wave grips Brighton—but will his personal demons hamper his pursuit of justice?
SERIES
Grace: ITV1, Sunday at 8pm
Peter James began publishing his Roy Grace series of crime novels in 2005. They were instant bestsellers, but it took 16 years for them to be turned into a TV series. Since then, ITV has wasted no time churning them out – only five years on, and we’re about to welcome the sixth season. John Simm and Richie Campbell return as DSI Roy Grace and his sidekick DS Glenn Branson respectively; the first episode of the new run is based on Left You Dead, the 17th novel to feature the characters. This time they and the rest of the Brighton team investigate a woman’s disappearance. It begins as a routine task, but soon turns into the most challenging case of Grace’s career, one that leaves him – literally – without a clue.
Bittersweet love story Babies with Paapa Essiedu and Siobhán Cullen comes to BBC1 this Monday
SERIES
Babies: BBC1, Monday at 9pm
Siobhán Cullen, Paapa Essiedu, Charlotte Riley and Jack Bannon head the cast of the latest series from Stefan Golaszewski, writer and creator of the Bafta-winning comedies Him & Her and Mum. But while we are promised some humorous moments during the six episodes, this is very much a drama. It focuses on thirty-something Lisa and Stephen (Cullen and Essiedu) who are madly in love and long to complete their lives by having a child. However, they’re about to face a nightmare of miscarriages, something they must deal with alone while everyone else appears to be getting on with their lives as normal. Riley and Bannon play their friends, Amanda and Dave, who are facing their own relationship issues.
Looking for a new dating show to watch now that Love Island has come to an end? You’re in luck, Celebrity Ex on the Beach returns this week with Daisy May Cooper on hosting duties
REALITY
Celebrity Ex on the Beach: Paramount+, from Tuesday
The programme is returning for its fourth series, and with a new narrator too. Comedy star Daisy May Cooper is entrusted with commenting on the potentially raunchy goings-on, with those in the know at the streaming service describing it as the “most explosive season yet”. Eight famous folk (if you’re a soap or reality show viewer anyway) are set to take part – ex-Coronation Street actress Helen Flanagan, Towie’s Dani Imbert, Love Island star Toby Aromolaran, one half of Jedward, John Grimes, Married at First Sight’s Amy Kenyon, Chase DeMoor and Izzy Fairthorne from Too Hot to Handle, and Love is Blind’s Freddie Powell – but their efforts to find romance on Tenerife may be scuppered by their former other halves.
Explorer Bertie Gregory uncovers the hidden world of bees, revealing their vital role in pollinating the world’s food and their astonishing intelligence
DOCUMENTARY
Secrets Of The Bees: Disney+, from Wednesday
To kick off Disney+’s Earth Month initiative, which hopes to inspire greater curiosity in the natural world through storytelling, explorer Bertie Gregory hosts a two-part study of one of the world’s best pollinators. State-of-the-art technology captures never-before-filmed moments of bees in the wild, accompanied by expert analysis from entomologist and fellow explorer Dr Samuel Ramsey. The first episode pays tribute to the broomstick bee’s architecture and the remarkable talents of the meat-eating bee of the Amazon rainforest. In the second instalment, Dawson’s bees battle for mates and honeybees come under threat from the global spread of varroa mites.
Much-loved, Bafta-winning series Race Across The World returns to iPlayer and BBC1 for a sixth series this week
TRAVEL
Race Across The World: BBC1, on Thursday at 8pm
Strap in for more escapism – everybody’s favourite travel show is back. The latest race begins tonight in Palermo on the island of Sicily and to reach the first checkpoint, the teams must traverse through southern Italy. A ferry across the Tyrrhenian Sea could propel them straight to Naples, or they could choose to travel through the rugged region of Calabria. Once in Puglia, the race continues across the Adriatic towards the first checkpoint on the Greek island of Kefalonia. Over the next few weeks, we will become well acquainted with the five pairs taking part. They are best friends Jo and Kush from Liverpool, Manchester siblings Katie and Harrison, Molly and her father Andrew, Puja and her cousin Roshni, and this season’s ‘unlikely duo’ Mark and Margo.
