The best TV this weekend: Ryan and Rob’s footie adventure keeps hitting the back of the net

Friday

Disney+

In 2020, Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney’s takeover of then fifth-tier Wrexham AFC may have seemed like a celebrity indulgence.

But the cynics have been proved wrong. As season three of the series kicks off, Wrexham have risen to League Two. It follows the fortunes of both the men’s and women’s teams, the latter having also gained promotion to the Premier League. First two episodes available today.

​SUGAR

Apple TV+

Episode six of the slick mystery series with Colin Farrell as an old-school private eye with a passion for movies at large in modern-day LA is reportedly when the game-changing twist is revealed. Will it, as one US critic who’s seen all eight episodes claims, be “disastrous” for what’s so far been an intriguing series? We’ll know soon enough.

​CLARKSON’S FARM

Prime Video

Season three, filmed in 2022, finds Jeremy Clarkson’s agricultural adventure being squeezed from all sides. Does economic salvation lie in ventures like goat herding and pig farming? First four episodes today, the remaining four on May 10.

​GRANITE HARBOUR

BBC One, 8pm

Season two sees Aberdeen-based detectives Bartlett (Hannah Donaldson) and Lindo (Romario Simpson) faced with two seemingly unconnected murders to solve. Meanwhile, the city’s biggest crime family are looking to go legit.

​AVOIDANCE

BBC One, 9.30pm

Jonathan’s plan to break things off with Megan before Claire finds out is foiled by a dead cat.

​LIVE: LATE NIGHT LYCETT

Channel 4, 10pm

The comedian’s live show, a mix of sketches and celebrity chat, is a fun throwback to the early, chaotic years of Channel 4, which gave us The Tube, Saturday Live and After Dark.

Saturday

SPY/MASTER

BBC Four, 9pm & 9.50pm

If, like me, you’re a sucker for a good espionage thriller, this six-part Romanian series in the le Carré mould should be right up your shadowy alley.

Set during the Cold War, it stars Alec Secareanu as Victor Godeanu, the personal security adviser to dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu. When photographs showing he’s a secret agent for the Soviets fall into the wrong hands, he hatches a plan to defect, but his escape is threatened by political developments.

​TREASURES OF THE WORLD

Channel 4, 7pm

Bettany Hughes explores Azerbaijan, where the remote villages hold clues to the legends of the Amazons and feature concrete evidence that the Romans ventured much further into the Caucasus mountains than previously thought.

​HITLER’S POWER

PBS America, from 7.30pm

An incisive look at how Hitler rose from nowhere to turn Germany from a republic into a Fuhrer state — a transformation that’s still near-impossible to digest.

​SONGS OF IRELAND

RTÉ One, 8.25pm

Pat Shortt and Mike Hanrahan’s musical journey around the country takes them to Wexford, where they perform Old Woman from Wexford with JaXson (aka Luke Jackson), and then on to Wicklow, where they perform The Meeting of the Waters with NIMF (Aoibhín Redmond).

​TRACES

BBC One, 9.20pm

The second Scottish cop show of the weekend reaches its season two finale. The Dundee forensics team now know the identity of the incel terrorist bomber, who they fear may be heading into the city centre wearing a suicide vest. Is it too late to stop him wreaking more destruction?

Sunday

THE RESPONDER

BBC One, 9pm

Few dramas have put their central character through the wringer as relentlessly as season one of this series with Martin Freeman as under-pressure cop Chris Carson. Season two promises more.

Having narrowly extricated himself from a potentially disastrous situation involving a bag of drugs last time around, Chris is drawn into a drug war between two of Liverpool’s biggest dealers.

​IRELAND’S HIDDEN TREASURES

RTÉ One, 6.30pm

National Library of Ireland director Audrey Whitty tells a story of conservation, and examines how Traveller activism informs the National Museum’s Traveller Collection.

KEYS TO MY LIFE

RTÉ One, 7.30pm

Paul Howard, the man behind the phenomenon that is Ross O’Carroll-Kelly (and more besides), retraces his steps from a council estate childhood in Dublin’s Ballybrack to the house in Killiney that holds the memories of his mother’s final days.

​MICHAEL PALIN: THIS CULTURAL LIFE

BBC Four, 8.30pm

An engaging half-hour (if only it was more) in the company of Palin, who talks about, among other things, his youthful influences (The Goons loom large) and meeting Terry Jones, who became his closest friend and writing partner, in 1962.

​THE INCREDIBLY TALENTED LUCY

Channel 4, 10.05pm

Documentary about the first winner of The Piano, 13-year-old Lucy Illingworth, who is blind and neurodivergent.