Wednesday

MotherFatherSon

9pm, BBC Two

Leaving Neverland

9pm, Channel 4

Richard Gere is always at his best when he is as sleekit as he is sleek, and the beautiful surface hides beneath it a bad guy or burn out. Never mind the officers, gentlemen and pretty women: the great Gere performances are in things like Internal Affairs, where he’s fantastically unsettling as the corrupt golden-boy cop, a silvery manipulator grinning with the warmth of a shark; or The Hoax, where his assured front thinly disguises a frantic, crumbling con-man.

At 69, as he makes his entrance in MotherFatherSon, he remains immaculate as ever. But fans of Gere’s shadier edges can relax. His character, incalculably wealthy media baron Max, is a complex emotional cocktail. But a lot of the mixture is pure bastard.

Created by Tom Rob Smith, who previously wrote London Spy and the excellent Assassination Of Gianni Versace, it’s a strange series. There’s a lot going on and much of it is quite awful. But enough is interesting to keep you watching, and, as it continues, it grows more hypnotic, thanks largely to Gere and Helen McCrory, who plays Max’s estranged ex-wife, Kathryn.

Around their divorce, Kathryn battled addiction, and now, decades later, she volunteers at a homeless shelter, where she meets a man with a kind face (Joseph Mawle), and strikes up a friendship. Meanwhile, Max has infinitely bigger fish to fry. As part of his international media empire, he owns a venerable British broadsheet, a position that has made him a kingmaker in UK politics. Elections are looming, and he is considering whether to put his weight behind his friend the current Prime Minister, or a new force rising from the margins, Angela Howard (Sarah Lancashire).

Elsewhere, we glimpse of another, hidden story, dark secrets waiting to be revealed. A young woman has gone missing. A private detective was tapping her phone, and, soon, he is murdered.

The stage seems set for a glossy, high-stakes thriller of politics, media and murder, but then something else happens, and the show goes spinning off somewhere else again. Max and Kathryn have a twenty-something son, Caden (Billy Howle), who Max has installed as editor of his newspaper. From the first, it’s clear that Caden, while trying to live up to what he imagines is his father’s alpha vision for him, is lost and drowning. When he is struck down by an unforeseen calamity, Max and Kathryn are suddenly pulled out of their separate worlds and thrown back together, trying to remember how to be the parents they once were.

At times, Smith’s script is excruciatingly “written,” with characters delivering reams of silver-plated, tin-eared dialogue (in episode one, this climaxes in a spectacularly misconceived sex scene), and the show’s grasp of press and media feels five years out of date. It’s also difficult to see how the story will justify its eight-part run. And yet, the interplay between Gere and McCrory is enough to stick with it. They form into a binary, off-on code. Gere dominates scenes by having a glacial, partly absent air, whereas McCrory is always, absolutely, burningly, “there.” He’s the bigger name, but, at least across the first couple of episodes, this is her show. Amid all the mannered gloss, she sets a human heart beating. She’s fantastic.

While MotherFatherSon goes out on BBC Two on Wednesday, Channel 4 is broadcasting Leaving Neverland: Michael Jackson And Me, which has already become one of the year’s most talked-about documentaries. Dan Reed’s film tells the stories of James Safechuck and Wade Robson, who, as children, were separately befriended by Jackson, and became regular guests at his Neverland estate – where, they allege, they were subjected to sustained sexual abuse by the singer. Going into graphic detail about their claims, the two-part film, which concludes Thursday, is a grim, disturbing watch.

DAILY HIGHLIGHTS

Today

Faithfull: The Marianne Faithfull Story

9.30pm, BBC Four

By turns imperious, cranky and charming, the magnificent Marianne reluctantly talks through her life and career in this intimate portrait, filmed by the great French actor-turned director Sandrine Bonnaire. Faithfull covers the territory from her “discovery” aged 17 through to her most recent recordings, discussing along the way her parents, her relationship with Mick Jagger, the Redlands bust, her homeless years spent living on a wall doing heroing and reading William Burroughs, and her return to music as a different kind of singer in the mid-1970s with the essential Broken English LP. She’s frank, but refuses to discuss matters beyond the point she’s comfortable. Around their recent interviews, Bonnaire assembles an evocative tapestry of archive footage. Why isn’t this showing in BBC Four’s Friday night slot, accompanied by an hour-long compilation of performances and a screening of Girl On A Motorcycle?

Monday

This Time With Alan Partridge

9.30pm, BBC One

Fleabag

10.35pm, BBC One

Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s awkward, filthy and heartfelt Fleabag returns for a second series, and finds her still confused, angry, horny and struggling to navigate a way through modern life while waves of cynicism, lifestyle pressure, self-loathing and hope crash against her. Things begin in spectacularly scathing style, when, during an uncomfortable family get together, she develops an irrational obsession with a priest (Andrew Scott). Your actual Oscar-winner Olivia Colman returns as the evil godmother, alongside Bill Paterson as Flea’s weary dad. Earlier, the excellent This Time really just gets funnier as it goes. Tonight, the magazine show is rocked by the news of the death of a much-loved broadcaster, and Alan competes to prove that he knew the deceased just as much as anyone else.

Tuesday

Derry Girls

9pm, Channel 4/

The Miracle

9pm, Sky Atlantic

A welcome second series for writer Lisa McGee’s full-on comedy about a gang of Catholic schoolgirls in the Northern Ireland of the 1990s. While Gerry Adams is on the TV news, inflicted with that bizarre dubbed voice, the girls are gearing up for a weekend “outdoor pursuits” trip, which will see them paired up with kids from a Protestant school, in an attempt at promoting peace and unity. Meanwhile, another word for The Miracle, the mesmerising Italian drama about the discovery of a statue of the Virgin Mary that constantly weeps human blood. In tonight’s double bill, mysteries continue to multiply as the lab sends a sample of the blood to the USA for DNA testing, and the search continues for the statue’s origin. Elsewhere, following his encounter with the miraculous object, debased priest Father Marcello struggles to set his life on a righteous track.

Thursday

Celebrity Apprentice For Comic Relief

9pm, BBC One

Yeah, I know, but it’s for a good cause, and Comic Relief hasn’t actually inflicted a Celebrity Apprentice on us for years now, so they’re allowed to do it. You know the drill – two teams of variously well-known faces split into (cough) “Girls” and (splutter) “Boys” to pull off a (ahem) “business” task. In this case, the task is putting on a cabaret night with 48 hours planning. For some reason. The girls are Amanda Holden, Ayda Williams, Kelly Hoppen, Rachel Johnson and Tameka Empson. The boys: Sam Allardyce, Omid Djalili, Richard Arnold, Russell Kane, Rylan Clark-Neal. Alan Sugar, Karren Brady and Claude Littner assume their usual positions, and the two-part series concludes tomorrow. Meanwhile, for actual nice entertainment featuring interesting people, look out for a repeat of the sublime Mortimer And Whitehouse: Gone Fishing, beginning on BBC Two at 7.30pm.

Friday

After Life

Netflix

In Ricky Gervais’s new one, he’s Tony, a writer on the free newspaper in a sunny English town, left spiralling through pain and depression following the death of his wife, Lisa (touchingly played in flashback by Kerry Godliman). Choking on life’s meaninglessness, meanness and misery, and lashing out, Tony can’t quite bring himself to commit suicide yet, so has decided to while away what’s left of his existence by saying exactly what he thinks about everyone and everything. He’s like a more embittered version of the Larry David of Curb Your Enthusiasm, but Gervais doesn’t build Curb’s manic air or escalating gags, opting for a numb tone that’s curiously apt. Many things don’t ring true – and it’s hard to see where the show can go, beyond a sentimental Scrooge-like journey to recovery. (Or suicide.) But the attempt at dealing with anger and grief feels genuine.

Saturday

Tutti Frutti

9.30pm, BBC Scotland

The only flame in town tonight, as the long overdue repeat of John Byrne’s majestic 1987 drama continues. The Majestics are deep in rehearsals for their grand anniversary tour, but all is not well in the camp. The lovelorn Danny (Robbie Coltrane) is pining after Suzi (Emma Thompson) and desperate to make contact, while Suzi is doing her best to suppress the urge to get in touch with him. Meanwhile, a much bigger problem emerges, as Vincent (the never better Maurice Roeves) reveals that his girlfriend Genna (Fiona Chalmers) is pregnant – which doesn’t go down well with Bomber (Stuart McGugan) in particular. Still: the show must go on! But as the band hits the road, there’s more bad news, as they discover their place on the bill. All this, plus some good advice on Rusks.