Corriedale, Celebrity SAS and Black Ops: TV highlights in early January

Waiting for the Out (Saturday 03/01/26, BBC1, 9.30pm)

Words by Rachael Popow

If you find yourself behind bars, then you probably have a lot of time to think.

Adapted from Andy West’s acclaimed memoir The Life Inside, this new six-part drama stars Josh Finan as Dan, a philosopher who begins teaching a class in a men’s prison.

To help him get into character, Josh spent a day with author Andy, which included going along to one of his classes. The actor, whose previous credits include a Bafta-nominated role in The Responder, definitely found the experience helpful.

He says: “I felt that very clearly that there was a big grain of truth within the scripts as there’s a lot written about the chaos of the prison and the sounds and feeling of the place. Plus of course there’s the rigmarole of handing in your phone at security, getting patted down, fob access for entry…”

Josh adds: “The crux of the first episode is how Dan feels during his first day of work, so for me as I was walking through the prison with Andy, I was really trying to think about how it felt. The whole process of entering a prison for the first time is stressful as it’s sensory overload, and I really wanted to try and use that and capture that feeling for work.”

However, while this may be all new territory for Josh, we discover that his character Dan actually has a lot of experience when it comes to prisoners. He grew up with a violent father (Gerard Kearns) who ended up behind bars, and his brother Lee (Stephen Wight) and uncle Frank (Phil Daniels) have also served time.

Josh explains: “Dan’s mum then re-married and Dan was brought up from around the age of nine to ten in a fairly middle-class environment with his mum and stepdad, and crucially he doesn’t go down the route his family members did.”

However, spending time discussing some of life’s big topics in the classes gets Dan asking himself some uncomfortable questions about his own life and relationships.

Josh says: “I don’t believe Dan would be able to articulate this himself, but I think he has a feeling of survivor’s guilt, as though he is somehow responsible for the continued wellbeing of his brother, for example.

“I think Dan is also running from the idea that somehow inside himself he is inherently a bad person. His new job complicates his life and day to day relationships and – without revealing too much – his new job teaching in a prison exacerbates those tensions and opens up a lot of unanswered questions for Dan that he finds inescapable.”

Suitably for a drama about a philosopher, Josh believes Waiting for the Out takes a thoughtful approach to the impact of prison.

He says: “The series looks at the long shadow that is cast over the lives of those that are impacted by the prison system and the incarceration of their loved ones… Personally, I don’t think I’ve seen a drama that looks just as much – if not more – at what goes on for those outside of the prison walls as well as prisoners inside of them.”

Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins (Sunday 04/01/26, Channel 4, 9pm)

Words by Rachael Popow

The first series of Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins aired in 2019, so in theory the famous faces should know what they are signing up for. They’ll be leaving all personal comforts and VIP treatment behind to be put through a condensed version of SAS training to see if they can make the grade.

However, this year there’s an extra twist as the celebs won’t just be trying to prove to themselves (and the viewers) that they are tough enough. Their national pride is also at stake as the series is pitting British and Australian celebs against each other in North Africa.

The directing staff are certainly looking forward to seeing who comes out on top. Rudy commented: “This is SAS: Who Dares Wins at its most dangerous, with blistering heat and a break-neck pace that will see even the strongest bite the dust. Australia and UK – a rivalry in sport but now going head-to-head in the art and brutality of warfare. North Africa is a blast furnace and the DS fan the fire until only the strongest remain.”

Ahead of the series, it seemed some celebs were still thinking of it in terms of a personal challenge. Britain’s own Dani Dyer said: “I’m a massive fan of the show. I’ve always watched it and wondered if I could do it. I want to put myself to the test. I’m nuts, but I think I will be good at it. I’ll be completely out of my comfort zone.

“I just hope that I will be able to stop listening to the voices in my head and just get to the end because that would make me so proud. I think physically I’ve got this. Mentally is what I’ll struggle with as my brain attacks me all the bloody time. I just want to believe in myself a little bit more and stop being a negative Nancy.”

Meanwhile, former Neighbours star Natalie Bassingthwaite said: “Turning 50 for me meant embracing new challenges. Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins was my opportunity to push my boundaries, test my limits, and prove that adventure truly knows no age!”

Former England rugby star Ben Cohen did acknowledge the rivalry thogh: “I wanted to take part to rediscover parts of myself but also to be tested mentally. We live with ourselves every day, so I wanted to test myself mentally and physically to try something really tough that would challenge my strength. It’ll be a good lesson for me.

“Facing the Aussies is going be very interesting. They might want to get the record straight, after 22 years of hurt…”

We’ll find out if he’s right tonight, when Dani, Natalie, Ben and the remaining celebs (Gabby Allen, Jessika Power, Jack Joseph, Cole Anderson-James, Toby Olubi, Graeme Swann, Brad Hodge, Emily Seebohm, Mack Horton, Axle Whitehead and Ryan ‘Toadie from Neighbours’ Moloney) face their first challenges.

After an underwater emergency escape task and a fierce Brits versus Aussies bout of hand-to-hand combat, it isn’t long before tempers start to fray.

Corriedale (Monday 05/01/26, ITV1, 8pm)

Words by Sarah Morgan

Anything Hollyoaks and Brookside can do, Coronation Street and Emmerdale can do better… maybe.

Last year, the Chester-based soap celebrated its 30th anniversary by resurrecting and joining forces with much-missed Merseyside serial Brookside. A week of episodes revealed what had happened to some of the latter’s residents, and how their lives were intertwined with those populating Hollyoaks.

It was a hit with viewers; some fans even suggested that Brookie should return to our screens on a permanent basis, 22 years after it ended its run.

Whether that will happen or not remains to be seen, but for those who enjoyed the fusion of soap worlds, only a few months later we’re getting another, and this time it features ITV1’s two titans of the genre – Coronation Street and Emmerdale.

The former celebrated its 65th anniversary last month, while the latter is its junior partner at just over 53 years of age; the episode itself has been designed to launch ITV1’s new soap ‘power hour’ schedule, which will run from 8pm to 9pm every weekday.

The sharp-eyed among you may have spotted a few sly crossover elements pop up in recent episodes, and now we’re about to find out what these clues relate to.

At the centre of the story are Vicky Myers and Danny Miller, better known to viewers as Corrie’s DS Lisa Swain and Emmerdale’s Aaron Dingle.

“To be involved in this unique, bold, innovative, not to mention history-making episode, in Coronation Street’s 65th year, (well, when we are filming it at least), is fantastic,” claimed Myers on the announcement of the one-off. “When I read the script and found out how two worlds collide, who is involved and how the characters interact, not to mention the impact the events of the night will have… Wow. It’s going to be unmissable.

“I couldn’t wait to get started actually. This has been in the pipeline for quite some time and the talented teams behind the scenes at Coronation Street and Emmerdale have worked tirelessly to make this happen. They’re incredible. I’m really looking forward to meeting, and working with, people I haven’t met or worked with before, both in front of and behind the camera. It’s incredibly exciting and the camaraderie is great.“

Stockport-born father-of-three Miller was just as excited to be involved: “I am made up that Aaron is in the Corriedale episode. Originally from Manchester, Coronation Street has always been an iconic show in our house just as much as Emmerdale. So to cross them both over is a great idea.

“The night shoots have been full on with having young kids but a lot of fun and it’s been great working with the Corrie team. I can’t wait to see how the episode plays out with the separate storylines from both Emmerdale and Corrie. It’s going to be epic and every soap fan’s dream.”

Plot details suggest that Lisa and Aaron twill be brought together one dark and stormy night following a crash involving characters from both shows – and life may never be the same again for any of them… What a way to start a new year in soapland!

The Good Ship Murder (Tuesday 06/01/2026, 5, 9pm)

Words by Richard Jones

Over the past couple of years, many of us have enjoyed seeing Mediterranean mysteries solved on board the The Good Ship Murder.

But although the cases usually reach a satisfying conclusion, there is one conundrum that has remained unresolved, one which revolves around the romance between its two leads – former police detective turned cabaret singer Jack Grayling and the ship’s fiercely ambitious First Officer Kate Woods.

Ever since the show’s first episode, fans have been engrossed in the pair’s ‘will-they, won’t-they’ relationship.

But now, following their reunion in the Christmas special when they investigated a monastery murder in Alicante, it finally appears that the couple, played by Shayne Ward and Catherine Tyldesley, are together for good.

In tonight’s season three opener, Jack and Kate navigate their way through various challenges in their new life, as their cabin sharing develops into cabin fever and the couple are forced to redefine their living arrangements.

The chemistry between actors Shayne and Catherine, who previously starred as Aidan Connor and Eva Price together on Coronation Street, is clearly one of the main pulls of The Good Ship Murder.

And in an interview with Prima, Catherine (Viewpoint, Scarborough, Trollied) explained why she enjoys working with Shayne, the actor-singer who rose to fame after winning The X Factor in 2005 before appearing on Corrie and the 2024 series of Strictly Come Dancing.

“We’re like the naughty kids at school who shouldn’t be sat together,” she said.

“It makes life so much easier because we’ve got that relationship, which gives us good chemistry.

“And he kept me sane during season one, because I’d just had a baby, and his other half, Sophie, had also just had a baby, and so we kind of propped each other up emotionally while we were both missing the kids.

“He’s seen me cry a million times. So I thought, ‘It’s fine, I can be a hormonal mess around Shayne’.”

The show, a sort of mash-up between of Death in Paradise and Cruising with Jane McDonald, with a bit of Eldorado thrown in, begins its third season in Cannes.

The red carpet has been rolled out for the premiere of the latest movie by infamous film director Werner Altmann (Uke Bosse).

The acclaimed but outspoken auteur reluctantly chaperones his ‘muse’ – rising star Mimi McQuinn (Ellie Louise Leach).

However, when Mimi is found murdered, it’s down to Jack and Kate to solve the case.

While their initial focus is on Werner himself, the sleuths are also suspicious of influential but corrupt and unscrupulous film critic Erin Daniels (Nicola Stephenson), and her besotted and feckless son Lucian (Gene Gurie), both of whom appear to have grudges and motives.

Meanwhile, we also get to meet Carole Merryweather (Lesley Dunlop), a long-term passenger on the ship, who is celebrating a special milestone in her life with a stay on board.

Forget Jack and Kate’s romantic complications, perhaps the biggest mystery of this show is why Carole (or anyone) would want to board a vessel on which the passengers seem to be bumped off at regular intervals.

Can You Keep a Secret? (Wednesday 07/01/2026, BBC One, 9.30pm)

Words by Richard Jones

As one of the country’s best loved comedy actresses, Dawn French has been sent countless scripts and proposals from writers asking to work with her.

So when her friend Paul Mayhew-Archer, who co-wrote The Vicar of Dibley with Richard Curtis, approached her to say his son Simon had written a sitcom and asked if he could send it over, she wasn’t convinced it would be for her.

“I didn’t want to do another sitcom,” Dawn said in an interview with Good Housekeeping Christmas TV Guide

“Good sitcoms are as rare as hen’s teeth and I’ve already done one. I’m constantly being sent things I don’t want to do – lucky me, it’s a happy complaint.

“I thought I’d read Can You Keep a Secret? and make an embarrassing list of all the reasons why I was politely declining. And then I read it and liked it!”

In the six-part comedy, Dawn plays widow Debbie Fendon, a granny, lawn bowler and tinpot dictator who will stop at nothing to protect her family.

When her hermit-like husband William (Mark Heap) unexpectedly dies, she makes an outlandish decision that puts the Fendons under more pressure than ever before.

Debbie isn’t actually a widow and William didn’t really die – he was just mistakenly declared dead and the two retirees were handed an opportunity too good to pass up.

If they were prepared to spend a few months hiding out in the loft waiting for the life insurance to pay out, then they can live out their golden years in peace.

This all proves a bit much for their son Harry (Craig Roberts) who has a family of his own and has acquired a potentially life-changing insurance payout from his father’s ‘death’.

What’s especially tricky for him is that his wife Neha (Mandip Gill) is a police officer and, if she finds out about her in-laws’ fraudulent ways, the Fendons might have an issue.

So can Debbie and her family keep their secret? Or will one of them spill the beans?

Once she has finished plugging this new sitcom (she is appearing on The Graham Norton Show on Friday night, among other shows), Dawn is looking forward to finishing her novel and hanging out with her Jennifer Saunders, who lives in the neighbouring county of Devon.

“She makes me laugh like no one else on earth,” the 68-year-old says about her old pal. “She knows my tickle button, knows the naughty things to say.”

So, is a French and Saunders reunion on the cards?

“Jennifer and I talk every year about what we could do. A sitcom? A comedy? Can we be bothered to write it? Should it be a documentary? Maybe we’ll take the podcast on tour.”

“But I’ve never seen a podcast on tour. We’d need five wigs and eight sets of teeth, as everything Jennifer and I have done has a big production value, even though it’s just two fat old birds yapping at the end of the day.”

Black Ops (Thursday 08/01/26, BBC1, 9.30pm)

Words by Rachael Popow

If you missed the first series of the award-winning comedy, it starred Gbemisola Ikumelo and Hammed Animashaun as Dom and Kay, two police community support officers.

They were convinced to take part in an unofficial undercover operation, which meant pretending they had been sacked and posing as drug dealers – and quickly found themselves out of their depth.

Speaking ahead of the first series, Gbemisola Ikumelo explained where the inspiration had come from.

She says: “[Co-star and writer] Akemnji Ndifornyen got it into his head that off the back of doing the BBC sketch-show Famalam that it’d be really great to do a show with me as a sort of vehicle piece. So, he called me and said, ‘Look, we’re going get into a room with the Beeb and pitch some ideas.’

“So, I went away and thought about the kinds of things I’d like to do, and one of the things I was just really excited about was the notion of putting myself in a show or scenario that I wouldn’t get cast for ordinarily.”

She adds: “You can hide a multitude of sins behind comedy, so I just went, ‘I’d love to be in a cop show. I’d love to be in a show where it’s running, guns, car chases and it’s fun and funny as well.’ Also, grounding it in a world and a language we understand. So, the idea of PCSOs became a really interesting way in – and that’s how the show was born.”

It was a such a hit that it’s now back for a second series, and Gbemisola is thrilled, saying: “Being back on set for series two is like rediscovering your favourite shoes. A little bit older and stiffer but even more fabulous! I can’t believe some of the amazing things we’ve been able to achieve with this show the second time round.

“Fans of series one will be right at home again with Dom and Kay’s crazy, funny shenanigans whilst old and new viewers alike will be totally invested in the stakes and real world danger they find themselves in.”

Akemnji Ndifornyen adds: “Series one was so nice, of course we had to go and do it twice! Hugely excited to be going bigger, better and blacker for series two. Whatever is next for Dom, Kay – and of course Tevin – one thing is for certain, two things are for sure: it’s going to be a wild and thrilling comedy ride! Seatbelts please!”

This time around, the returning cast have been joined by an impressive array of guest stars, including Tom Stourton, Nigel Havers, Annette Badland, Ed Speleers and Cathy Tyson.

It begins as Dom and Kay start new roles at MI5 but discover it involves a lot more admin than the James Bond films had led them to believe. So, when Dom meets a charismatic spy who offers the promise of more exciting work, she’s a little too eager to impress and makes a risky move.

Mystery Road: Origin (Friday 09/01/26, BBC Two, 9pm)

Words by Sarah Morgan

Neighbours may be no more and Home and Away has been shuffled off onto 5Star, but there’s no doubt that in the UK, we still love an Australia-set drama.

The BBC has certainly made the most of them in recent years, delivering the likes of The Tourist, Return to Paradise, Mix Tape, High Country and Ten Pound Poms to our screens, among others. We’ve also had the delightful comedy Colin from Accounts to enjoy too.

Arguably the best of the lot is the Mystery Road franchise, which started out with a pair of films (released in 2013 and 2016) about middle-aged Aboriginal detective Jay Swan, played by Aaron Pedersen, who tackled a pair of puzzling Outback-based crimes. They proved to be so successful they were followed by two TV series, in which Pedersen reprised his role.

Since then, a prequel, subtitled Origins, has been made. The first run saw Mark Coles Smith play a younger Swan, with the story taking place in 1999. It followed the young detective as he returned to his hometown of Jardine to take up a new post that brought him back into contact with his estranged father Jack and Mary Allen, a local girl with whom he shared a connection. He also had to deal with a mysterious gang of robbers.

BBC Four recently repeated the series ahead of the launch of the second run, which picks up six months after its predecessor. This time, Swan is now married to Mary and they’ve relocated to Loch Iris, a small town reliant on the timber trade. It’s where Mary’s mother grew up, but despite her links to the area, Swan is shown little tolerance.

“The journey of Mystery Road: Origin is taking this man through the valley of the shadow really slowly to lose faith in the system that he thought he could make a difference in,” Smith told New Zealand’s Woman’s Day magazine last year.

“That’s been a genuine experience for many indigenous police officers, men and women. Particularly during the late 1990s into the early 2000s.”

He’s been acting since he was a teenager, making his TV debut in children’s show Ocean Star at the age of 14. In the years since, he’s taken part in numerous projects, not all of them acting roles either – he’s branched out into music, sound design and writing, and is the current narrator of The Dog House Australia.

Born and raised on a remote cattle station, his upbringing in the Outback isn’t dissimilar to Jay Swan’s, but there the comparisons largely end. Where Swan has a tendency to keep matters to himself, Smith is keen to open up and learn from those around him – including co-star Robyn Malcolm, an acting legend in her native New Zealand. Here she plays cynical veteran officer Paula Simmons, but viewers may recognise her from After the Party, the six-part drama she co-created and starred in, and which was aired by Channel 4 a couple of years ago.

Whatever he picked up from her should come in handy for Smith in the coming months.

“Next year’s looking really exciting,” he claims. “I’m interested in doing some acting overseas and I like the idea of going on an adventure, so we’ll see!”

And will he be back as Jay Swan? Fingers crossed…