Trigger Point and Our Great Yorkshire Life: TV highlights

Casualty: 40th Anniversary (Saturday 05/09/26, BBC1, 8pm & 8.50pm)

Words by Rachael Popow

On September 6, 1986, the BBC aired the first episode of its new hospital-set drama, Casualty. Although not everyone was a fan – some politicians considered it a negative portrayal of the NHS – it was enough of a hit to be brought back for a second series, and soon became a TV fixture.

So, as the show celebrates its 40th anniversary, some viewers may be inclined to take Casualty for granted. However, as Melanie Hill, who plays Clinical Nurse Manager Siobhan McKenzie points out, that would be a mistake.

It may be the world’s longest-running medical drama, but things are always changing on the wards of Holby. The actress, who joined the show in 2024, says: “I, like everyone else, had the attitude that we all know what Casualty is; we’ve seen it before, we used to watch it when we were younger. They don’t know what Casualty is like now because it’s a completely different show. It’s filmic, it’s epic.”

That’s especially true for tonight’s anniversary double bill. As Melanie says: “We’ve never attempted anything as big as this before.”

She explains: “They’ve upped the ante because there’s a huge explosion in

Holby, and it’s the neighbouring hospital, St James, that’s blown up. It is a heightened situation for them all.”

Viewers will see Dylan (William Beck) battling personal tragedy while leading his team, and Stevie (Elinor Lawless) and Flynn (Olly Rix) find themselves fighting for survival.

Meanwhile, Siobhan is trying to keep everything together back at the A&E.

Melanie says: “She’s managing the palliative care, but she’s also aware that, as well as the injuries from the explosion, there are patients who have been treated

at St James also coming in. So, it’s utter chaos.

“She’s under high pressure, but one thing about Siobhan is that she’s been round the block a bit. She’s there to support the doctors and consultants.

“She’s a good leader. She doesn’t panic easily, she has seen a few of these situations before and she’s good at coordinating everything.”

Melanie promises I’s going to be gripping: “The writing on these two episodes is so good. The guest artists so well-written and well-placed. There are so many beautiful stories that come in that might only have three scenes, but they’re placed so well that

you care about these people.

“It’s life and death situations for people you might never have seen in Casualty, but they’re really touching stories.”

She believes that’s one of the secrets behind Casualty’s enduring success, and why the drama is worth checking in with in the weeks when it isn’t celebrating a milestone.

She says: “As well as all the epic stunts and big set pieces in these 40th anniversary episodes, Casualty tells stories of normal people on the worst days of their lives. The patients that come through the door mirror the stories going on in the staff’s lives. They’re just normal people trying to help everyone.

“That’s what Casualty does really well. It tells stories about people that we all know, in abnormal situations.”

Reckless (Sunday 06/09/26, ITV1, 10.15pm)

Words by Sarah Morgan

We do love an Australian series, don’t we?

The likes of Young Doctors, Skippy the Bush Kangaroo and the much-missed Neighbours entranced the nation. In more recent years, others have replaced them in our hearts. For example, The Heights kept us occupied during the Covid lockdown (fans are still hoping it may return), while Colin from Accounts has proved to be a big success for the BBC – its third and final series is due to begin this week.

So it should come as no surprise to find that ITV has been trying to find its own hit show from Down Under, and it may have come up with the goods.

“From day one, I wanted to make a bold show with audacious characters that felt unapologetically Western Australian,” says Kodie Bedford, the executive producer and writer of four-part comedy-drama Reckless. “I’m so happy to be home telling this yarn with a team of creatives who have all shared the vision and taken it somewhere even wilder than I ever imagined.”

The plot focuses on a pair of siblings who, while driving home following a wedding, accidentally knock down and kill an elderly man. Rather than alerting the authorities, they decide to take him back to his home, prop him up in his favourite armchair, let somebody else find him and hope his death is assumed to down to natural causes.

The idea, as irresponsible as it may sound, appears to be working out – until the dead man’s niece becomes suspicious and begins her own investigation into his demise.

If that all sounds rather familiar, maybe you saw Neil Forsyth’s BBC series Guilt, which first aired in 2019 and starred Mark Bonnar and Jamie Sives; Reckless is a remake with the action transported to the Southern Hemisphere.

This time, Tasma Walton and Hunter Page-Lochard play siblings June and Charlie. They have a dysfunctional relationship and both have good reasons for trying to evade the police – her law firm would never get over the scandal, while he could lose custody of his daughter. The show has been acclaimed by Australian audiences for not only featuring a great script full of wonderful lines, but because it’s been led, both on an off the screen, by a First Nations team, and offers a different view of Indigenous Australians.

“My whole career, I’ve been fighting for First Nations characters not to be held up on a pedestal, not to be stereotyped as the noble savage,” claims Bedford.

“It really is a roller coaster ride from the very, very beginning,” says Walton of the story. “The cover-up is an act of desperate self-preservation. And in doing so, they dig a hole for themselves, which only becomes deeper and deeper.”

As for the chances of a sequel, Walton has high hopes: “I wish we could just do it over and over and over again. I’d love to see Reckless season 10. It was absolutely pure, unadulterated joy to collaborate with this team.”

Well, as we all love an Aussie show, we should keep our fingers crossed her dream comes true.

Trigger Point (Monday 07/09/26, ITV1, 9pm)

Words by Sarah Morgan

Like your dramas to leave you on the edge of your seat, your nails bitten down to the quick?

If the answer is “yes”, then you must be loving the fourth run of Trigger Point, the series about bomb disposal experts led by Lana Washington (Vicky McClure). It’s executive produced by Jed ‘Line of Duty’ Mercurio, who is particularly thrilled with how the new season has turned out.

“With returning series it’s always about giving the audience a good helping of what they love about the show, but also working out where we can break new ground dramatically,” he explains. “Finding the balance between those two things is the fun part, and it’s the privilege of having a returning show.

“As always, series four of Trigger Point gives us both a threat that creates jeopardy for Lana and her team, and a mystery – who is behind this bombing campaign, and where is the next attack going to be? All I can say is that this is the most dangerous bomb threat that the team has faced. We raised the stakes as high as we possibly could.”

He adds: “We made a conscious decision to give ourselves a bigger canvas and use the characters around Lana much more. We’re incredibly fortunate that we have a great ensemble – everybody is lovely and very talented, so we have spent time carving out those characters and opening a door on their personal lives, which has been a very exciting part of the process.”

Mercurio is also pleased that the show’s audience has grown, just as the horizons of the programme itself have expanded: “I’ve been working in television for a long time, and I’ve had many more downs than ups because the margins between success and failure can be quite narrow. You can just be incredibly unlucky in this job and it’s a tough environment for TV drama right now, so I always feel so fortunate that the show has built up in this way and the audience has stayed with it when they have a lot of choices. The broadcaster has remained enthusiastic and supportive too, and you never take that for granted as a programme maker.”

As for the prospects of a fifth series? Well, never say never…

“We feel very fortunate and privileged to have the audience that we do, and we have a lot of respect and love for them,” says Mercurio. “Generally, conversations about another series boil down to whether the broadcaster feels there will be viewers, so we will see.

“But I would be up for it, I think everyone on the show would be – we’re really proud of the work we do, and the connection that we have with our audience, so we want to give them more.”

Keep those nail-bitten fingers crossed everyone – it sounds as if, providing the stars align in the future, the team could be returning to a TV near you very soon indeed.

The National Television Awards 2026 (Tuesday 08/09/26, ITV1, 8pm)

Words by Rachael Popow

Joel Dommett is back to host the National Television Awards for his sixth consecutive year.

That might suggest that it’s going to be business as usual at the ceremony, but as anyone who watched last year’s event will know, the NTAs are still capable of springing some big surprises.

Unlike most TV awards, the winners are decided by the public, and for 23 years, they voted for Ant and Dec to win Best Presenter.

However, their record-breaking winning streak came to an end last year when Gary Lineker, who had recently left Match of the Day, picked up the gong instead. Accepting the award, the former footballer, who had attracted a lot of criticism for his social media use, said it “demonstrates that it is OK to use your platform to speak up on behalf of those who have no voice.”

And Ant and Dec took the loss in good spirts, saying: “Thank you to everyone who voted for us for the Best Presenter category, even though we couldn’t get it across the line this year. We were beaten by an up-and-coming new guy, 64-year-old whippersnapper, Gary Lineker.”

Lineker isn’t in the running for the award this year, but there is a chance it could go to another young whippersnapper – David Attenborough. The much-loved broadcaster, who celebrated his 100th birthday in May, is nominated alongside Alison Hammond, Claudia Winkleman, Stacey Solomon and, of course, Ant and Dec.

Having a centenarian pick up an award would be pretty momentous, but this year’s NTAs have already made history before a single winner is announced.

That’s because for the first time, all the nominees in the Drama Performance category are female. Previous winner Sheridan Smith (I Fought the Law) is going head-to-head with Ella Bruccoleri (The Other Bennet Sister), Judy Parfitt (Call the Midwife), Ruth Jones (Run Away) and Vicky McClure (Trigger Point).

The other acting category, Serial Drama Performance, is more male-dominated. EastEnders’ Aaron ‘Ravi Gulati’ Thiara and Paul ‘Nigel Bates’ Bradley’ have received the nod alongside Emmerdale’s Jeff ‘Cain Dingle’ Hordley and Coronation Street, Gareth ‘Todd Grimshaw’ Pierce, but a Weatherfield woman, Sue Devaney, aka Debbie Webster, has also snuck in.

In Reality Competition, I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! is up against its South African spin-off, while The Traitors is pitted against its own Celebrity version. Does this mean there’s a chance they will split their votes, and allow the fifth nominee, Race Across the World, to pip them to the post?

(There’s a similar situation in Talent Show, where The Great British Bake Off and The Great Celebrity Bake Off for Stand Up to Cancer are both in contention along with Britain’s Got Talent, Strictly Come Dancing and The Great Pottery Throw Down.

Other much-talked about shows which could be leaving with a prize tonight include the social-media sensation Heated Rivalry (Best New Drama), Clarkson’s Farm (Reality Docuseries) and Last One Laughing (Comedy).

So, if you want to see your favourite emerge a winner, you’d better get voting.

The Game (Wednesday 09/09/26, 5, 9pm)

Words by Damon Smith

The first series of The Game had plenty of mindboggling twists and turns, but it can’t hold a candle to the second.

Set a year after traumatic events of the psychological thriller’s first series, it has continued to play a diabolical battle of wits and guile with its central characters – retired detective Huw Miller (Jason Watkins) and serial killer Patrick Harbottle (Robson Green).

The balance of power is set to tip in one direction in tonight’s concluding episode, which reveals whether Huw is the hunter or the prey.

He is ready to go through with his plan to stop Patrick but his nemesis anticipates his next move and escapes to an abandoned farmhouse, where he can complete preparations to enact his devastating masterplan. Huw lies about the escape to DS Jenny Atkins (Amber James) and incurs the wrath of his daughter Margot (Indy Lewis). Her relationship with her father has been visibly coming apart over the course of the second series, forcing her to rely on emotional support from partner Sam (Sonny Ashbourne Serkis).

“I think series two is Huw and Margot’s story and about the way that Patrick intends to fracture their relationship,” explains Robson, outlining Patrick’s cruel intentions towards the man who put him behind bars. “Then he can take one broken piece and try to use that against Huw. That’s the ultimate revenge.”

For actor Indy Lewis, who plays Margot, returning to the central relationship between Huw and his daughter has been a joy. “I don’t think she is necessarily worried that Patrick is going to get the better of Huw,” she reflects. “It’s more that she is very concerned about how Huw might go about dealing with Patrick and whether that is the right path and what that will lead to. That’s where a lot of their conflict rests.”

Robson first worked with series creator Tom Grieves when the writer was a script editor on Touching Evil. The Northumberland-born actor was on the right side of the law back in the late 1990s, playing a troubled detective inspector in a crack team of organised and serial crime investigators. He still has fond memories of the show. “We were so young back then,” reminisces Robson. “Tom is like Val McDermid who created Wire In The Blood; a lovely, sweet, bright person who has this ability to write the most horrific, terrifying scenarios down onto paper.”

Robson notes The Game is “something that could run and run”. Should the show win a third series, Robson is clear what he would like to see next for the central characters – presuming, of course, that Huw and Patrick are both still breathing when the end credits roll on tonight’s swansong.

“I think there now needs to be, for want of a better description, a caper where there is movement,” he suggests. “Take these two characters on a physical, moving journey with a big denouement. We just need a nice island in the Indian ocean!”

Rule one of The Game: think bigger and more twisted with each new series.

The Great Plague: The Village that Saved Britain (Thursday 10/09/26, 5, 9pm)

Words by Rachael Popow

If you watched Rich Lives, Poor Lives, the history series Ruth Goodman made with Rob Rinder, it would be easy to think she’d drawn the short straw.

The standalone episodes focused on key moments in British history, ranging from the Spanish Armada to the Blitz of the Second World War, showing how they affected people at both ends of the social scale. Rob concentrated on the wealthy and well-connected, while Ruth learned more about the poor.

However, that’s just the way Ruth liked it. Speaking ahead of the first run in 2025, she said: “Rob investigated the richer end of society, poor man, whilst I was lucky enough to plunge into the lives at the poorer end of the scale where all the exciting nitty gritty stuff happens.

“While he was stuck drinking cocktails at the Ritz – yawn – I was ferreting about in dung heaps and back allies, poking my nose into warehouses and workshops, pubs and kitchens.”

That won’t be surprising if you’ve been following Ruth’s career. A social and domestic historian, she has always been fascinated with the day-to-day lives of ordinary people, and that’s been reflected in her TV work, which includes the hit BBC history series Victorian Farm and its spin-offs.

As she once told the BBC: “We matter. How our ancestors – ordinary men, women and children – solved the nitty gritty problems of everyday life made the world what it is today.”

That’s certainly the case with her new documentary, The Great Plague: The Village that Saved Britain, which tells the remarkable story of a small community that made a huge difference.

The village in question is Eyam, an isolated settlement in the Peak District, which in 1665 became the location of one of the worst outbreaks of bubonic plague ever seen. The disease reached the village in a bundle of infected clothes from London, and tore through the community. A third of the inhabitants died and entire families were wiped out.

However, as the title of the documentary suggests, this is story of heroism as well as tragedy. Ruth learns more about how the young vicar William Mompesson made an extraordinary decision: to seal the village off entirely.

Essentially, the residents agreed to sacrifice themselves to prevent the disease spreading to nearby communities and towns. In doing so, they arguably saved tens of thousands of lives, as the plague did not reach Derby, Sheffield or Manchester.

Ruth pays tribute to this act of bravery, as she learns more about some of the villagers who lived and died through this terrifying 14-month ordeal.

They include Mompesson himself, as well as his wife Catherine, who tended to the dying. The historian also shares the story of miner Marshall Howe, who took it upon himself to bury the victims. Meanwhile, sweethearts Emmott and Rowland were torn apart by the quarantine as the plague took a devastating toll on Emmott’s whole family.

Our Great Yorkshire Life (Friday 11/09/26, 5, 8pm)

Words by Damon Smith

Yorkshire is the largest county in the UK by area and has given birth not just to Wensleydale cheese, stainless steel, Yorkshire puddings and the board game Cluedo, but also to a glittering array of famous figures from popular culture. Among them, Brontë sisters Charlotte, Emily and Anne scaled wuthering heights with their novels and poetry in the village of Haworth while national treasure Alan Bennett mines his earthy humour from a working-class upbringing in Leeds.

Judi Dench once called the village of Heworth home and Patrick Stewart was raised roughly an hour away in the historic market town of Mirfield. Poet Laureate Ted Hughes was born in the village of Mytholmroyd and raised in Mexborough, while veterinary surgeon James Herriot drew inspiration from his practice in the county to write the beloved books that inspired All Creatures Great And Small and It Shouldn’t Happen To A Vet.

Heart-warming documentary series Our Great Yorkshire Life has been celebrating the region’s rich heritage, vibrant communities and extraordinary lives since 2022. This week signals the launch of the fourth series and fittingly, the opening episode traverses the county’s breathtaking landscapes to share four uplifting stories that reflect its humour and charm.

Actress and writer Gaynor Faye walked the cobbles of Coronation Street for more than 350 episodes before she starred in some of her mother Kay Mellor’s TV series including Playing The Field, Fat Friends, The Chase and The Syndicate.

Portraying Megan Sharma on Emmerdale for seven years allowed her to work closer to home but if you don’t recall seeing her character riding a horse, it’s probably because Gaynor was thrown from a ride as a young girl and swore never to mount one again.

In Bramhope, she meets holistic horse therapist Lynn Henry to confront this fear that has haunted her since childhood. A sweet-natured pony named Toffee joins Gaynor on this deeply emotional journey of healing and rediscovery and helps her to slowly rebuild confidence in the saddle.

Farming has been an intrinsic part of the rural economy in Yorkshire for generations and Steven Short has worked the land all his life. Recently he has been raising a flock of Hampshire Down lambs on his family farm near Halifax and now the time has come to take the animals to auction in Skipton Mart. He hopes his hard work will pay off because every penny counts at market in the face of steadily rising costs for farmers like Steven.

Also in this opening episode, magnificent country house Castle Howard prepares to reopen to the public, unveiling restored rooms not seen since they were ravaged by fire in 1940. Curators Eleanor and Matthew race against the clock to ensure the property is fit for visitors.

And in Askrigg in the Yorkshire Dales, furniture maker Tom Addison prepares for the final installation of the eight bespoke oak louvres that he made for the bell tower of the village’s 15th-century church.