Then You Run
Sky Max, 9pm
There will be few more striking and unsettling openings this year than the first minutes of Then You Run: a family man (Christian Rubeck), snowed into his car on a jam-packed, twilit autobahn, emerges from his vehicle and begins to methodically strangle the occupants of all the other cars around him. It is all the more unsettling for having no apparent connection – at this early stage – to the main narrative of Ben ‘The Capture’  Chanan’s smart, darkly funny, eight-part adaptation of Zoran Drvenkar’s 2015 novel You.

At its heart are four girls celebrating the summer after school with a week in Rotterdam, where Tara (Normal People’s Leah McNamara) has gone to stay with her estranged father (Cillian O’Sullivan) following a family funeral, only to become embroiled in her uncle’s (Richard Coyle) heroin trade. An untimely death sends the girls on the run across Europe from warring gangsters and, eventually, the serial killer too. Chanan’s grasp on a potentially chaotic narrative is sure, while McNamara and her co-stars (Rye Lane’s Vivian Oparah among them) have an instantly persuasive chemistry and charisma that ensures you root for them, however badly they behave. GT

The Horror of Dolores Roach
Amazon Prime Video
Blumhouse Productions (Paranormal Activity) make an eight-episode foray into television to deliver another intelligent, effective horror, this time based on a Spotify podcast. Dolores Roach (Justina Machado) returns to her Manhattan neighbourhood after 16 years in prison, only to find it unrecognisable apart from an old acquaintance’s empanada shop. Short on friends and funds, she starts working as a masseuse under the eatery, only for events to take a macabre turn unapologetically inspired by Sweeney Todd. A blend of targeted anger and high-camp fun, it is a rewarding romp.

Her War, Her Story: World War II
PBS America, 7.20pm
The essential roles played by women during the Second World War have been well told here in the UK; this excellent PBS documentary uses interviews and archive footage to demonstrate startling similarities in the USA, where service on the Home Front or in factories did not protect women from attempts to revert to prewar social strictures in 1945.

Gardeners’ World
BBC Two, 8pm
A special edition from one of the diary events of the year – RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival, where presenter Carol Klein’s show garden will be revealed (she’s this year’s “Horticultural Hero”). Preferring to stay grounded, Klein says that it features take-home ideas that everyone can put into practice.   

Not Going Out
BBC One, 9pm
Lee Mack’s sitcom follows the family bunking off school and work to go to a theme park. The biggest laughs come from two encounters between Mack and his daughter’s headteacher (Selina Griffiths) – classic sitdowns between a quailing hero and a fiercer figure of authority – but it’s as smartly put together as ever.

A-ha/Tears for Fears: Radio 2 in Concert 
BBC Four, 9pm/10.05pm
These were two 1980s groups whose fractious interband relations never seemed to inhibit their way with a synth and a melody. Jo Whiley introduces intimate gigs from 2015 and 2017 respectively: expect Take On Me, Everybody Wants to Rule the World and much more.

Riches
ITV1, 9pm
The splendidly soapy drama continues with the two sides of Stephen’s family wrestling for control of a firm which, events suggest, may not be quite as desirable as initially believed. 

Robots (2023)
Amazon Prime Video  
Set in a futuristic America where menial jobs are carried out by robots, this romantic comedy is an easy watch to kick off the weekend. Jack Whitehall plays womaniser Charles, who sneakily programmes his own doppelgänger robot to (illegally) lure women. When his robot meets gold-digger Elaine (Big Little Lies’ Shailene Woodley), though, they both come up against a big old problem – their robots fall in love, and they must catch them before the authorities get involved.

Aquamania (1961, b/w)
Disney+  
This classic animated short (the last of Disney’s “Golden Era”) joins others (Bath Day, Goofy Gymnastics, The Skeleton Dance) on Disney+ for the first time to celebrate the corporation’s 100th anniversary (coming up in October). Aquamania follows Goofy (voiced by Pinto Colvig) as he embarks on a boating trip with his son – expect the usual high jinks as they enter a water skiing race, take a spin on a roller coaster and meet an unfortunate octopus.

The Out-Laws (2023)
Netflix  
Owen Browning (Pitch Perfect’s Adam DeVine) is a straight-laced bank manager about to marry his dream girl, Parker (Nina Dobrev). But their happy ending gets slightly complicated after his bank is held by infamous tough guys the Ghost Bandits during his wedding week – and he begins to think his future in-laws (Pierce Brosnan and Ellen Barkin), who have just arrived in town, are behind the masks. Adam Sandler is among the producer mix.

Thelma & Louise (1991) 
BBC One, 10.40pm  
★★★★★
Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon star as friends who decide to go on a trip in this Oscar-winning film, the doyenne of the road movie genre, whose final scene is now iconic – and for good reason. Thelma is the dowdy housewife, Louise the free spirit, but the real star is director Ridley Scott, who gives his characters freedom while at the same time winding them into a taut, tragic plot. A truly pioneering, still influential piece of cinema.

Television previewers

Stephen Kelly (SK), Veronica Lee (VL), Gerard O’Donovan (GO), Poppie Platt (PP), Gabriel Tate (GT) and Jack Taylor (JT),