TV highlights – Sat 9 – Fri 16 February

Penguins: Spy in The Huddle (Mon, 9pm, BBC1)
Aw, now who doesn’t love an Emperor Penguin? Other, perhaps, than the Antarctic silverfish which make up their staple diet. Anyhow, this three-part documentary has the genius idea of hiding cameras inside life-size animatronic penguins, allowing us to get far closer to the action than a human cameraman could. Brilliant. It leads to some super footage of penguins huddling around their chicks, and a great moment where a female lays her egg, catching it on her feet for safekeeping while her mate looks on with a mixture of pride and concern. David Tennant is a charming narrator as we learn about the Emperors in the Antarctic this week, and then Rockhopper penguins on the Falkland Islands and Humboldt penguins in the Atacama Desert of Peru. Some hilarious bits as the birds try to figure out what’s unusual about their new, motionless lookalike, too.

Spartacus: War Of The Dammed (Mon, 10pm, Sky 1)
Somewhat surprisingly, this is going to be the last series of ‘Spartacus’, the stabbing-and-bonking comic-booky epic that has put its parent Starz network on the TV map. After the awfully sad death of Original Recipe Spartacus Andy Whitfield, his replacement Liam McIntyre and all concerned have done brilliantly to make such a fun, exciting show. Sure, it’s not intellectual stuff, but there are a lot of very good looking people with their tops off stabbing each other in a variety of gruesome ways, and if that’s not entertainment then frankly I don’t know what is. This season begins with a new major antagonist for Sparty and his rebel army as they defy the Roman Empire: the fearsome, ruthless general Marcus Crassus (Simon Merrells) as well as the introduction of a fellow by the name of Julius Cesar (Todd Lasance – Aden in ‘Home And Away’). Talking of people getting their kit off Streak! The Man Who Can’t Keep His Clothes On (Thu, 10pm, C4) is a First Cut film about Scouser Mark Roberts, who has streaked over 500 times, the silly (chilly) sausage.

Black Mirror (Mon, 10pm, C4)
The writer and critic Charlie Brooker’s dramas satirising TV, our relationship to celebrity, technology and the internet return for a three-episode run. In the first stand-alone film, Hayley Atwell plays Martha, a young woman whose boyfriend, Ash, is tragically killed in an accident the day after they move into a new home. An opportunity presents itself to the grief-stricken Martha in the form of a revolutionary internet service. By taking everything Ash had ever done online, every communication he had made, and rebuilding all his profiles, this organisation is able to allow Martha to communicate with “Ash” – or at least a highly creditable online facsimile of him. At first she is disgusted by the idea, but then the loneliness and isolation kicks in… A very interesting and chilling exploration of what our identities mean in today’s connected age. Hayley Atwell is on The Jonathan Ross Show (Sat, 9.20pm, ITV) this week.

The Railway: Keeping Britain On Track (Tue, 9pm, BBC2)
With 3.25 million of us travelling by rail every day, the state of the railways is a major national issue – and this five-part observational documentary aims to shed some light on the system and the people who make it (sort of) work. We start at King’s Cross, where information desk worker Alexis reckons it’s the crummy 1970s concourse that is making all the customers so gloomy, and we follow the renovations of that. Steve in the ticket office is at the sharp end of just how peed off many of us are about the moderate service and the very immoderate prices of rail travel. The series picks up some nice little human moments to illuminate a huge and complicated network – such as the retirement of Laxman, who has worked at the London station for 35 years and seen it all, including the IRA bomb and the fire. Meanwhile, The Hunt For Britain’s Metal Thieves (Tue, 10.35pm, BBC1) is a doc about the millions of pounds worth of cables stolen from British railways each year.

The Beatles’ Please Please Me: Remaking A Classic (Fri, 9pm, BBC4)
Rush-released to cash in on the buzz created by their first couple of singles, the Beatles’ first LP was recorded in one astonishing February 1963 day at the Abbey Road studios. Working in three sessions (George Martin, incredibly, had only booked two at first!) from 10am until 10.30pm, the Fab Four laid down the tracks that would make the album that set them on their way and changed pop forever. To celebrate the 50th anniversary, here’s a great idea from the Beeb: they’ve challenged a group of musicians including members of Squeeze and Stereophonics and singer-songwriter Gabrielle Aplin to come along to the studio and try to replicate this remarkable feat of creativity, stamina and musicianship. Features interviews with engineers and assistants who were there on the historic day and is followed by Arena: The Brian Epstein Story (Fri, 10pm, BBC4) about the band’s manager.

Also this week
If you’ve followed the Channel 4 franchise at all, you don’t need me to tell you what’s going down in My Big Fat Gypsy Valentine (Mon, 9pm, C4): courting, traveller style. The Genius Of Invention (Thu, 9pm, BBC2) this week explains how the most magical invention of all, blessed television, actually works. Host Stephen Fry luvs the luvs in The EE British Academy Film Awards (Sun, 9pm, BBC1). A new season of Alex Polizzi: The Fixer (Tue, 8pm, BBC2) begins as she tries to help an East End curtain business whose sibling owners are at each other’s throats. The genuinely great Friday Night Lights (Tue, 9pm, Sky Atlantic) returns for a fourth season with Coach having to start from scratch at the wrong-side-of-the-tracks East Dillon High. Vegas (Thu, 10pm, Sky Atlantic) is a 1960s set cop-type show with Dennis Quaid, Michael Chiklis and Carrie-Anne Moss; and that man Fearnley-Whittingstall is banging his fishy eco drum again in Hugh’s Fish Fight (Thu, 9pm, C4).