Witty wordplay ... Malory in Archer.
Free to air
Archer, ABC2, 9pm
In tonight's season one finale, Archer learns that his father wasn't the war hero Malory always told him he was and might, in fact, be Nikolai, the head of the KGB, with whom Malory has been having a secret affair for decades. Of course, Malory reveals there are several other candidates but Nikolai wants answers and hires German spies to kidnap our hero and plant a microchip in his brain that will make him go to Russia to take a paternity test.
At ISIS headquarters, Malory decrees that inter-office liaisons are banned after Cyril's recent infidelity and Lana decides to take her revenge against Cyril by shagging everyone in the ISIS office on his desk. Cue more fast and furious sexual one-liners than your usual Archer episode - and that's saying something.
The fast-paced writing and witty wordplay is still slick in places - and occasionally shocking, as in tonight's oh-so-wrongSchindler's List analogy - but one wonders if the in-your-face sexual-perversion references risk becoming a little tedious, even to the most liberal-minded viewers, as the show enters its second series.
Three Men Go to Scotland, ABC1, 8.30pm
Comedians Griff Rhys Jones, Rory McGrath and Dara O Briain have been making their BBC boating travelogue series for more than five years, getting more ambitious in their adventures. The latest two-part expedition has the trio retracing the 1770s trip by Dr Samuel Johnson and his biographer James Boswell around Scotland's Highlands and the islands of Jura, Skye, Mull and Harris.
Tonight, in the first half of their 10-day journey, they travel the Crinan Canal on one of the country's last surviving coal-fired steam boats, take part in a yacht race, shear sheep, take part in traditional Highland Games and, of course, sample lots of whisky along the way.
As much as this could be considered lightweight travelogue, the camaraderie among the three long-standing friends and their candour make it endearing.
Wilfred, Eleven, 9pm
The second US series of Wilfred remains consistently funny. Just as Wilfred is trying to convince Ryan to live in the moment, a trauma causes him to lose his sense of smell and gain a sense of humanity. No longer able to smell toilet water and squirrels, Wilfred gets existential, reading great works of literature and questioning life's purpose. Ryan, meanwhile, looks set to invest in a dodgy real estate deal that will destroy a park for ''inner-city dogs''. Jason Gann in ''emo'' mode tonight, all floppy fringe and eyeliner, is a highlight.
World's Strictest Parents, Seven, 9.30pm
It's barely worth stating that reality TV increasingly bears little resemblance to reality, but in World's Strictest Parents even the subjects seem to have given up trying to muster any mock sincerity. Granted, sullen teenagers are involved but even the adults - and the supposedly ''strict'' parents - don't seem to care much.
In tonight's episode, brothers George (all piercings and emo misery) and Henry (who fancies himself a graffiti artist) cannot stand each other, are causing their mother and stepfather much grief, and are sent to New York to spend a week with the Woods family, who run a famous soul food restaurant in Harlem. Here, they are set to work in the busy restaurant and expected to learn discipline from the extended Woods clan.
But on their first night, Henry ''sneaks out'' into ''dangerous'' Manhattan - second-unit camera crew and, presumably, producer etc in tow - to take in the sights of Times Square and try to meet NY graffiti artists. Cue the Woods family ''discovering'' his absence and ''panicking'' while they search the neighbourhood. Sigh. Henry returns home safe and is punished by being made to do crappy chores in the restaurant kitchen.
By week's end, both brothers have, they tell the cameras reluctantly, learnt about co-operation, respect and basic hospitality. Cue credits.
Kylie Northover
Pay TV
River Monsters, Discovery Science, 7.30pm
English biologist and ''extreme angler'' Jeremy Wade is almost insufferable in this series, which is a real pity. Tonight's segment on the bull sharks that infest Florida's lakes and canals would have been quite interesting if not for his incessant sensationalism. Wade then visits a dam in Missouri where he says giant catfish have ''grown fat on the bodies of people who have inexplicably disappeared''. He then raises the question of whether the dam's catfish actually kill people but provides no evidence that they do.
Cooking Paradiso with Stefano, LifeStyle Food, 9pm
Mildura chef Stefano de Pieri was born near Venice and in this series of his pleasant and unpretentious cooking show he's taking us back there with him. First stop is an art museum where we get to admire the vivid reds of the Venetian painter Vittore Carpaccio. De Pieri reveals - and you may have already guessed - that beef carpaccio was so named because the colour of the raw meat evokes the colour of Carpaccio's paintings. Naturally, de Pieri whips up some carpaccio himself, a simple affair involving just a little olive oil, salt, rocket and parmesan. Other dishes on the menu tonight include a vegetarian pesto pasta with potato and green beans, and a peach Bellini dessert.
Brad Newsome
Movies
Doomsday Man (2000) Seven, noon
A college professor is invited by government agents to assist them in tracking down his brother, who, they say, has stolen a flask containing a deadly virus from a chemical plant. Only in America.
Those Happy Days (2006) SBS One, 1pm
Was life better as recently as 1992? Many seem to believe things have deteriorated markedly in the past couple of decades, but the lighthearted reflections in this French comedy suggest awful holiday-camp genre flicks involving precocious and accident-prone American adolescents are more nostalgic than cringeworthy. Vincent, who runs a recreation facility known as Ces Jours Heureux, is gearing up for the summer season. This means engaging the services of suitable staff and ''counsellors'' to assist youthful campers in maximising their holiday experiences. But the half-dozen twentysomethings he has hired are rather eccentric and may need more managing than the fractious kids they are assigned to mentor. The holiday-camp phenomenon is even bigger in France than it is in the US and the cliches are similar. Anyone who recalls La Meilleure Facon de Marcher (1976) may experience moments of deja vu. Gagging is another possibility.
Dark Blue Almost Black (2006) SBS Two, 11.45pm
Gap-toothed Jorge has to curtail his career aspirations to some extent when his curmudgeonly father suffers a stroke. Seven years later, at 25 and still nursing his invalid dad, Jorge finally completes a business degree but because he has paid his way as a janitor, he has no experience potential employers consider useful. So he's stuck as a concierge. More degrees than a nautical compass and no course to set? Circumstances change when Jorge's wayward brother, Antonio, is released from jail and propositions him to impregnate his jailbird girlfriend, Paula, during a conjugal visit in the hope she will be transferred to the maternity wing, where conditions are less harsh. Jorge agrees, not because Paula is hot (and wrongfully imprisoned) but because of a desire not to do anything likely to jeopardise his on-off relationship with his own girlfriend, Natalia. The title refers to the kind of suit Jorge craves. Directorial fluency is not the film's strongest attribute but it assays matters of loyalty, commitment and dependency in a mostly engaging fashion.
Doug Anderson
