A new sitcom starring Steve Carell arrives on Sky, while BBC One’s adoption comedy Trying returns and Channel 4’s unusual reality experiment continues.
Monday evening television moves between light comedy and curious social experiments. Steve Carell leads a new series from the creator of Ted Lasso and Shrinking, while the heartfelt comedy Trying returns with more family complications.
Elsewhere, Channel 4 continues its divisive reality show Handcuffed: Last Pair Standing and BBC Two offers another slice of Mackenzie Crook’s eccentric comedy Small Prophets.
Rooster
10pm, Sky One
Steve Carell plays Greg, a novelist who arrives at a university campus to support his daughter Katie as she navigates the aftermath of a painful divorce.
Katie, played by Charly Clive, is a professor whose marriage to a fellow academic collapses after an affair with one of his students. Greg’s arrival brings both comfort and complication as he attempts to help while inevitably interfering.
The sitcom comes from Bill Lawrence, whose recent work includes Ted Lasso and Shrinking. Expect sharp dialogue, a slightly sentimental tone and a cast that includes Scrubs favourite John C McGinley, who rarely wastes an opportunity to steal a scene.
Handcuffed: Last Pair Standing
9pm, Channel 4
Channel 4’s latest reality concept continues with its central premise remaining as awkward as it sounds. Strangers are physically handcuffed together and sent on a road trip around Britain while competing for a £100,000 prize.
The producers have clearly engineered the pairings to provoke friction. One unlikely duo sees countryside campaigner Claire attached to city loving model Bambi, which guarantees disagreement before the journey has even begun.
Dom Chinea’s Cornish Workshop
8pm, U&Yesterday
Dom Chinea, familiar to viewers of The Repair Shop, begins a new chapter after moving from Kent to Cornwall.
The series follows the renovation of a farmhouse workshop where Dom hopes to create a new base for engineering projects. Before any restoration work begins he heads out to meet a man in a layby to buy a second hand Land Rover, which gives the show an appropriately improvised start.
DTF St Louis
9pm, Sky Atlantic
Steve Conrad’s black comedy continues its deliberately murky story of suburban secrets.
In flashbacks Clark seduces Carol with a line about running a deep sea demolition company, which tells you everything about the show’s humour. Meanwhile in the present, Floyd’s secret online life begins to unravel and detective Homer thinks he has solved a murder case.
As ever, the tone suggests things may not be quite as straightforward as they appear.
Small Prophets
10pm, BBC Two
Mackenzie Crook’s eccentric comedy moves further into the surreal.
Michael and Kacey prepare to dig up their mysterious homunculi jars to discover whether they really can predict the future. Before that experiment begins, Michael’s father receives a letter that appears to have been sent by someone who is already dead.
The series continues to balance odd ideas with an unexpectedly warm tone.
Trying
10.40pm, BBC One
The gentle adoption comedy returns with Nikki and Jason once again facing complicated choices.
At the end of the previous series the couple had brought Princess home on a temporary basis, only to discover her brother Tyler hiding in the boot of their car. The situation creates a painful dilemma because adopting both children is unlikely to be possible.
Before any decisions are made, the couple try to give the siblings one perfect day together.
Watching UK TV while travelling
Many British streaming services such as BBC iPlayer, ITVX and Channel 4 restrict viewing outside the UK because of programme licensing agreements.
Travellers often find that the programmes they normally watch suddenly become unavailable once they leave the country.
Using a UK based VPN can allow access to the services people already subscribe to while abroad. Some providers run UK servers designed to maintain stable access to those platforms.
LibertyShield offers UK connections, and readers can test compatibility with the 48-hour free trial, which allows people to see whether their preferred services work across different devices before committing.