pay Wheeler Dealers

Discovery Turbo, 7.30pm

British car dealer Mike Brewer and mechanic Edd China continue to find thoroughly absorbing projects and provide basic and advanced tips for anyone working on their own car. In California tonight Brewer buys a 1976 Porsche 912E for $US25,000 ($33,500), confident that he and China can smarten it up quickly and make a tidy profit. The 912E was an entry-level Porsche, but it got the same iconic body as the 911, and its little 2L four-cylinder could push it around pretty well. China quickly has the car in bits, showing how to sort out the sputtering fuel system and how to lower the car from its American-spec height to its sportier-looking European height. Brewer rustles up some chrome factory trim to give it some added pizzazz. Other episodes airing today see Brewer and China fixing up an old Lotus Elan and a three-wheeled 1970s Bond Bug.

Brad Newsome

Unforgotten (premiere)

ABC, 8.30pm

The promise of Nicola Walker (Last Tango in Halifax, River) in a starring role is enough to make any series worth a look. But this six-part drama also offers a terrific collection of co-stars. The story begins with the discovery of a skeleton in a shallow grave. Then the deftly constructed and intriguing opener introduces a range of characters whose connection isn't immediately apparent: a brusque politician (Trevor Eve) and his wife (Cherie Lunghi); the coach of a boys' soccer team (Brian Bovell) and his wife (Ruth Sheen); a priest (Bernard Hill); and a frail elderly couple (Tom Courtenay and Gemma Jones). Walker's police detective and her partner (Sanjeev Bhaskar) start to investigate, key pieces of information emerge and, by the time the link between the characters is revealed, you're likely to be hooked.

Debi Enker 

movie Children of Men (2006)

7Flix, 10.35pm

Set in a dystopian Britain of 2027, Alfonso Cuaron's modern classic burns fiercest at an intimate level that exceeds the bleak complexity of the future it imagines. In a world where for reasons unknown no child has been born in 18 years, society is collapsing and repression endures. Shot on the streets of the capital and in a polluted countryside we see a future we can recognise from the present; it's still London, just with illegal immigrants in detention cages, abandoned schools and ads for legal self-euthanasia products. As Theo, Clive Owen does not give the performance of a man trying to save the world. He just pushes on, slowly realising that he once more cares about something after his former wife, Julian (Julianne Moore) calls on him to aid her underground movement. There are several remarkable set-pieces, but concurrently the production design is remarkably immersive as humanity teeters.

Craig Mathieson

movie Bad Moms (2016)

stan.com.au

Like most riots, Bad Moms speaks to bubbling anger but not systematic causes – Jon Lucas and Scott Moore's comedy is fun but too close to frivolous. In the Chicago suburbs working mother Amy (Mila Kunis) carries her entitled family, perpetually drawing the disapproval of her school community's top dog, Gwendolyn (Christina Applegate). When Amy snaps she's backed by fellow maternal outsiders, Kiki (Kristen Bell) and Carla (the goddess known as Kathryn Hahn), and they basically run wild: trashing supermarket aisles, getting hammered, and parting like it's 1999. Amy and her associates challenge Gwendolyn in a school council election, but the film never considers that they're all just pawns in a larger game, and the action unfolds in a Hollywood bubble where finances are never acknowledged. The cast are game, but the humour is timid and the mood chaste. Whatever happens these characters are staying as movie mums.

Craig Mathieson