Masterpiece Movies (pay TV), 8.30pm

Michael Winterbottom's The Trip to Spain was for me the best film of 2017. It is a melancholic and deeply touching look at maleness and ageing, and at a Europe sleep-walking towards its doom. Like all The Trip films (see The Trip, Wednesday), it feels as if we are watching real life – a documentary recorded by hidden cameras – but actually it is all scripted and acted, although leads Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon are encouraged to improvise. The restaurants and hotels they visit are fabulous, the banter hilarious, the insights crisp. In a year when so many new films lacked ideas, rigour or originality, Winterbottom emerged as a modern-day Rousseau, while on the surface allowing two middle-aged men to relentlessly imitate the voice of Michael – "Sir Michael" – Caine. I have already watched this film many times. And for those who love it as much as I do, try the six-part series. It is even better, by more thoughtfully setting up the brilliant ending. Scott Murray

The Resident (season final)

Seven, 9.45pm

The frenetic pace of this Atlanta-based hospital drama doesn't falter as it races to its season finale. From the outset, with the introduction to the staff and patients of Chastain Park Memorial of Dr Devon Pravesh (Manish Dayal), the series' emphasis has been on speed and urgency. Doctors, such as hotshot surgeon Conrad Hawkins (Matt Czuchry), and nurses like Nicolette Nevin (Emily VanCamp), run from crisis to crisis, with the life-or-death procedures punctuated by ones of a less critical variety, including treatment of the patient who arrives regularly with condiments jammed into his colon. The 14th episode sees nurse Nic in jail, a risky heart operation and disturbing allegations about Dr Hunter (Melina Kanakaredes). It ends with a new honcho taking charge of the hospital board, setting the scene for the second season, which has been commissioned. DE

PAY

America: Facts vs Fiction

Discovery Science, 9.30pm

At first this snack-sized history program seems overly gimmicky, perhaps even disrespectful. In this instalment on American generals Dwight D. Eisenhower and Douglas MacArthur, host Jamie Kaler does his bits to camera in front of a flaming pile of ruins while a real-life tank trundles back and forth. But just as you might be getting your back up, you might also remember how very educational the utterly barmy Drunk History has been. (You might also remember that Stan and Amazon Prime Video are each streaming a season of Drunk History at the moment.) All good, then. This episode provides brief but interesting primers on Eisenhower and MacArthur, beginning with the fact that Eisenhower would have been denied admission to the United States Military Academy had he disclosed his past as a semi-professional baseball player. On such strange little things can history turn. Brad Newsome