BIG LITTLE LIES, SKY ATLANTIC, 9pm
THREE A-list actresses are present in this new drama series – Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern – reinforcing what a “golden age” this is for television. If Hollywood wants its women to be youthful and sexy and very little else then maybe TV can offer the tough parts such good actresses deserve?

Based on a best-selling novel, the story is about three seemingly glowing, perfect American wives and mothers, played by Kidman, Witherspoon and Shailene Woodley. They live in the rich town of Monterey, California, but behind the sunshine, glamour and the outwardly happy marriages, there is bitterness and tension and someone has been killed.

Initially we don’t know who the victim is; the story is told in flashbacks and witness statements as we gradually work our way back to the crime, with everyone having their own theory and their own private resentments.

BROADCHURCH, STV, 9pm
AREN’T all the men in Broadchurch a little bit nasty?

As Hardy and Miller do the rounds tonight, interviewing the men who were at the notorious party, every one of them seems shifty and, as the police depart, they dish up some suspicious, lingering glances. It almost veers towards being comical, as if the police are knocking on the doors of a list of pantomime villains, but the horror of what happened to Trish keeps any ridicule at bay.

Trish also withholds possibly crucial information from the police. She managed to tell them she’d slept with a man on the morning of the attack, but refuses to name him. “It’s not him!” she tells Hardy furiously, and still refuses to give a name even when told his DNA will surely be found on her bedsheets.

Hardy’s insistent approach seems to be alienating Trish, and Miller is caught in the middle, seeing the need for delicacy but, at the same time, desperate to storm ahead and catch the rapist.