New Year’s Day TV: Tom Hiddleston’s huge return in The Night Manager | television

Night manager

9.05pm, BBC One
It’s been almost a decade since one of the BBC’s biggest dramas – #Hiddlebum – premiered. After teaming up with Angela Burr (Olivia Colman) to take down arms dealer Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie), soldier turned hotel manager turned MI6 recruit Jonathan Pine (Tom Hiddleston) has finally returned. He’s living a simple life as Alex Goodwin and running a simple surveillance unit in London, when his world explodes after the discovery of a man linked to Roper. As trouble quickly escalates, the murder of a friend sets Bane on a mission that leads to the emergence of a violent new player, Colombian businessman Teddy Dos Santos (Diego Calva). Hold tight to the New Year’s fireworks. Holly Richardson

Wild London

6.30pm, BBC One
He may have met the most amazing animals around the world, but David Attenborough still gets a huge thrill from spotting foxes in his Tottenham plot of land. Even the pigeons roaming around Hammersmith station brighten his day. In this documentary, a conservationist celebrates the capital’s creatures. Human resources

Great New Year’s bread

6.40pm Channel 4
This is a first for a Bake Off game: the baker’s best friends from the previous series will come together in pairs to compete on the New Year’s cake stand. Val and Selassie, Giuseppe and Rahul, are a few of the familiar faces working together on a fantastic show that makes their favorite Christmas movie into cookie form. Human resources

Traitors

8pm, BBC One
Now in its fourth series, and with the hit celebrity version still fresh in our minds, there was a chance the traitors might pause for a while. But who are we kidding? Claudia Winkleman’s dastardly competition is still all we’ll be talking about during January – so sit back and get ready to meet the new contestants. Human resources

Red eye

9pm on ITV1
She racked up air miles in the first series but DS Hana Li (Jing Lusi) is firmly on the ground as the twisty thriller returns on ITV. A standoff at the American Embassy in London – where Lee quarrels with the head of security (Martin Compston) – means a judicial headache as she tries to catch a killer and avert an air-terrorist threat. Graeme Virtue

Sheidets

At 10.35pm on BBC One
A new comedy film based on the talents of the cast of Mrs Brown’s Boys. Brendan O’Carroll, Danny O’Carroll and this show’s writer Paddy Houlihan play men who gather in a cottage in a village in Ireland to spend their time and perhaps do something useful. Can they win a charity race using a bike they built from spare parts? Phil Harrison

Choose a movie

After 28 years (Danny Boyle, 2025)6.30am, 8pm, premiere at Sky Cinema

Danny Boyle and Alex Garland’s zombie horror saga returns – after 18 years – with the first part of a trilogy set in Britain cut off from the rest of Europe. Instead of having everyone running around and dying (although there’s a fair amount of that), this one follows humanity as they try to protect the remnants of civilization in the wake of a raging infection. Spike (Alfie Williams) lives with his mother Isla (Jodie Comer) and father Jimmy (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) on the fortified island of Lindisfarne. But invasions on the mainland put all three in danger. And what is Ralph Fiennes’s mysterious doctor up to in the woods? An exciting and colorful visit to a dystopian world, where, despite everything, there is still a glimmer of hope. Simon Wardle