Tuesday's got some real variety to it, and our TV guide for tonight covers everything from a major new political documentary to some properly grisly forensics. Channel 4 launches its three-part examination of Tony Blair, BBC One brings back Silent Witness with its most stomach-turning case in a while, and ITV's mountain-climbing reality show continues to deliver surprisingly ruthless drama. Scroll through the TV listings below or check your Freeview TV guide for the full evening -- there's something for every taste tonight, including the squeamish and the unsqueamish alike.
What's On TV Tonight: Quick Picks
- The Tony Blair Story -- Channel 4, 9pm -- Revealing new documentary series on the former PM
- Silent Witness -- BBC One, 9pm -- A screwdriver, a missing brain, and Nikki on the case
- The Summit -- ITV1, 9pm -- Tensions boil over on the New Zealand mountain
- EastEnders -- BBC One, 7.30pm -- 40th anniversary week continues with an armed confrontation
- Renfield -- Film4, 9pm -- Nicolas Cage as Dracula in a comedy horror romp
- The Darkest Web: Storyville -- BBC Four, 10pm -- Powerful documentary on hunting online predators
Is EastEnders on tonight?
Yes. EastEnders is on BBC One at 7.30pm tonight, and this is a big one. We're deep into the soap's 40th anniversary week, and tonight Cindy finds herself in possession of a weapon and face to face with whoever has her missing locket -- the one she lost the night she was attacked. The confrontation takes a dramatic turn that nobody sees coming. BBC Three also has EastEnders Revealed: The Lock In at 8pm, hosted by Joe Swash, going behind the scenes of the anniversary storylines. If you've ever been curious about the Cindy Beale attacker reveal, tonight's the night it starts to unravel.
TV Guide: Early Evening (7.30pm -- 8pm)
EastEnders -- BBC One, 7.30pm
Anniversary episodes have a habit of upending everything, and this Tuesday instalment is no exception. Cindy has tracked down her missing locket and she's not in the mood for a polite conversation about it -- she's armed, desperate, and ready for answers about who attacked her on Christmas Day. The confrontation that follows is one of those properly heart-in-mouth moments that the show does best when the stakes feel genuinely personal rather than just plot-driven. There's a twist here that rewrites everything you think you know about this storyline. With the live episode coming later in the week on Thursday, this feels like the fuse being lit.
MasterChef The Professionals -- BBC One, 8pm
The second week of heats gets underway with four professional chefs vying for a spot in the quarter-finals. The skills test tonight has a Korean twist, set by a former finalist, which means it's the kind of precise, technically demanding cooking that separates the competent from the genuinely exceptional. Marcus Wareing, Monica Galetti and Matt Tebbutt are judging, and the standard at this stage is already noticeably higher than last week.
TV Tonight: Prime Time (9pm onwards)
The Tony Blair Story -- Channel 4, 9pm ⭐
This is the pick of the evening. Whatever your feelings about Blair -- and feelings tend to run hot in either direction -- Michael Waldman's new three-part documentary promises to get beneath the familiar headlines about Iraq, spin and centrism. The first episode concentrates on the backstory, and there's genuinely fascinating material here. Blair's grandparents were travelling salesmen. He has never, apparently, bought Cherie flowers. Not once. These are the kinds of granular personal details that political documentaries usually miss because they're too busy being worthy. Waldman, who previously made films about Karl Lagerfeld and Boris Johnson's time at the Foreign Office, has assembled a roster of contributors including Peter Mandelson, and the portrait of the young Blair that emerges is far more layered than the caricature most people carry around in their heads. The programme traces how that famous grin was built on top of something more complicated and more driven than his critics give him credit for. Part two follows tomorrow night. Available to stream on Channel 4.
Silent Witness -- BBC One, 9pm
Fair warning: this one's not for anyone who gets squeamish around DIY tools. A man has been found dead with a Phillips screwdriver embedded in his eye socket, and someone has taken the additional trouble of removing his brain. It might look like a home improvement gone spectacularly wrong at first glance, but Nikki Alexander -- Emilia Fox, steady as ever -- quickly establishes that this was very deliberate. The effects department have clearly had a whale of a time with this one, and the result is the kind of episode that'll have you peering through your fingers. This is part one of a two-parter, with the conclusion airing tomorrow at 9pm. These rescheduled episodes were originally pulled from the schedule earlier in the month, so if you've been wondering when they'd turn up, here they are.
The Summit -- ITV1, 9pm
Ben Shephard's mountain-climbing reality contest has quietly become one of the more absorbing shows on telly at the moment. The fourteen strangers hauling themselves across the New Zealand Alps with a potential 200,000 pounds waiting at the top are only partway up, but the cracks in the group are turning into chasms. The vote-off meetings at basecamp have developed a proper edge to them -- there's real back-stabbing going on, with alliances forming and dissolving at speed. The most interesting dynamic tonight is between Rev Warren, who keeps insisting on moral standards, and former soldier Dockers, who keeps reminding him this is a competition with money at stake. Neither of them is wrong, which is what makes it compelling. The Mountain Keeper sets a precipice ascent that reduces one climber to hysterics. Continues tomorrow at 9pm.
The Good Ship Murder -- Channel 5, 9pm
Shayne Ward and Catherine Tyldesley's cruise ship whodunnit has mostly kept things breezy and light across this run, but tonight's episode takes a different tack. The victim this time is someone whose face has become familiar over the weeks, and that familiarity gives the death a weight that previous killings haven't quite managed. It's an unusual move for a show that typically treats murder as little more than a pleasant puzzle to solve over cocktails on the lido deck, and it's all the better for it. There's genuine grief threaded through the investigation for a change.
Renfield -- Film4, 9pm
If you're after something entirely different from the serious fare elsewhere, Film4 has you covered. Nicholas Hoult plays the long-suffering personal assistant to Count Dracula -- think of it as the world's worst workplace drama. After centuries of fetching victims and tolerating impossible demands, Renfield snaps and starts attending a self-help group to get over his co-dependent relationship with his boss. Nicolas Cage, meanwhile, plays Dracula with absolutely zero restraint, going so big it becomes its own form of art. The whole thing is framed as a satire on toxic working relationships, and while it's slathered in cartoonish gore, the jokes about awful management styles land surprisingly well. It won't change your life, but it'll make you feel better about your own boss.
Harry Wild -- U&Drama, 8pm
The series finale of Jane Seymour's Dublin-set mystery drama, and the writers have decided to go out with a bang -- quite literally. Just as the family is about to leave the police station for Glenn and Petra's wedding, a man wearing a bomb vest takes everyone hostage. Glenn, clearly a man of culture, declares it to be a Die Hard situation and promptly strips down to a vest to crawl through the ventilation system. If you've been watching all three series, this is a suitably bonkers send-off. All three series are available on the U streaming service.
Lost Grail with Alice Roberts -- Sky History, 9pm
The final episode of Professor Alice Roberts's quest to untangle Britain's Holy Grail legends arrives at its most famous location: Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland. The chapel has been at the centre of Grail mythology for centuries, especially after getting the Dan Brown treatment, and tonight Roberts examines the claim that the Knights Templar buried the actual Grail somewhere beneath its floors. There's a mysterious wooden bowl discovered during excavations in the 1990s that gets sent to Oxford for analysis, which is exactly the kind of detail that makes this show tick.
TV Guide UK: Late Night
The Curfew -- Channel 5, 10pm
Episode two of the dystopian thriller that launched last night. With electronic tagger Sarah now arrested for the murder, detective Pamela -- Sarah Parish, still commanding every scene she's in -- doubles down on her conviction that the real killer is a man who somehow broke the nighttime curfew. The adaptation of Jayne Cowie's novel After Dark is exploring more than just the central murder mystery -- the restrictions on men extend well beyond simple tagging, and the show is digging into how an entire society has reconfigured itself around them. Male partners are naturally the first suspects, but the victim's boyfriend seems almost too obvious. Continues tomorrow at 10pm.
The Darkest Web: Storyville -- BBC Four, 10pm
Genuinely important documentary, though not an easy watch. US Homeland Security agent Greg Squire has spent over two decades working to identify and dismantle online paedophile networks operating on the dark web. Director Sam Piranty follows the painstaking, often agonising process of tracking down suspects, conducted with a level of persistence that's both humbling and frequently heartbreaking. What elevates this above a standard true crime documentary is the sense of urgency -- Squire and his team are often racing the clock to reach children at immediate risk. The film's closing section delivers something you don't expect: genuine hope.
Fukushima: Days that Shocked the World -- Channel 4, 10.30pm
Part one of a two-part account of the 11 March 2011 disaster in Japan, timed for the fifteenth anniversary. The earthquake alone was the most powerful in Japanese history, but it was the tsunami that followed -- waves reaching 40 metres high, surging 10 kilometres inland -- that caused the catastrophic damage. Nearly 20,000 people died. And then came the meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, the worst nuclear incident since Chernobyl. The documentary traces how one disaster cascaded into the next with terrifying speed. Part two concludes tomorrow.
Mr Nobody against Putin -- BBC Four, 11.25pm
Nominated for both an Oscar and a Bafta, and well worth staying up for. Pavel Talankin was a school worker in a small Russian mining town who spent more than two years secretly filming how Putin's propaganda machine infiltrated classrooms in the wake of the Ukraine invasion. When he realised he was under police surveillance, American filmmaker David Borenstein helped smuggle him out of the country. The footage Talankin captured paints a vivid and troubling picture of everyday life under an authoritarian regime, and the personal cost of making this film is staggering. Few documentaries demand this level of sacrifice from their creators.
Sport
Winter Olympics 2026: Day 11 of the Milano Cortina Games from 9am on BBC One, then BBC Two from 1pm (also on TNT Sports).
Football: Champions League: Monaco v PSG, coverage from 7.45pm with kick-off at 8pm on TNT Sports 1. First leg of the playoff round, with PSG having finished 11th in the league phase and Monaco 21st.
Football: League One: Blackpool v Mansfield, coverage from 7.30pm with kick-off at 8pm on Sky Sports Main Event/Football.
Cricket: Men's T20 World Cup: Ireland v Zimbabwe at 9am, Scotland v Nepal at 1pm, both on Sky Sports ME/Cricket.
Tonight's TV Listings: Full Schedule
| Time | Channel | Programme |
|---|---|---|
| 9:00am | BBC One | Winter Olympics 2026 Day 11 |
| 9:00am | Sky Sports Cricket | Cricket: T20 World Cup -- Ireland v Zimbabwe |
| 1:00pm | BBC Two | Winter Olympics 2026 |
| 1:00pm | Sky Sports Cricket | Cricket: T20 World Cup -- Scotland v Nepal |
| 7:20pm | BBC Four | Kenneth Williams Archive |
| 7:30pm | BBC One | EastEnders (40th anniversary week) |
| 7:30pm | Sky Sports Main Event | Football: Blackpool v Mansfield (KO 8pm) |
| 7:45pm | TNT Sports 1 | Football: Champions League -- Monaco v PSG (KO 8pm) |
| 8:00pm | BBC One | MasterChef The Professionals |
| 8:00pm | U&Drama | Harry Wild (series finale) |
| 9:00pm | Channel 4 | The Tony Blair Story (new series) |
| 9:00pm | BBC One | Silent Witness |
| 9:00pm | ITV1 | The Summit |
| 9:00pm | Channel 5 | The Good Ship Murder |
| 9:00pm | Film4 | Renfield |
| 9:00pm | Sky History | Lost Grail with Alice Roberts (final episode) |
| 10:00pm | Channel 5 | The Curfew (ep 2) |
| 10:00pm | BBC Four | The Darkest Web: Storyville |
| 10:30pm | Channel 4 | Fukushima: Days that Shocked the World |
| 11:25pm | BBC Four | Mr Nobody against Putin |
Freeview TV Guide: What's On Streaming
BBC iPlayer: Silent Witness, EastEnders, MasterChef The Professionals, The Darkest Web: Storyville, Mr Nobody against Putin, Winter Olympics (full coverage), Kenneth Williams Archive ITVX: The Summit Channel 4 streaming: The Tony Blair Story, Fukushima: Days that Shocked the World, Renfield (via Film4) Channel 5 streaming: The Curfew (full series boxset), The Good Ship Murder U: Harry Wild (series 1-3)
Frequently Asked Questions
What time is EastEnders on TV tonight?
EastEnders is on BBC One at 7.30pm tonight (Tuesday 17th February 2026). It is part of the soap's 40th anniversary week, with Cindy facing a dramatic armed confrontation over her missing locket.
What time is The Tony Blair Story on Channel 4?
The Tony Blair Story starts on Channel 4 at 9pm tonight (Tuesday 17th February 2026). This is the first episode of a new three-part documentary series directed by Michael Waldman, featuring interviews with Blair himself, Cherie and Peter Mandelson.
What's the best thing to watch on TV tonight?
Our top pick is The Tony Blair Story on Channel 4 at 9pm -- a revealing new three-part documentary that examines Blair's early life and rise to power with surprising personal detail. Silent Witness on BBC One at 9pm and The Summit on ITV1 at 9pm are also strong choices.
What time is Silent Witness on tonight?
Silent Witness is on BBC One at 9pm tonight (Tuesday 17th February 2026). This is The Enemy Within Part 1, featuring a gruesome murder investigation. Part 2 airs tomorrow at 9pm.
What's on BBC One tonight?
BBC One's highlights tonight include EastEnders at 7.30pm (40th anniversary week), MasterChef The Professionals at 8pm, Silent Witness at 9pm, plus Winter Olympics Day 11 coverage from 9am.
What time is The Summit on ITV tonight?
The Summit is on ITV1 at 9pm tonight (Tuesday 17th February 2026). The climbers face a precipice ascent and increasingly tense vote-off meetings as the group splinters.
TV Guide UK: Final Verdict
The Tony Blair Story on Channel 4 at 9pm is our pick of the night -- love him or loathe him, Michael Waldman's documentary unearths genuinely fresh material about one of the most divisive figures in modern British politics. The personal details are what make it sing, and it's a far more nuanced portrait than you might expect. Over on BBC One, Silent Witness at 9pm delivers a properly gruesome case that'll test the hardiest of stomachs, while The Summit on ITV1 at 9pm continues to develop into something unexpectedly absorbing -- the politics between the climbers is more cutthroat than anything on the actual mountain.
Earlier in the evening, EastEnders at 7.30pm is unmissable if you're following the 40th anniversary -- tonight's armed confrontation sets the stage for the rest of the week. For the night owls, The Darkest Web: Storyville on BBC Four at 10pm is difficult but outstanding documentary filmmaking, and Mr Nobody against Putin at 11.25pm is an Oscar-nominated film that demands to be seen. A solid Tuesday with real depth across the schedule.