Wednesday night's TV guide is one of those evenings where the schedule seems to have been assembled with genuine care rather than dumped out of a spreadsheet. Channel 4's gripping Tony Blair documentary reaches its most consequential chapter, Channel 5 launches a brand new history series with Alice Roberts, and BBC One wraps up a properly grisly Silent Witness case. Check the TV listings below or consult your Freeview TV guide for the full picture -- there's a lot to fit in tonight, and that's before you factor in the EastEnders anniversary hour-long special and a stacked evening of live sport.
What's On TV Tonight: Quick Picks
- The Tony Blair Story -- Channel 4, 9pm -- The Iraq War episode, with Bill Clinton and Clare Short
- Alice Roberts: Our Hospital through Time -- Channel 5, 8pm -- Brand new history series about Barts
- Silent Witness -- BBC One, 9pm -- Part 2 concludes the homelessness-themed case
- EastEnders -- BBC One, 7.30pm -- Hour-long 40th anniversary special with a Vic fire
- The Summit -- ITV1, 9pm -- Gorge crossing, screaming, and more vote-offs
- The Rescue -- BBC Two, 11.30pm -- Superb Thailand cave rescue documentary
Is EastEnders on tonight?
Yes, and it's a big one. EastEnders is on BBC One at 7.30pm tonight, and this is the hour-long anniversary special that sets everything up for tomorrow's live episode. The Vic is ablaze and people are trapped inside. The rescue attempt is frantic and chaotic, and the show makes it clear from the outset that not everyone is getting out. If that wasn't enough, Anita Dobson makes a surprise return as Angie Watts -- 37 years after the character last appeared. The voting for Denise's storyline opens after this episode and closes just before tomorrow's live broadcast. This is the one that anniversary weeks are made of.
TV Guide: Early Evening (7.30pm -- 8pm)
EastEnders -- BBC One, 7.30pm
The 40th anniversary week has been building towards this, and Wednesday's hour-long special delivers the full catastrophe. A fire tears through The Vic, trapping people inside and triggering a desperate scramble to get them out. The sequences inside the burning pub are genuinely harrowing -- smoke-choked corridors, collapsing beams, panic-stricken faces lit by flames. Several characters are in real jeopardy, and the show doesn't flinch from the consequences. At least one person doesn't survive. Amidst the chaos, Anita Dobson appears as Angie Watts in what amounts to a ghostly visitation that's surprisingly moving rather than corny. It's a lot to pack into sixty minutes, but EastEnders has always risen to its anniversary occasions, and this is no exception. The live episode tomorrow at 7.30pm follows directly from tonight's cliffhanger. Also available on iPlayer from 6am.
Alice Roberts: Our Hospital through Time -- Channel 5, 8pm
A new six-part series, and a genuinely lovely one at that. In 1123, a man called Rahere returned from the Holy Land, claimed he'd had a vision of St Bartholomew, and founded a priory with a hospital attached near St Paul's Cathedral. Nine hundred years later, that hospital -- Barts, as generations of Londoners have known it -- is still standing on the same site, treating roughly 2,000 patients every week. Alice Roberts is the perfect presenter for this kind of material: part professor, part enthusiast, never talking down to the audience. The first episode digs into the medieval origins and follows the hospital's story through plague, fire, and reformation, all while cutting to the modern wards where today's staff deal with emergencies that Rahere could never have imagined. It's the kind of programme Channel 5 should be making more of -- intelligent, warm, and genuinely educational without ever feeling like a lecture. Available to stream on Channel 5.
MasterChef The Professionals -- BBC One, 8pm
The heats continue with four new chefs facing the familiar ordeal of the skills test. Tonight they're tasked with recreating Thai-style chicken wings and Japanese souffle pancakes, which is the sort of combination that sounds deceptively simple until you realise the pancakes need to wobble in exactly the right way and the wings need a glaze that could strip paint. Marcus Wareing, Monica Galetti and Matt Tebbutt are on judging duty.
TV Tonight: Prime Time (9pm onwards)
The Tony Blair Story -- Channel 4, 9pm ⭐
This is the pick of the evening, and arguably the most important hour of television this week. After last night's episode traced Blair's rise to power, the middle instalment tackles the decision that defined -- and ultimately destroyed -- his premiership: Iraq. Why did Blair feel compelled to stand alongside George W Bush after 9/11, committing British forces first to Afghanistan and then to Iraq? The contributor list alone tells you this is serious television. Bill Clinton appears and offers a nuanced assessment of Blair's mindset, while Clare Short -- who resigned from the cabinet over the war -- provides the counter-argument with undimmed anger. What makes this episode particularly compelling is that it resists the easy narrative. Blair wasn't simply dragged along by American foreign policy, and his own testimony here suggests a man who genuinely believed he was making the right call, even as the evidence crumbled beneath him. Whether you find that admirable or infuriating depends entirely on where you stand, but the programme gives you enough material to make up your own mind. Part three concludes tomorrow night. Available on Channel 4 streaming.
Silent Witness -- BBC One, 9pm
The conclusion of the two-part Enemy Within case that opened last night with that stomach-turning postmortem. If you stuck with it through the screwdriver and the missing brain, you'll want to see how Nikki Alexander pulls the threads together. Strip away the surface-level gore, though, and there's something more thoughtful going on underneath. The case has a homelessness angle that the show handles with more care than you might expect from a series that just spent twenty minutes examining a skull cavity. Emilia Fox anchors everything with her usual composure, and the final act delivers a satisfying resolution that ties the forensic puzzle to the social commentary. A two-parter that rewards patience.
The Summit -- ITV1, 9pm
The mountain continues to thin out the group, and tonight's episode is one of those instalments where multiple people seem to lose their nerve simultaneously. The centrepiece is a rope crossing over a gorge that produces some of the most visceral terror this series has managed -- there's a lot of screaming, a lot of "I can't do this," and at least one climber who has to be physically talked through every inch of it. The vote-off continues to get more ruthless as the numbers shrink and alliances become harder to maintain. Ben Shephard hosts with his usual mix of encouragement and barely concealed "better you than me" energy. Continues tomorrow.
Matlock -- Sky Witness, 9pm
Kathy Bates's legal drama continues to mine compelling stories from the collision between past and present. This week, Olympia is wrestling with a case that hits close to home -- her mother's new husband has a past that somebody wants brought into the light, and Olympia has to decide whether digging it up serves justice or merely causes pain. It's the kind of moral question that this show handles well, and Skye P. Marshall brings real conviction to the role. Available on NOW.
Our Yorkshire Pub with Jon Richardson -- More4, 9pm
Jon Richardson's ongoing mission to restore The Plough in Fadmoor, North Yorkshire, turns to the pub's flooring this week. It doesn't sound glamorous -- and it isn't -- but there's something quietly compelling about watching a comedian who clearly cares about getting the details right throwing himself into manual labour. The pub first opened in 1782, and the team are determined to do right by its history. It's gentle, good-natured telly that feels like a warm pint by a fire.
TV Guide UK: Late Night
The Curfew -- Channel 5, 10pm
Episode three of the dystopian thriller, and the investigation is picking up real momentum. The overnight curfew imposed on men has managed to reduce the crime rate but hasn't done much for relations between the sexes -- most men are simmering with resentment, and some women have become increasingly confrontational. Sarah Parish's Detective Pamela Green is taking no prisoners, employing interrogation tactics that wouldn't be out of place in a 1970s cop show. Male suspects are cycling through the interview rooms, but tonight the police locate the actual murder scene and the weapon, which shifts the entire direction of the case. The adaptation of Jayne Cowie's novel is getting stronger as the mystery deepens. Continues tomorrow at 10pm. Full series available on Channel 5 streaming.
Fukushima: Days that Shocked the World -- Channel 4, 10.30pm
The concluding part picks up in the hours and days after the tsunami struck Japan on 11 March 2011. Last night's episode covered the earthquake and the wave itself; tonight focuses on what happened next at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station. The plant's cooling systems failed, reactors began to overheat, and radioactive material was hurled into the atmosphere, forcing everyone within 20 kilometres to evacuate. It's a study in how one catastrophe cascades into another, and the footage of the plant workers trying to prevent a full meltdown in near-impossible conditions is both harrowing and deeply human. The worst nuclear incident since Chernobyl, told with clarity and respect for the people caught in its path.
Derek Jacobi Remembers... Breaking the Code -- BBC Four, from 10pm
Derek Jacobi looks back on the 1996 BBC dramatisation of Alan Turing's life, adapted from Hugh Whitemore's acclaimed West End play. Jacobi played Turing in both the stage and screen versions, and his performance remains one of the most captivating portrayals of the wartime code-breaker. The film handles both the brilliance of Turing's work at Bletchley Park and the tragedy of his persecution for homosexuality with intelligence and restraint. Jacobi has a gift for making complex ideas feel accessible, and his scenes explaining the principles of cryptography and early computing are genuinely absorbing. If you've never seen it, this is a treat.
The Rescue -- BBC Two, 11.30pm
Stay up for this if you possibly can. The 2021 documentary about the Thailand cave rescue -- when twelve boys and their football coach were trapped deep inside a flooded cave system for eighteen days in the summer of 2018 -- is genuinely one of the finest pieces of documentary filmmaking you'll see on television. Directors Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin (who also made Free Solo) use never-before-seen footage and first-hand accounts from the volunteer cave divers to reconstruct the rescue in painstaking, often unbearable detail. You know how it ends, and it still has you gripping the sofa. The focus on the divers themselves -- amateur enthusiasts from places like Bristol and Coventry who ended up performing one of the most audacious rescues in history -- gives it a very British understatement that makes the achievement feel all the more remarkable. Emmy-winning and worth every minute.
Landscape Artist of the Year -- Sky Arts, 8pm
Another spectacular location for the artists this week, and genuinely one of the best views in England. The easels are set up in the fields below Dover Castle, with woodland rolling down to the cliffs and the English Channel stretching out beyond. On a clear, blue-sky day -- and the programme has been blessed with the weather again -- it's the kind of vista that makes you understand why people paint. Stephen Mangan hosts, with judges Eva Langret, Tai Shan Schierenberg and Kathleen Soriano assessing the work. Available to catch up on ITVX.
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver -- Sky Comedy, 9pm
John Oliver returns with his trademark blend of deep-dive journalism and righteous fury. Whatever the headlines have been this week, expect Oliver to find an angle nobody else has considered, delivered at a pace that makes you feel slightly breathless. It's one of those shows that makes you both better informed and slightly more anxious about the state of the world, which is arguably the point. Available on NOW.
Sport
Winter Olympics 2026: Day 12 of the Milano Cortina Games from 8am on BBC One, then BBC Two from 1pm (also on TNT Sports).
Football: Premier League: Wolves v Arsenal, coverage from 7.30pm with kick-off at 8pm on Sky Sports Main Event. Rescheduled fixture at Molineux due to Arsenal's involvement in the Carabao Cup final.
Football: Champions League: Qarabag v Newcastle, coverage from 5pm with kick-off at 5.45pm on TNT Sports 1. Knockout round playoff first leg in Baku.
Cricket: Men's T20 World Cup: India v Netherlands, from 1pm on Sky Sports Main Event/Cricket. Group A match.
Tonight's TV Listings: Full Schedule
| Time | Channel | Programme |
|---|---|---|
| 8:00am | BBC One | Winter Olympics 2026 Day 12 |
| 1:00pm | BBC Two | Winter Olympics 2026 |
| 1:00pm | Sky Sports Main Event | Cricket: T20 World Cup -- India v Netherlands |
| 5:00pm | TNT Sports 1 | Football: Champions League -- Qarabag v Newcastle (KO 5:45pm) |
| 7:30pm | BBC One | EastEnders (hour-long anniversary special) |
| 7:30pm | Sky Sports Main Event | Football: Premier League -- Wolves v Arsenal (KO 8pm) |
| 8:00pm | Channel 5 | Alice Roberts: Our Hospital through Time (new series) |
| 8:00pm | BBC One | MasterChef The Professionals |
| 8:00pm | Sky Arts | Landscape Artist of the Year |
| 9:00pm | Channel 4 | The Tony Blair Story (ep 2) |
| 9:00pm | BBC One | Silent Witness |
| 9:00pm | ITV1 | The Summit |
| 9:00pm | Sky Witness | Matlock |
| 9:00pm | More4 | Our Yorkshire Pub with Jon Richardson |
| 9:00pm | Sky Comedy | Last Week Tonight with John Oliver |
| 10:00pm | Channel 5 | The Curfew (ep 3) |
| 10:00pm | BBC Four | Derek Jacobi Remembers... Breaking the Code |
| 10:30pm | Channel 4 | Fukushima: Days that Shocked the World (part 2) |
| 11:30pm | BBC Two | The Rescue |
Freeview TV Guide: What's On Streaming
BBC iPlayer: EastEnders, Silent Witness, MasterChef The Professionals, Breaking the Code, The Rescue, Winter Olympics (full coverage) ITVX: The Summit, Landscape Artist of the Year Channel 4 streaming: The Tony Blair Story, Fukushima: Days that Shocked the World Channel 5 streaming: Alice Roberts: Our Hospital through Time, The Curfew (full series boxset) NOW: Matlock, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
Frequently Asked Questions
What time is EastEnders on TV tonight?
EastEnders is on BBC One at 7.30pm tonight (Wednesday 18th February 2026). This is an hour-long anniversary special as part of the 40th anniversary week. There is panic at The Vic as people trapped inside fight to escape a blaze, and not everyone survives. The live episode follows tomorrow night.
What time is The Tony Blair Story on Channel 4?
The Tony Blair Story episode 2 is on Channel 4 at 9pm tonight (Wednesday 18th February 2026). This middle instalment focuses on Blair's decision to go to war in Iraq, with contributions from Bill Clinton and Clare Short.
What's the best thing to watch on TV tonight?
Our top pick is The Tony Blair Story on Channel 4 at 9pm -- the second episode of this gripping three-part documentary turning to Blair's fateful decision over Iraq. Alice Roberts: Our Hospital through Time on Channel 5 at 8pm and Silent Witness on BBC One at 9pm are also strong choices.
What time is Silent Witness on tonight?
Silent Witness is on BBC One at 9pm tonight (Wednesday 18th February 2026). This is The Enemy Within Part 2, concluding the two-part case that began last night.
What's on BBC One tonight?
BBC One's highlights tonight include the EastEnders hour-long anniversary special at 7.30pm, MasterChef The Professionals at 8pm, Silent Witness at 9pm, plus Winter Olympics Day 12 coverage from 8am.
What time is Wolves v Arsenal on TV tonight?
Wolves v Arsenal is on Sky Sports Main Event tonight (Wednesday 18th February 2026). Coverage begins at 7.30pm with kick-off at 8pm. This is a rescheduled Premier League fixture at Molineux.
TV Guide UK: Final Verdict
The Tony Blair Story on Channel 4 at 9pm is our pick of the night -- the Iraq episode is where this documentary hits its full stride, and the roll call of contributors from Bill Clinton to Clare Short gives it a gravity that few political programmes achieve. Whether you view Blair as a misguided idealist or something far worse, this is essential viewing that trusts you to make up your own mind.
Earlier in the evening, Alice Roberts: Our Hospital through Time on Channel 5 at 8pm is a genuinely delightful new series that deserves a wide audience -- nine centuries of medical history told with warmth and intelligence. EastEnders at 7.30pm delivers one of those blockbuster anniversary specials that the soap does better than anyone, with a Vic fire, a devastating death, and a surprise returning face. Silent Witness at 9pm wraps up its homelessness-themed case with more thought than the gore might suggest, and for night owls, The Rescue on BBC Two at 11.30pm is simply one of the best documentaries made this decade. A Wednesday well worth staying in for.