This week’s theme year is 1980. Festive continuity is starting to creep in as we inch closer towards Christmas! We start off with some schools and childrens’ lunchtime programming, before a BBC news bulletin from the day of John Lennon’s death (40 years ago almost to the day). We then dip back into Brookside for more on the interminable trainers saga.

After the ST:TNG double bill, there will be an episode of Steptoe and Son, followed by the corresponding episode of Sanford and Son which was adapted from the original Galton and Simpson script. Tonight’s main event is an in-depth look at life in Strangeways prison. This comes in the form of two programmes: the opening episode of the 1980 BBC documentary series Strangeways, and the 1979 World in Action investigation Banged Up (with a fragmentary News at Ten and period Granada continuity breaking the two up). To wrap up the evening, we have an appropriately Christmas themed episode of Micro Live, before a late news bulletin and closedown.

4.00 Ceefax
4.15 BBC Schools: Investigating Science – Made to Measure
4.35 ITV Schools: My World – The Dairymen
4.45 ITV Schools: Your Living Body – New Lives
5.00 ITV Schools: The Land – Isle of Skye
5.25 Paperplay
5.35 Magpie
6.00 BBC Mid-Day News
6.10 Thomas the Tank Engine – S02E05 Old Iron
6.15 Thomas the Tank Engine – S02E06 Thomas and Trevor
6.20 Tugs – S01E11 High Winds
6.35 Brookside – Episode 1004
7.00 Star Trek: The Next Generation – S02E15 Pen Pals
7.45 Star Trek: The Next Generation – S02E16 Q Who
8.30 Steptoe and Son – S04E04 The Siege of Steptoe Street
9.00 Sanford and Son – S01E08 The Great Sanford Siege
9.25 Strangeways – Episode 1: A Human Warehouse
10.05 News at Ten (Fragment)
10.20 World in Action – Banged Up
10.50 Micro Live (Episode 10)
11.20 Late News and Closedown