Tonight's TV highlights: The First Men In The Moon | Community | Lip Service | The Wedding House | Later Live – With Jools Holland | Tormented Lives

The First Men In The Moon | Community | Lip Service | The Wedding House | Later Live – With Jools Holland | Tormented Lives

The First Men In The Moon
9pm, BBC4

It's 1969 and Neil Armstrong is about to become the first man to walk on the lunar surface. Except is he? What if mankind – in the shape of a skinny scientist given to verbal gurning, Professor Cavor (Mark Gatiss), and a pompous, greedy chancer, Julius Bedford (Rory Kinnear) – made a giant leap in 1909, only to find insect-like creatures, Selenites, living on the Moon? HG Wells's science fiction tale may be dated, but in the hands of scripter Gatiss it largely works beautifully as a piece of TV steampunk – affectionately knowing without too much irony.

JW

Community
10pm, Viva

Community is already exceeding first impressions. It started off looking like it was going to be slick Joel McHale (who is excellent) and a coterie of goofy background characters. While still goofy, the

rest of the cast are not mere background – this show is refreshingly equal opportunities about who gets the laughs. In tonight's second episode it's Troy and Annie who take centre stage when he joins the college football team and instantly reverts back into the obnoxious jerk jock who ignored her all through high school. PO'N

Lip Service
10.30pm, BBC3

It's episode two of the lesbian melodrama, and it's time for Frankie's aunt's funeral, which calls for some serious acting of being drunk. Cat goes along to offer emotional support, but gets a not-entirely-appropriate groping for her troubles, sending her back into the arms of strident cop Sam. Meanwhile Tess's affair with Lou, star of afternoon TV, is not quite as smooth or as public as she would like it to be, and there's a new face in the form of mysterious shoplifter Sadie. Good, soapy fun. RN

The Wedding House
8pm, Channel 4

Another quartet of betrothed couples are fed into the matrimonial sausage machine then spat out the other end looking faintly ashamed. Tonight there's a gothic Victorian one, a Regency civ-up, a traditional do with a surprise announcement and a Dirty Dancing tribute. Have they not seen YouTube? She'll be the millionth and fifth bride to dress in pink and be hoisted aloft by her groom. Wedding planner Chris can never resist joining in and pumps his pelvis enthusiastically to The Time Of My Life during their first dance. What more could anyone want on their special day? JNR

Later Live – With Jools Holland
10pm, BBC2

Bruce Springsteen-approved New Jersey rockers the Gaslight Anthem are hanging with Jools tonight along with Duffy, who's got a new album out, and Sheffield synthpop legends Heaven 17 currently plugging away on their 30th anniversary tour. While zipping round the studio, clipboard in hand, Jools is also going to be chatting with Herbie Hancock and producer Peter Asher, who has worked with everyone from Diana Ross to Cher and Boyzone. In a nod to interactivity, you can see what other Later viewers are saying if you search for the #laterjools hashtag on Twitter. RV

Tormented Lives
10.35pm, BBC1

Disabled rights campaigner Rosa Monckton highlights the sad and troubling problems facing those with learning difficulties – that not only must they cope with the bad hand life has dealt them but also, in some cases, with physical attack by those who laughingly consider themselves of greater intelligence than them, under siege in their own homes, neglected by the authorities, often driven from their own homes or even to suicide. DS

Contributors

Jonathan Wright, Phelim O'Neill, Rebecca Nicholson, Julia Raeside, Richard Vine and David Stubbs

The GuardianTramp

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