TV Guide UK Tonight: Mon 20 Apr 2026 – Mint Series Premiere, Chernobyl on Sky Mix & EastEnders
Monday 20 April and BBC One has given its 9pm slot to something worth clearing your evening for. Mint launches tonight – two episodes back to back of Charlotte Regan’s eight-part crime romance, with a full boxset already waiting on iPlayer since 6am. Meanwhile, over on Sky Mix, the BAFTA-winning Chernobyl drama makes its free-to-air debut on Freeview for the first time, running nightly through the week to mark 40 years since the disaster. Two serious pieces of television competing for the same slot. EastEnders is at 7:30pm on BBC One with Priya trying to help Ravi, and the World Snooker Championship rolls into day 4 at the Crucible on BBC Two.
Quick Picks: Tonight’s Best
- Mint ⭐ — BBC One, 9pm — Series premiere. Charlotte Regan’s crime romance. Emma Laird, Loyle Carner, Sam Riley. Two episodes back to back
- Chernobyl — Sky Mix (Freeview ch 11), 9pm — Free-to-air debut. Episode 1. Still one of the best dramas ever made
- What Happened at Chernobyl — BBC One, late — Jordan Dunbar documentary. Witnesses who’ve never spoken to international media
- EastEnders — BBC One, 7:30pm — Priya helps Ravi. Nugget stands his ground. Lauren’s new venture
- World Snooker Championship — BBC Two, from 10am — Day 4 at the Crucible. First round results taking shape
- Rooster — Sky Comedy, 10pm — Episode 7. Steve Carell, Bill Lawrence, modest laughs
Early Evening
EastEnders – BBC One, 7:30pm
A relatively quieter night on Albert Square compared to last week’s chaos, but the moving parts are still moving. Priya’s involvement with Ravi has been building in the background for a while, and tonight she steps in more directly than she probably should. Nugget, meanwhile, has had enough of being pushed around – there’s a confrontation that’s been coming for weeks, and this feels like the episode where it lands. Lauren’s new business idea is the lighter thread of the night, the sort of storyline EastEnders uses to give its heavier characters room to breathe. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.
Sport: World Snooker Championship
World Snooker Championship – BBC Two/One/Four, from 10am
Day 4 at the Crucible and the first round is starting to reveal who’s actually ready to be there. By this stage of the early days there are always one or two results that nobody entirely predicted – a seed who looked uncomfortable from the off, a qualifier who’s been waiting years for this and has shown up already in the right gear. The afternoon and evening sessions are where it gets genuinely gripping; morning snooker is for the committed.
BBC coverage continues across BBC Two, BBC One and BBC Four throughout the day. Everything live on BBC iPlayer. Worth keeping an eye on the draws – the second-round matchups are starting to take shape now.
Prime Time
Emmerdale – ITV1, 8pm
ITV’s soaps power hour opens in the Dales. The week is building steadily — check ITVX if you need to catch up on the current run of storylines. Catch up via ITVX.
Coronation Street – ITV1, 8:30pm
A significant week on the cobbles, with Carla and Lisa’s wedding set for Thursday and the build-up already creating problems in every direction. Roy’s Rolls has been in the background of a more serious subplot – an arson threat that hasn’t fully materialised yet but is closer than Roy knows. The wedding preparations provide the cover for various other people’s plans to quietly unravel. Catch up via ITVX.
9pm: Two Major Launches
Mint ⭐ – BBC One, 9pm (SERIES PREMIERE)
The full boxset went up on BBC iPlayer at 6am this morning, but if you’ve held off – as you absolutely should – tonight is when it starts on BBC One, with two episodes back to back.
Charlotte Regan wrote, directed and executive produced Mint as her television debut after Scrapper, her BAFTA-winning feature film. The DNA is similar: working-class communities, people with complicated loyalties, humour and grief sitting close together in the same scene. But this is bigger in scale, and the crime-family setting gives her eight episodes to build something with proper weight.
Emma Laird plays Shannon, the daughter of a Scottish crime firm. Her father Dylan – Sam Riley, measured and quietly threatening in a way Riley does as well as anyone – has decided to step down as head of the family, for reasons he isn’t sharing. When Dylan’s second-in-command steps up, his methods start alarming people who’ve operated under Dylan’s version of the rules for years. Shannon, meanwhile, has fallen for Arran – played by Loyle Carner (Ben Coyle-Larner, the rapper and musician, in his acting debut) – a young man from a rival family who’s arrived in town without a clear purpose and without anyone particularly trusting him.
The Romeo and Juliet frame is intentional and Regan knows it’s intentional, which means she’s working against the frame rather than following it. The show’s instinct is to stay with the women and the children rather than the men at the top — Shannon, her mother Cat (Laura Fraser), and matriarch grandmother Ollie (Lindsay Duncan, who has the best lines) get more of the story’s real weight than Dylan or his replacement ever do. That’s the bit that makes Mint different from most British crime drama.
Two episodes tonight will tell you whether the whole boxset is worth your time. It is. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.
Chernobyl – Sky Mix (Freeview ch 11), 9pm (FREE-TO-AIR DEBUT)
The 2019 Sky/HBO drama that topped every end-of-year list when it aired is getting its first free-to-air run on Sky Mix this week, one episode a night from tonight through to Friday – timed for the 40th anniversary of the disaster on 26 April 1986. Sky Mix is Freeview channel 11, so you don’t need a Sky subscription to watch it.
Episode 1 opens in the immediate aftermath of the explosion at Reactor No. 4. In Minsk, 200 miles away, nuclear physicist Ulana Khomyuk detects a radiation spike and starts connecting the pieces. In a Pripyat hospital, first responder Vasily Ignatenko is already showing symptoms nobody wants to name. The cover-up is beginning before the fire is out.
If you’ve seen it before, you know what it is. If you haven’t – this is the week to correct that. Jared Harris and Stellan Skarsgård anchor a drama that Craig Mazin wrote with the kind of discipline that makes good historical fiction: every invented scene earns its place, nothing is there for drama’s sake alone, and by the final episode the accumulated weight of what you’ve watched is considerable. One of the best things anyone’s put on television in the last ten years. Also on NOW if you’d rather not wait for the nightly broadcast.
Late Evening
What Happened at Chernobyl – BBC One, late
A BBC World Service documentary that crosses over to BBC One tonight. Journalist Jordan Dunbar travels to the exclusion zone to look at the disaster from the ground up – not through the political structures that Mazin’s drama covers, but through the people. He speaks to liquidators, the men tasked with the clean-up, who are still living with the decisions they made in the days after the explosion. Some of the contributors have never spoken to international media before.
It works as a companion piece to the Sky drama rather than a substitute for it. The two films are asking different questions about the same event: one about power and deception, one about what it cost the people who were actually there. Available on BBC iPlayer.
Rooster – Sky Comedy, 10pm
Episode 7, and Steve Carell’s Greg Russo continues bumbling through his post-divorce reinvention. The premise — a bestselling children’s author relocates to the university where his daughter works and immediately makes things awkward for everyone — is a Bill Lawrence comedy in its bones: decent man, good intentions, reasonable chaos. Carell’s particular skill is playing someone trying hard enough that the effort is visible, which is funnier than it sounds. Not the main event tonight, but fine company at 10pm when you’ve already watched something heavy. Available on NOW and Sky Go.
The Viewing Schedule
| Time | Channel | Programme |
|---|---|---|
| 10:00am | BBC Two | World Snooker Championship (morning session) |
| 2:30pm | BBC Two | World Snooker Championship (afternoon session) |
| 7:00pm | BBC Two | World Snooker Championship (evening session) |
| 7:30pm | BBC One | EastEnders |
| 8:00pm | ITV1 | Emmerdale |
| 8:30pm | ITV1 | Coronation Street |
| 9:00pm | BBC One | Mint (Series Premiere – Episodes 1 & 2) |
| 9:00pm | Sky Mix (Freeview ch 11) | Chernobyl (Episode 1 – free-to-air debut) |
| 10:00pm | Sky Comedy | Rooster (Episode 7) |
| Late | BBC One | What Happened at Chernobyl (documentary) |
What’s On Streaming
BBC iPlayer: EastEnders, Mint (full 8-episode series from 6am today), What Happened at Chernobyl, World Snooker Championship
ITVX: Emmerdale, Coronation Street
NOW: Chernobyl (all 5 episodes), Rooster
Sky Mix (Freeview ch 11): Chernobyl – free, no subscription needed, 9pm nightly Mon-Fri
Frequently Asked Questions
Is EastEnders on tonight (Monday 20 April 2026)?
Yes, EastEnders is on BBC One at 7:30pm tonight. Priya tries to help Ravi through a difficult situation, Nugget has a confrontation that’s been building for weeks, and Lauren starts looking into a new business idea. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.
What time is Mint on BBC One tonight?
Mint starts on BBC One at 9pm tonight (Monday 20 April 2026) with episodes 1 and 2 back to back. It’s the series premiere of Charlotte Regan’s eight-part crime romance starring Emma Laird and Loyle Carner. The full series is already available on BBC iPlayer.
What time is Chernobyl on tonight and what channel?
Chernobyl Episode 1 is on Sky Mix at 9pm tonight — that’s Freeview channel 11, free with no subscription needed. The BAFTA-winning Sky/HBO drama makes its free-to-air debut this week, running one episode a night through to Friday 24 April to mark the 40th anniversary of the disaster. Also on NOW.
What is Mint about?
Mint is a new BBC crime romance from filmmaker Charlotte Regan (Scrapper). It follows Shannon, daughter of a Scottish crime family, who falls for Arran, a young man from a rival firm. Sam Riley plays her father Dylan, with Lindsay Duncan as grandmother Ollie. The full 8-episode boxset is on BBC iPlayer from today.
What time is the World Snooker Championship on today?
Day 4 of the 2026 World Snooker Championship is live from the Crucible all day today. BBC coverage starts from 10am on BBC Two, with afternoon and evening sessions continuing through BBC Two, BBC One and BBC Four. Every frame is on BBC iPlayer.
What’s the best thing to watch on TV tonight (Monday 20 April 2026)?
Mint on BBC One at 9pm is the one to watch — Charlotte Regan’s BBC crime romance is the most anticipated drama launch of April. Two episodes tonight, full boxset on iPlayer. If you’d rather watch something you already know is excellent, Chernobyl starts its free Freeview run on Sky Mix at 9pm — one of the finest TV dramas of the last decade, now available without a subscription for the first time.
Final Verdict
Mint at 9pm on BBC One is the evening’s event. Charlotte Regan doing long-form television for the first time, Sam Riley in what looks like his best TV role in years, and an eight-part story that puts the women of the crime family at the centre rather than the margins. Two episodes to start. The rest is on iPlayer already if you want it.
Chernobyl on Sky Mix at 9pm is the alternative — or, if your household has two televisions, the companion. Episode 1 tonight, nightly through the week. It’s been the best drama on Sky for seven years and it’s never been free to watch before now.
What Happened at Chernobyl on BBC One later in the evening is worth staying up for if the documentary angle interests you more than the drama. Different approach, same subject, and the liquidators’ testimonies will stay with you.
Related: What’s On TV Tonight Monday | What’s On TV Tonight Sun 19 Apr 2026 | What’s On TV Tonight Tues 21 Apr 2026
