TV Guide UK Tonight: Sat 14 Mar 2026 – Gladiators Semi-Finals, The Walsh Sisters & Turkish Detective Finale

Saturday night is properly loaded this week. Gladiators hits the semi-finals on BBC One, The Turkish Detective has its series finale double bill on BBC Four, and BBC Two is doing a full Liza Minnelli evening for her 80th birthday. There are also three Six Nations matches across the afternoon and Premier League football in the evening if you’re still standing. The remote is going to get a workout.

Quick Picks: Tonight’s Best

• Gladiators semi-finals – BBC One, 7:15pm: First ever Gladiator defeat on Suspension Bridge is apparently happening tonight. Semi-final Saturday.
• The Turkish Detective series finale – BBC Four, 9:05pm: It’s been building to this all series. Don’t skip it.
• Liza Minnelli Night – BBC Two, from 9:15pm: Birthday tribute for an actual Hollywood icon. Cabaret at 10:55pm is reason enough on its own.
• The Walsh Sisters – BBC One, 9:10pm: Best drama on Saturday night at the moment, and not much of a contest.
• Bill Bailey’s Vietnam – C4, 9:15pm: A sandwich he had in 1982 ruins his Buddhist meditation. Great television.

Early Evening (6pm – 9pm)

Little Big Man – 5 Action, 6:05pm

Rated 15, five stars, and rarely on free-to-air — if you’ve never seen Arthur Penn’s 1970 western, tonight’s your chance. Dustin Hoffman plays Jack Crabb, supposedly 121 years old, looking back on a life split between white and Cheyenne worlds. It’s funny, political, and genuinely strange. The make-up work is still something: artist Dick Smith spent hours each day applying latex to Hoffman’s face including the eyelids, and to Smith’s frustration none of the convincing blinks made the final cut. Worth rearranging your evening for.

Wheel of Fortune – ITV1, 6:20pm

Graham Norton hosts. Contestants solve word puzzles. Someone might win fifty grand. Uncomplicated.

⭐ Gladiators – BBC One, 7:15pm

Semi-final weekend, finally. In the men’s match, foreman Mo — who has reminded us more than once that he’s “the only Welsh contender this series” — takes on nuclear welder Finn. In the women’s bracket, Army doctor Ella faces business consultant Naomi.

We’re apparently in for a record-breaking Hang Tough and the first ever Gladiator defeat on Suspension Bridge. I’m slightly annoyed I know about that second thing because it would’ve been more fun as a surprise. Viper is throwing a hissy fit, Cyclone won’t come down from Everest, and Apollo is being Apollo about everything. The Eliminators are tight. Mark Clattenburg referees. Just watch it.

The Race for Ancient Egypt in Colour – C4, 7:15pm

Most people know the Howard Carter outline — 1922, Tutankhamun’s tomb, enormous treasure. What this documentary actually goes after is the less-told side of that story: Egypt, in the middle of fighting for independence, had to battle to keep its own history from going to Western museums. Carter’s finds stayed in Cairo partly thanks to French archaeologists and Egyptian political pressure. Not the version that usually gets covered. Colourised archive footage makes it feel less like a lecture than it sounds.

Casualty – BBC One, 8:15pm

Cam (Barney Walsh) hasn’t turned up for work. We, the viewers, have a fairly good idea why — the Siobhan situation has been quietly building and the silence around his absence makes it worse. The department meanwhile is dealing with casualties from a bus-bridge collision, which keeps the episode busy. Kim (Jasmine Bayes) is also running out of ways to deflect Matty’s (Aron Julius) questions about her health. Messier than usual, in the best sense.

Roman Empire by Train with Alice Roberts – C4, 8:15pm

Roberts is in Nîmes tonight — the southern French city that’s basically an open-air Roman museum. The bit worth paying attention to is the crocodile statues: made by veterans of Augustus’s victory over Antony and Cleopatra at Actium in 31 BC, a symbol of Egypt’s defeat that eventually became the city’s own emblem. That’s a strange and satisfying historical arc. Roberts visibly loves all of this, which is infectious. You actually learn things watching her.

Lip-Reading the Royals: What Are They Really Saying? – 5, 8:15pm

Lip-readers go through footage of the royal family from the days after Queen Elizabeth II’s death in September 2022, decoding what people were actually saying when the cameras caught moments the microphones missed. Whether that’s fascinating history or low-key voyeurism depends a bit on your existing feelings about the monarchy.

Prime Time (9pm onwards)

The Walsh Sisters – BBC One, 9:10pm

“Not everything ends terribly,” Luke says in flashback. The Walsh family is doing its level best to test that. Anna (Louisa Harland) is still carrying grief like it’s weight she’s expected to put down and can’t figure out how. Rachel’s in rehab facing things she’d rather not. Claire is quietly convinced she’s getting motherhood wrong. Maggie’s anxiety about starting a family has moved past background noise.

Four storylines, all of them carrying weight without tipping into soap opera. Tonight there’s a small moment of grace — the man Anna meets at the cemetery who actually gets it — and Harland plays it with the kind of restraint that makes it land. She’s been very good this series.

The Turkish Detective – BBC Four, 9:05pm & 9:50pm (Series Finale)

The end has arrived. The Kayra Khan drug subplot — which sat quietly in the background for most of the series — turns out to be the whole thing. The arson case revelations reframe what came before in ways that feel earned. Mehmet races off to help Leyla while Ikmen arrives somewhere uncomfortable: that promotion, it turns out, isn’t what he thought it was. Anyone who’s ever taken a management role and immediately regretted it will recognise the feeling.

This has been a good series throughout — Istanbul as a setting, the character dynamics, the way it balanced plot with something more personal. Finishing well is the hardest trick in television, and this one manages it.

Liza Minnelli Night – BBC Two, from 9:15pm

Liza Minnelli turned 80 two days ago and BBC Two is giving her a proper evening. It opens with Bruce David Klein’s documentary — 100 minutes of archive, interviews with Mia Farrow, Chita Rivera, Joel Grey and John Kander, and Minnelli herself, who is still sharp enough to attempt a show tune on camera. “Let’s try one. Yont the hat!”

After Judy Garland died in 1969, she built her own version of stardom from scratch. The documentary makes clear what that cost and what it produced. Cabaret follows at 10:55pm — her Oscar-winning turn as Sally Bowles in 1972 is still something to watch. Then at 12:55am, if you’re still going, Scorsese’s New York, New York with De Niro. A genuinely good Saturday night on BBC Two.

Bill Bailey’s Vietnam – C4, 9:15pm

Da Lat this week. Bailey is kitted out for a zip-line ride “like a gor’mless window cleaner” and it goes from there. Cheese-flavoured ice cream gets sampled (results inconclusive). An artichoke becomes an object of genuine affection. The Buddhist meditation session falls apart when his mind drifts back to a sandwich he ate in 1982. “I’ve been thinking about a sandwich I had in 1982,” he explains to the monks, entirely seriously. Vietnam has clearly got under his skin, and that’s how all the best travel television works.

Queen Victoria and the Groomsman – 5, 9:15pm

After Albert died in 1861, Victoria’s close friendship with her Balmoral ghillie John Brown caused a particular kind of discomfort at court — rumours of a secret marriage, of a child. This documentary works through the evidence with Dr Bendor Grosvenor and Professor Kate Williams, dramatic reconstructions filling the gaps. It also covers her later friendship with Abdul Karim, which generated its own anxieties among the establishment for entirely different reasons. Decent popular history.

Sport

Final round of the Men’s Six Nations. Ireland v Scotland at 2:10pm on ITV1, Wales v Italy on BBC One and S4C from 4:40pm, then France v England — potentially deciding the title — live at 8:10pm on ITV1. Clear your afternoon.

Premier League in the evening: Arsenal v Everton (5:30pm, Sky Sports Main Event), Chelsea v Newcastle United (5:30pm, Sky Sports Premier League), West Ham v Manchester City (8pm, TNT Sports 1).

Winter Paralympics on Channel 4 at 7:50am, 10:30am and 12:30pm. Penultimate day.

The Viewing Schedule

What’s On Streaming

BBC iPlayer: The Walsh Sisters, Gladiators, Casualty and the full Turkish Detective series are on there. Tonight’s finale episodes should land after broadcast.

Channel 4 streaming: Bill Bailey’s Vietnam and Roman Empire by Train are both on the C4 app. The Ancient Egypt documentary will follow after it airs.

ITVX: Six Nations from ITV1 is live and on demand. Free to register.

My5: Queen Victoria and the Groomsman and Lip-Reading the Royals are on My5 after broadcast.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is EastEnders on tonight, Saturday 14 March 2026?

No – EastEnders doesn’t air on Saturdays. You can catch up on all recent episodes via BBC iPlayer.

What time are the Gladiators semi-finals on BBC One?

Gladiators is on BBC One at 7:15pm tonight, Saturday 14 March 2026.

What time is The Turkish Detective on BBC Four tonight?

The Turkish Detective series finale double bill starts on BBC Four at 9:05pm, with the second episode following at 9:50pm. The full series is available now on BBC iPlayer.

What’s on BBC Two tonight, Saturday 14 March?

BBC Two is running a full Liza Minnelli Night from 9:15pm, starting with the birthday documentary Liza: a Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story, then Cabaret at 10:55pm and New York, New York at 12:55am.

What time is Casualty on tonight?

Casualty is on BBC One at 8:15pm tonight, Saturday 14 March 2026. Available to catch up on via BBC iPlayer.

Final Verdict

Gladiators semi-finals is the big communal watch — the kind of thing you’ll be texting people about during the ad breaks. The Turkish Detective finale is the reward for anyone who’s been paying attention all series. And BBC Two has quietly put together the best single-channel evening this week. Get Cabaret on and go to bed happy.

Related: What’s On TV Tonight – Friday 13 March 2026 | TV Guide UK – Saturday Night TV

Clint Edgar

Clint is a writer and self-proclaimed professional binge-watcher who treats the "Skip Intro" button with the suspicion it deserves. When he isn't dissecting plot holes or getting emotionally invested in fictional characters, you can find him scrolling through streaming queues or arguing about why The Office is a masterpiece. Clint lives in London with a dangerously comfortable couch and a remote control that he guards with his life.