Best of the Week's TV (April 5-11)

Game of Thrones and Champions League soccer are the big tickets in town this week.

SATURDAY

The Voice UK — Live Final

BBC One, 7pm

Two-hour show in which this year’s winner will be chosen from the remaining four acts. Each artist will choose a song to perform, while the coaches will also sing a duet with their protégés. One contestant will then be eliminated by public vote, and the coaches will perform together before the eventual winner is selected. Aloe Blacc and Paloma Faith are among the guests.

True Detective

Sky Atlantic, 9pm

The second-last episode and we’re very much in the present as Rust and Marty are back together on the trail of the evil killers. Dark, but brilliant.

Irish Film And Television Awards

RTÉ One, 9.45pm

Simon Delaney and Laura Whitmore, right, present the ceremony from the Hilton DoubleTree (formerly the Burlington) in Dublin.

Sport

Stick your pins in the paper for the Grand National (RTÉ Two, 4.15pm) from Aintree, while soccer action features Wigan v Leeds (Sky Sports 1, ko 12.15pm), Dundee Utd v Celtic (Sky Sports 3, ko 12.45pm) and Chelsea v Stoke (Sky Sports 1, ko 5.30pm). Heineken Cup

quarter-final action features Munster v Toulouse (Sky Sports 2, ko 1.30pm) and Ulster v Saracens (Sky Sports 2, ko 6.30pm). Rugby highlights on TG4 at 9.15pm.

SUNDAY

The Park

TV3, 8pm

The final episode of the series on Killarney National Park looks at spring with its swelling buds, frogspawn and breeding eagles.

Other Voices

RTÉ Two, 10.30pm

David Gray credits Ireland with catapulting him to stardom when his White Ladder album. in 2000. The English singer’s star may have waned somewhat, but he’ll still have plenty of fans tuning in for his performance tonight. There will also be performances from Patty Griffin, Little Matador and Conor Walsh.

Sport

Most clubs have just six games left in the Premier League, a fact that ups the tension for today’s clashes of Everton v Arsenal (Sky Sports 1, ko 1.30pm) and West Ham v

Liverpool (Sky Sports 1, ko 4pm). In football, it’s Tyrone v Dublin (TG4, throw-in 3pm) followed by a deferred broadcast of Cork v Kerry.

 MONDAY

Scannal

RTÉ One, 7.30pm

Tonight’s episode looks back at the dark days of Ireland’s Church-influenced censorship regime, and the furore over The Pike’s production of The Rose Tattoo by Tennessee Williams in May 1957. The play starring Anna Manahan ran for a few nights before the gardaí raided the Dublin theatre and arrested director Alan Simpson. Knowing that the scene involving the dropping of a condom on stage would be too much for the authorities, Simpson had directed the ‘miming’ of the incident instead. It didn’t prevent him being charged with producing a lewd entertainment. Protests against the closing of the play were supported by the likes of Samuel Beckett, Sean O’Casey and Brendan Behan.

Game of Thrones

Sky Atlantic, 9pm

Hardcore fans may have stayed up for Sunday’s 2am simulcast with HBO, but most people will hold out for the debut of season four in its regular slot. Viewers were stunned last year by the massacre of many of the best characters, and this series picks up the aftermath of the Red Wedding, while Daenerys and her dragons also march onwards. Inevitably, we’ll also lose several more favourites over the 10 weeks ahead.

Tottenham Hotspur v Sunderland

Sky Sports 1, ko 8pm

Both clubs are fighting hard at opposite ends of the table to fulfil very different agendas.

TUESDAY

Living The Wildlife

RTÉ One, 7pm

Colin Stafford-Johnson gets plenty use of his waders as he searches forotters in Kerry and one of Ireland’s most impressive birds, the great crested grebe, whose beautiful plumage almost caused it to be hunted to extinction.

The State Visit Of President

Higgins To The UK

RTÉ One, 8.25pm

When Britain’s Queen visited this fair land in 2012, people almost forgave the 800 years of oppression stuff when they saw how many hands the 86-year-old had to shake at the state banquet. Now it’s her turn to host a big nosh-up. Earlier in the day, President Higgins’s

address to the Houses of Parliament will be broadcast from 4.15pm.

Chelsea v Paris Saint Germain

TV3, 7.30pm

Brian Kerr provides the analysis for this second-leg of the Champions League quarter-final with Chelsea hoping to claw back a 3-1 deficit.

WEDNESDAY

The £60,000 Puppy: Cloning Man’s Best Friend

Channel 4, 10pm

Sooam Biotech says it’s the only company in the world that clones dogs, a service that usually costs around 72,000. This documentary follows a competition which gives the winner a free clone of their favourite pet.

Bayern Munich v Man Utd

RTÉ Two, 7.45pm

The German side looked the better team in the first leg, but the 1-1 scoreline and the fact

that Bayern have the talismanic Bastian Schweinsteiger suspended will give hope to David Moyes and co. That game will be followed by highlights of Atlético Madrid v Barcelona (also live on Sky Sports 2).

THURSDAY

The Zoo

RTÉ One, 7pm

The fourth season of this excellent series spreads its wings a bit more than before as it follows the Dublin Zoo keepers as they link up with conservation projects, such as one for barn owls in rural Ireland, and another for golden lion tamarin monkeys in Brazil.

Comhrá

TG4, 7.30pm

Corkman Donnchadh Mac Suibhne talks about his 40 years working with Ford, a firm he joined in 1971, ending up as a marketing director before his retirement in 2010. Over the decades, Mac Suibhne garnered huge knowledge about Ford’s products.

15,000 Kids and Counting

Channel 4, 9pm

Another moving documentary following the search for adoptive parents for a two-year-old boy and a brother and sister aged three and seven. It’s often more difficult to place older children, and also to keep siblings together. We also see what a difficult task it is for social workers Annette and Jackie not to get emotionally involved in their cases.

FRIDAY

Natural World

BBC Two, 9pm

One of nature’s great events occurs every 40 years when the Savute channel in the northern Kalahari Desert of Botswana fills with water and flows into the surrounding areas. Such a bounty inevitably attracts thousands of animals, and this excellent documentary follows the fortunes of the largest herd of elephants in Africa and a pride of seven lions who come face to face in a fight for survival.

Ospreys v Leinster

RTÉ Two, ko 7.05pm

The Irish province will be hoping to continue their recent good form in the Rabodirect Pro 12 against the Welsh side in this clash.

Arena

BBC Four, 9pm

A repeat of ‘Amy Winehouse — The Day She Came to Dingle’, the documentary on the late singer’s trip to the Kerry town for the Other Voices show.