Summer's Supermarket Secrets | Cowboy Traders | Who Were The Greeks? | Happy Families | 21 And 3ft Tall: Extraordinary People | Scandal | Live At The Electric | Athletics: The Athletissima
**Summer's Supermarket Secrets*
9pm, BBC1*
Excitable MasterChef judge Gregg Wallace has spent a year with British supermarkets – 18,000 stores in which we buy 90% of all our food – and is looking at how they source, make and shelve it all. In this episode, we explore the secrets of breeding new varieties of strawberries, how shops use historical weather data to plot our buying habits, and the all-important taste tests, where 20% of new products fail. We also look at "sleeping bananas" in their ripening chambers and barbecue taste teams. Bim Adewunmi
**Cowboy Traders*
8pm, Channel 5*
What a comfy niche Dom Littlewood has carved himself. As a leathery pursuer of consumer rights, his dyed-in-the-wool estuary geezerness is infinitely more likable than Matt Allwright's clammy, desperate mugging on Watchdog. This week, Dom and his incongruous sidekick Melinda Messenger are north of the border, exposing a trail of dodgy, unroadworthy motors all sold from the same dealer. Melinda does the touchy-feely bit with the wronged families; Dom gets stuck in exposing the cowboys. Bish, bosh, wallop. Ben Arnold
**Who Were The Greeks?*
9pm, BBC2*
The second part of Dr Michael Scott's investigation of the ancient Greek world has one of those intros that seem to blight every documentary around: an overly long pitch to keep watching set to stirring music. Once we get going we learn what the Olympic Games were like back then and some secrets of the Parthenon, but Scott's insistence on speaking to camera as if performing a Shakespearean monologue – all gestures, heaving shoulders and inflection – is distracting and, finally, wearying. Martin Skegg
**Happy Families*
9pm, ITV*
It is a common observation that reality television is a misnomer, reality being the last thing most of it depicts. This series, concluding tonight, has been a creditable attempt at old-school observational documentary. Each episode addresses a different aspect of the lives of the four families filmed for a week at a time. Tonight, the subject is marriage. The reflections of the four couples who've allowed the cameras into their homes confirm that every human relationship is as baffling to the people in it as it is to outsiders. Andrew Mueller
*21 And 3ft Tall: Extraordinary People
9pm, Channel 5*
Nick suffers with primordial dwarfism and, at 21, has outlived many others with the condition. He will always remain the size of a three-year-old but now he faces an operation – his ninth major surgery – to remove an aneurysm from his brain. Over three months, this documentary follows his progress as doctors try to save his life. Dr Michael Bober is leading US research into the condition and monitors dozens of children in the hope of prolonging their lives past young adulthood. Julia Raeside
**Scandal*
9pm, More4*
Kerry Washington returns as Washington fixer Olivia Carolyn Pope for a second season of the soapy political thriller. All that's missing, at times, is a laugh track. In the opener, pregnant first lady Mellie is flexing her talons, lecturing her husband on foreign policy and suggesting "primary colours" for the nursery ("This baby is our patriotic duty; this is America's baby"). Meanwhile, a senator needs Olivia's help to get him out of a sticky situation: "I had relations earlier tonight.""In this office?""On this desk." Ali Catterall
*Live At The Electric
9.30pm, BBC3*
Russell Kane is rushing about BBC schedules with the same camp mania as he does his standup stage. Not only did he do Britain Unzipped and How To Win Eurovision, he's now the self-styled "fluffer" for a series of new-school sketch comics on Live At The Electric. There's "France's premier misanthropist and lover" Marcel Lucont, sharing his sex advice (drinking wine in a turtleneck, natch), slightly stale faux review show Film Fizz, and Joe Wilkinson and Diane Morgan doing their shambolic savant thing as Two Episodes Of Mash. Ben Beaumont-Thomas
*Athletics: The Athletissima
7pm, BBC3*
BBC3's coverage of Diamond League athletics has been some succour to those who wished last year's glorious Olympic summer could have lasted a bit longer. It's good news for the athletes as well, a talented and determined bunch who deserve better than a month's attention from the rest of us every four years. Several Olympic stars will be among those competing in Lausanne, the likely highlight being a men's 100m featuring Yohan Blake, Justin Gatlin, Tyson Gay and Asafa Powell. Andrew Mueller Reported by guardian.co.uk 4 hours ago.
**Summer's Supermarket Secrets*
9pm, BBC1*
Excitable MasterChef judge Gregg Wallace has spent a year with British supermarkets – 18,000 stores in which we buy 90% of all our food – and is looking at how they source, make and shelve it all. In this episode, we explore the secrets of breeding new varieties of strawberries, how shops use historical weather data to plot our buying habits, and the all-important taste tests, where 20% of new products fail. We also look at "sleeping bananas" in their ripening chambers and barbecue taste teams. Bim Adewunmi
**Cowboy Traders*
8pm, Channel 5*
What a comfy niche Dom Littlewood has carved himself. As a leathery pursuer of consumer rights, his dyed-in-the-wool estuary geezerness is infinitely more likable than Matt Allwright's clammy, desperate mugging on Watchdog. This week, Dom and his incongruous sidekick Melinda Messenger are north of the border, exposing a trail of dodgy, unroadworthy motors all sold from the same dealer. Melinda does the touchy-feely bit with the wronged families; Dom gets stuck in exposing the cowboys. Bish, bosh, wallop. Ben Arnold
**Who Were The Greeks?*
9pm, BBC2*
The second part of Dr Michael Scott's investigation of the ancient Greek world has one of those intros that seem to blight every documentary around: an overly long pitch to keep watching set to stirring music. Once we get going we learn what the Olympic Games were like back then and some secrets of the Parthenon, but Scott's insistence on speaking to camera as if performing a Shakespearean monologue – all gestures, heaving shoulders and inflection – is distracting and, finally, wearying. Martin Skegg
**Happy Families*
9pm, ITV*
It is a common observation that reality television is a misnomer, reality being the last thing most of it depicts. This series, concluding tonight, has been a creditable attempt at old-school observational documentary. Each episode addresses a different aspect of the lives of the four families filmed for a week at a time. Tonight, the subject is marriage. The reflections of the four couples who've allowed the cameras into their homes confirm that every human relationship is as baffling to the people in it as it is to outsiders. Andrew Mueller
*21 And 3ft Tall: Extraordinary People
9pm, Channel 5*
Nick suffers with primordial dwarfism and, at 21, has outlived many others with the condition. He will always remain the size of a three-year-old but now he faces an operation – his ninth major surgery – to remove an aneurysm from his brain. Over three months, this documentary follows his progress as doctors try to save his life. Dr Michael Bober is leading US research into the condition and monitors dozens of children in the hope of prolonging their lives past young adulthood. Julia Raeside
**Scandal*
9pm, More4*
Kerry Washington returns as Washington fixer Olivia Carolyn Pope for a second season of the soapy political thriller. All that's missing, at times, is a laugh track. In the opener, pregnant first lady Mellie is flexing her talons, lecturing her husband on foreign policy and suggesting "primary colours" for the nursery ("This baby is our patriotic duty; this is America's baby"). Meanwhile, a senator needs Olivia's help to get him out of a sticky situation: "I had relations earlier tonight.""In this office?""On this desk." Ali Catterall
*Live At The Electric
9.30pm, BBC3*
Russell Kane is rushing about BBC schedules with the same camp mania as he does his standup stage. Not only did he do Britain Unzipped and How To Win Eurovision, he's now the self-styled "fluffer" for a series of new-school sketch comics on Live At The Electric. There's "France's premier misanthropist and lover" Marcel Lucont, sharing his sex advice (drinking wine in a turtleneck, natch), slightly stale faux review show Film Fizz, and Joe Wilkinson and Diane Morgan doing their shambolic savant thing as Two Episodes Of Mash. Ben Beaumont-Thomas
*Athletics: The Athletissima
7pm, BBC3*
BBC3's coverage of Diamond League athletics has been some succour to those who wished last year's glorious Olympic summer could have lasted a bit longer. It's good news for the athletes as well, a talented and determined bunch who deserve better than a month's attention from the rest of us every four years. Several Olympic stars will be among those competing in Lausanne, the likely highlight being a men's 100m featuring Yohan Blake, Justin Gatlin, Tyson Gay and Asafa Powell. Andrew Mueller Reported by guardian.co.uk 4 hours ago.