Kirstie and Phil's Love It or List It (Channel 4, 8pm)

THIS six-parter has been pinched from Canadian TV which launched this home makeover show featuring a designer revamping a property in the hope of making its owners fall in love with it again. To be honest, Love It or Lose It would have been a much better choice of title for us Brits, but at least the knockabout Location presenters of Kirstie Allsopp and Phil Spencer are back on the box.

Each week, they will meet people who want to change their homes. Kirstie tries to breathe new life into it, Phil attempts to convince them to cut their losses and buy elsewhere.

This first episode centres on Paul, Dawn, their three kids, and Paul's twin 17-year-old daughters from a previous relationship.

Paul "loves it", and wants to stay, Dawn thinks it's dysfunctional and wants to "list it".

Phil comes up with a selection of alternative properties, while "do-upper" Kirstie suggests a complete overhaul.

There is also plenty of advice for first-time buyers. "My key piece of advice is research, research, research. So much time and aggravation can be saved whilst out there searching for houses if you've done your preparation adequately before you go out viewing. Really get to grips with your finances and think carefully about what you can afford and think very carefully about what you want, not why you want it," says Phil.

"I meet too many people that, as Kirstie says, Go looking for a banana in a hardware shop'. It's about being confident when you go searching for a property. When you've finished your research, you need to be sure that what you want exists in the area you're looking within the budget you have," he adds.

Property expert Kirstie has two sons and two stepchildren at home when she's not off filming Location, Relocation and her many "Homemade" spin-offs.

"The key is to keep the school holidays clear, which is the big luxury I have that other working mums don't," she explains. "I'm lucky. The job is immensely flexible. There are times when I have to be away overnight for three or four nights, but I think I manage to be at home a lot more than a lot of working mums who have to work nine-to-five, 48 weeks of the year."

The new series allows Kirstie and Phil to continue bickering amiably over other people's problems. Kirstie laughs about one wife who refused to have any more children unless she and her husband bought a new home.

"The wife was Phil's ideal woman – tall, lean, sexy Brazilian accent. I could see he was looking at her and thinking, 'If you told me we could make babies together, I'd buy the first house you showed me'."

24 Hours in the Past (BBC1, 9pm)

THE Beeb has described this new, four-part programme as a "dirty, smelly, immersive history series". What's more, it features celebrities, so it should attract viewers who will enjoy this little lot picking through dirt, rotting veg and old bones. Fi Glover will host the series, while historian Ruth Goodman oversees the proceedings. Ex-politician Ann Widdecombe, presenter Miquita Oliver, retired athlete Colin Jackson, actress Zoe Lucker, comedian Alistair McGowan and Outnumbered's Tyger Drew-Honey are the famous faces who give up all mod cons to spend four days in four different Victorian working class roles.

The Queen's Big Night Out (Channel 4, 9pm)

THIS is the story of the night when the future Queen Elizabeth II slipped out of Buckingham Palace with sister Princess Margaret to party in secret on the streets of London. It was May 8, 1945 – Victory in Europe (VE) Day – the end of the Second World War in Europe. Seventy years later, eyewitnesses including the Queen's cousin and close friend Margaret Rhodes and lady-in-waiting Jean Woodroffe, reveal what happened as the pair joined thousands of revellers celebrating peace.

Viv Hardwick