Babylon (Channel 4, 10pm)

FROM movie Slumdog Millionaire to a golden Olympics opening ceremony and February’s one-off pilot of Babylon, Danny Boyle certainly knows how to catch our attention.

Babylon returns with scripts by Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, the brains behind Peep Show, and focuses on various members of London's police force which is juggling accusations of racism, lethal force and corruption.

Commissioner Richard Miller (James Nesbitt, who will need another Thomas Cook holiday after this series and The Missing) could be about to have an easier life thanks to the arrival of US communications expert Liz Garvey (played by Brit Marling), who is keen to drag the force into the 21st Century.

Nesbitt fell in love with the project as soon as he read the script. "It was the writing, really. That was the attraction," he says. "And the fact that it felt like something I hadn't really done. It felt very much of its time, very different from formulaic police dramas. Not to say that a lot of them aren't very good. I've been involved in cop dramas myself.

"But what was attractive about this was, of course, Danny at first, and Sam and Jesse's writing, and then when it was taken on as a series, Jon S Baird was hugely important to me. He's a brilliant, collaborative director. It was like nothing I'd seen."

Nesbitt says of playing Miller: "I think Miller is an extraordinary man. Often what you try to do is create ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. I think this is an extraordinary man in extraordinary circumstances.”

But Nesbitt is keen to point out that the drama isn't just about him – but should aim to change perceptions of the modern police force.

"I think publications beforehand, particularly on the right of the political spectrum, might have thought that this was going to be a police-bashing exercise. And I think, if anything, it's the opposite of that. I think I've taken from it the enormous difficulty the police are under. Of course I'd seen that, growing up in Northern Ireland. But I think nowadays, with the fact that everyone is a news cameraman, it makes it harder than ever. Cameraphones are slightly the bane of my life, but they're certainly the bane of the police's life as well."

Even so, Babylon is being greeted as a slightly surreal cop show which can stumble when its trying to make a serious point because the real parameters of policing have to be abandoned to allow quick insights into a prison riot or an armed officer shooting an unarmed man.

The Fall (BBC2, 9pm)

THE second series of this drama picks up ten days after Paul Spector was seen taking his wife and children away from their Belfast home. However, life has changed dramatically for Jamie Dornan, the actor who plays him. He's been cast in the eagerly-awaited Fifty Shades of Grey movie. Not that Spector appears to be panicking, although he does have lots of loose ends to tie up in Belfast, especially as his final victim is still alive. Gibson (Gillian Anderson) tries to help her remember her attacker, but it's hearing how a face from his past is assisting the police that prompts Spector into drastic - and terrifying - action.

Neil Diamond: For One Night Only (ITV, 9pm)

DIAMOND will be performing some of his greatest hits during a one-off special recorded at the London Palladium, and there's also a chance to hear tracks from his new album Melody Road. Host Rob Brydon will also take a trip with Diamond back to Brooklyn, where the singer-songwriter was born and brought up. In fact, they visit his childhood home as well as such famous sights as Coney Island, Brighton Beach and Flatbush before sampling the atmosphere at Greenwich Village's Bitter End Club, where Diamond has often wowed the regulars.