Seven Days on Mars
Channel: BBC Earth (DStv 184)
TX Time: 20h00
Genre: Science, Technology, Documentary
Professor Brian Cox fulfils a childhood dream by going behind the scenes at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), mission control for Mars 2020 – one of the most ambitious missions ever launched that may finally reveal if life ever existed on the Red Planet.
In 1980, a young Brian Cox wrote to JPL asking for photos from some of their missions to the planets.
The pictures they sent him from Voyager and the Viking mission to Mars were a source of inspiration that set him on the path to becoming a physicist.
Now, over 40 years later, he has been granted privileged access to JPL, including key mission areas that are usually off-limits to film crews.
Brian spends a week following the team who guide the Perseverance rover and the Ingenuity helicopter - the first powered aircraft ever sent to another planet - across the surface of Mars during a critical stage of the mission.
Perseverance's goal is to search for signs of long extinct life on the surface of Mars in an area called Jezero Crater, which, 3.8-billion years ago, was filled by a vast lake.
If it finds evidence of that life, it could change everything we know about life in the universe - and even transform our understanding of our own origins.
Mzansi Cribs Makeover 3
Channel: Mzansi Magic (DStv 161)
TX Time: 21h30
Genre: Reality Makeover, Home Improvement, Reality, Advertiser-Funded
A neighbour, friend, colleague or family member nominates someone.
They must motivate why this person deserves the room makeover and state how this will change their lives for the better.
The makeover then brings in the experts, throw in R50,000 and chase a three-day deadline, to turn long standing dreams into a beautiful reality.
Vikings: Valhalla 2
Channel: Netflix South Africa
TX Time: 10h00 (all episodes)
Genre: Period Drama, Action, Drama, History
In this sequel to Vikings, a hundred years have passed and a new generation of legendary heroes arises to forge its own destiny — and make history.
Set over a thousand years ago in the early 11th century, Vikings: Valhalla chronicles the heroic adventures of some of the most famous Vikings who ever lived.
These include the legendary explorer Leif Eriksson, his fiery and headstrong sister Freydis Eriksdotter and the ambitious Nordic prince Harald Sigurdsson.
As tensions between the Vikings and the English royals reach a bloody breaking point and as the Vikings themselves clash over their conflicting Christian and pagan beliefs, these three Vikings begin an epic journey that will take them across oceans and through battlefields, from Kattegat to England and beyond, as they fight for survival and glory.
Season 2 finds our heroes shortly after the tragic fall of Kattegat; an event that has shattered their dreams and altered their destinies.
Finding themselves suddenly fugitives in Scandinavia they are forced to test their ambitions and courage in worlds beyond the fjords of Kattegat.
Romeo & Duet
Channel: BBC Lifestyle (DStv 174)
TX Time: 20h00
Genre: Dating Game Show, Reality
Oti Mabuse has swapped glitter balls for Cupid's arrows as she takes the reigns of this dating game show.
Oti leads the musical matchmaking as single love seekers stand on a breathtaking balcony and are serenaded by potential love matches that they can hear, but not see.
The seven-part series gives its singers just one song to entice a singleton down from the balcony.
Only then will the two come face-to-face for the first time.
The newly formed couple will then head off on a duet-date to learn a duet, before returning later in the show to perform that number in the ultimate romantic love battle; a singing competition against the other couples to be crowned the winners.
The crowd's chosen couple then get whisked off for another date to see if love can truly blossom.
Throughout the series Oti is joined on stage by musical director Vikki Stone and her live band Vikki Stone & The Heartbeats, who provide the soundtrack for each performance.
Grace
Channel: BritBox
TX Time: 00h01
Genre: Drama
Peter James's award-winning novels are brought to life in this detective drama.
Two feature-length films see the tenacious detective doggedly pursuing the truth behind some of Brighton's most complex cases.
The drama opens with Grace's career at rock bottom.
Fixated by the disappearance of his beloved wife, he's in the last-chance saloon, running enquiries into long-forgotten cold cases with little prospect of success.
Following another reprimand for his unorthodox police methods, Grace is skating on thin ice.
But when a stag night prank appears to go wrong and the groom goes missing, Grace doggedly probes his disappearance and becomes uneasily close to the bride-to-be.
Lost Kingdoms of Africa
Channel: Curiosity Channel (DStv 185)
TX Time: 21h00
Genre: Documentary Series, History
British art historian Dr Gus Casely-Hayford explores the pre-colonial history of some of Africa's most important kingdoms.
In the series premiere, "The Kingdom of Asante": We know less about Africa's distant past than almost anywhere else on Earth.
But the scarcity of written records doesn't mean that Africa lacks history - it is found instead in the culture, artefacts and traditions of the people.
In this series, art historian Dr Gus Casely-Hayford explores some of the richest and most vibrant histories in the world, revealing fascinating stories of four complex and sophisticated civilisations: the Kingdom of Asante, the Zulu Kingdom, the Berber Kingdom of Morocco and the Kingdoms of Bunyoro & Buganda.
In this episode, Dr Casely-Hayford travels to Ghana in West Africa, where a powerful kingdom once dominated the region.
Asante was built on gold and slaves, which ensured its important place in an economy that linked three continents.
He reveals how this sophisticated kingdom emerged from the unlikely environment of dense tropical forest and how it was held together by a shared sense of tradition and history - one deliberately moulded by the kingdom's rulers.
To Catch a Smuggler 4
Channel: National Geographic Channel (DStv 181)
TX Time: 19h00
Genre: Documentary Series
124-million people enter the USA through the nation's airports each year.
It's a nonstop human tidal wave and hidden amongst them are an endless stream of contraband and ill intentions.
Defending the borders are the vigilant men and women of the Department of Homeland Security, whose agencies make up a three-tiered defence of America's airports.
Using every tool available to them, DHS will stop at nothing to catch a smuggler.
This season, see how the Homeland Security Investigations team uncovers a multi-million-dollar cocaine smuggling ring of airline employees and how they pursue multiple cases of cocaine smuggled from the Caribbean aboard boats.
Follow the US Customs and Border Protection team as they sniff out drugs using the nation's largest team of K-9s, make large-scale seizures of medication without prescription, uncover cocaine in the bumper of a car and stop a woman smuggling underaged puppies from Brazil.
In the Season4 premiere, "Cocaine Snapper": HSI Miami catches a shipment of cocaine-filled fish, CBP takes on human smuggling at the border, and agriculture specialists in ATL search passengers.
Ice Town: Life on the Edge
Channel: BBC UKTV (DStv 134)
TX Time: 21h00
Genre: Docu-Reality
Take a trip to the most northerly town on the planet for this docu-soap charting the real-life highs and lows of its quirky inhabitants.
The series is set in the town of Longyearbyen, an isolated outpost in the breathtaking wilderness of the Svalbard archipelago, halfway between Norway and Greenland.
As well as its mining business, Svalbard houses the global seed vault and is at the centre of worldwide research into polar bears, climatology and glaciology.
As a result it is home to a unique expat community made up of 46 different nationalities, including American, British and Norwegian.
With extreme arctic conditions, three months of total darkness and the ever-present danger of polar bears, this is not your average neighbourhood - and these are certainly not your average characters.
In the series premiere, "Welcome to Svalbard": Longyearbyen on Svalbard, the northernmost town in the world, is a place like no other.
It's a place where you aren't allowed to be born or die, where carrying a gun outside of town is mandatory, and where polar bears outnumber people.
Mountain Men 11
Channel: HISTORY (DStv 186)
TX Time: 19h25
Genre: Docu-Reality
Winter is loosening its grip on the mountains of North America.
But that doesn't mean life here is getting any easier.
As the thaw begins and rivers start to swell with raging runoff, new opportunities open up for the mountain men to stockpile supplies, grow their own food and fortify their homesteads.
But this spring... They're digging deep like never before.
The mountain men and their families are masters of independence and living off the land.
But even they are preparing for a changing world - one where the ultimate test may be who can brace for the worst in America's wilderness.
In the Season 11 premiere, "Forever Free": Montana's Tom and Nancy Oar prepare for the long winter ahead.
Jake Herak battles dense fog and mountain terrain on foot in pursuit of elk.
In Wyoming, Josh Kirk attempts to move a 150-year-old log cabin to the heart of his bison ranch, but the hazardous journey threatens to topple the historic structure.
And in Alaska, Martha and Elli Tansy each harvest a caribou, sending them on an all-night off-road mission to extract their kills.
Law & Order: Organized Crime 2
Channel: Me (DStv 115)
TX Time: 20h00
Genre: Police Procedural, Drama
A new spin-off in the franchise which features Christopher Meloni reprising his Law & Order: SVU role as Elliot Stabler, who returns to the NYPD to battle organised crime after a devastating personal loss.
However, the city and police department have changed dramatically in the decade he's been away, and he must adapt to a criminal justice system in the midst of its own moment of reckoning.
Throughout the series, we will follow Stabler's journey to find absolution and rebuild his life, while leading a new elite task force that is taking apart the city's most powerful criminal syndicates one by one.
In the Season 2 premiere, "The Man with No Identity": After taking down Wheatley's drug empire and discovering his wife's killer, Det. Stabler must infiltrate a notorious crime family aiming to take over New York City's cocaine trade.
Sgt. Bell is forced to work with a rival colleague when their investigations collide.
S.W.A.T. 4
Channel: Universal TV (DStv 117)
TX Time: 20h00
Genre: Police Procedural, Drama
Inspired by the television series and feature film, this 2017 series stars Shemar Moore as a locally born S.W.A.T. sergeant newly tasked to run a specialised tactical unit that is the last stop in law enforcement in Los Angeles.
Torn between loyalty to the streets where he was raised and allegiance to his brothers in blue, former Marine Daniel "Hondo" Harrelson (Moore) has everything it takes to successfully bridge the divide between his two worlds.
With Hondo leading the charge, these dedicated men and women bravely put themselves at risk to protect their community and save lives.
In the Season 4 premiere, "Seventeen Year Olds": Hondo, his father Daniel Sr. and his teen charge Darryl confront the history of racial tension in Los Angeles between law enforcement and the Black community, through flashbacks to the city in 1992 following the Rodney King verdict.
Also, the SWAT team pursues El Diablo's scattered drug cartel hiding in the city and a Jihadist group detonating bombs in coordinated attacks.