After Rome: Holy War and Conquest

BBC Two, 8.05pm

In a two-part series filmed before he became Mayor of London, Boris Johnson makes an eccentric progress around the Mediterranean and the Middle East, tracing the origins of the conflict between Christianity and Islam. In the 7th and 8th centuries, the Arabs conquered half of what used to be the Roman Empire, advancing from Spain through the south of France as far north as Poitiers.

Arabic replaced Greek and Latin as the language of the ruling class and Arab coin became the currency of choice. Yet despite the richness of Arab culture and a large measure of religious tolerance, many Spaniards remain in denial about their Arab heritage, celebrating the Crusades and dismissing the Moors as “just one more civilisation”.

Animals in the Womb: Dogs

Channel 4, 7.05pm

Dogs evolved from wolves some 15,000 years ago, and geneticists are able to trace our 400 breeds of dog back to just three female wolves in east Asia. In the 1950s, a geneticist domesticated wild silver foxes in only six generations. With the help of ultrasound cameras, models and computer-generated effects, Animals in the Womb follows the development – and shows the differences – between four such creatures from conception to birth.

One is a wolf. The others are a massive Neapolitan mastiff, descended from the fighting dogs of Ancient Rome; the golden retriever, bred as a gun dog by 19th-century aristocrats; and the chihuahua, genetically modified so that it can be carried around in a Gucci handbag by people wearing Jimmy Choos.

Outnumbered

BBC One, 9.20pm

You could argue that Outnumbered ploughs a familiar comic furrow. It is, after all, about besieged middle-class parents dealing with three children, and it has antecedents that stretch all the way from Joyce Grenfell to My Family. But familiarity is irrelevant when the scripts – written by the Drop the Dead Donkey team, Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin – are as acutely observed and as funny as this. The absence of a laughter track frees it from the straitjacket of gags, allowing it to veer off into unexpected directions – as when Grandad tonight unleashes a sudden burst of lucidity.

And best of all, there are the performances by the young actors. If you haven’t seen them yet, you’re missing something remarkable.

Hotel California: From the Byrds to the Eagles

BBC Two, 10.15pm

Between 1965 and 1975 the centre of America’s music scene shifted from New York to Los Angeles, following a wave of singer-songwriters who were chasing the hippy dream of “getting back to the garden”.

Using a somewhat confused chronology (starting at Woodstock in 1969), this feature-length film – first shown on BBC Four in January – charts that move through the career paths of the main players: Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Joni Mitchell and the Eagles. David Crosby offers up the best quotes, just as he always had the best drugs and house guests, while David Geffen and other industry bigwigs explain how music management and publishing evolved.

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