Mars attacks! Big night for Sunday TV as War of the Worlds hits screens

The Sunday night TV battle is heating up just as the cold weather begins to sweep across much of the country. The BBC’s long-anticipated sci-fi series War of the Worlds, the Netflix drama The Crown and ITV’s I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! will all be premiering or returning on what is a big weekend for British television.

War of the Worlds, the latest adaptation of HG Wells’s book, stars Eleanor Tomlinson, Rafe Spall, Robert Carlyle and Rupert Graves and premieres on Sunday night. It has been described by the Radio Times as “compelling” and received five stars from the Daily Mail.

The three-part series is set in Woking in 1905 and is packed with special effects. It centres on four characters:the couple Amy and George, their good friend and outcast Ogilvy, and Frederick, the secretary to the minister for war, who has a strained relationship with his brother George. All four, and the rest of the population in Surrey, are soon fighting for their lives when a mysterious capsule that turns out to be transport for an alien from outer space comes to Earth.

When the novel was adapted and premiered on the radio in 1938 in New York, it caused a wave of panic across the US because listeners believed it to be an account of an actual invasion of the Earth by warriors from Mars.

The BBC’s version has sparked both criticism and applause for including a leading female character who is having an affair with the originally unnamed book’s narrator.

While the modern retelling of Wells’s novel is expected to premiere to a large audience, the series faces strong competition from The Crown. The third season, given four out of five stars by both the Guardian and the Times, stars Olivia Colman as the 38-year-old queen, Tobias Menzies as Prince Philip and newcomer Josh O’Connor as Prince Charles. Helena Bonham Carter plays Princess Margaret with “magnificently casual disdain,” according to the Guardian’s review.

The third season, which starts in 1964 and ends 13 years later with the silver jubilee, is rumoured to have cost £100m. This year the BBC director general mocked The Crown’s viewing figures, claiming high-profile dramas such as Luther and Bodyguard reached larger audiences with a smaller budget.

Returning for its 19th season on ITV, I’m A Celebrity… brings a blockbuster list of stars including Caitlyn Jenner, Ian Wright, the EastEnders actor Jacqueline Jossa and the Girls Aloud singer Nadine Coyle to the jungle. Once again, the stars can expect to be forced to face their fears and dine on meals viewers wouldn’t find too palatable.

The long-running reality TV show attracted almost 11 million viewers for last year’s opening show, which had Holly Willoughby as co-host for the first time with veteran Declan Donnelly. This year Ant McPartlin returns to the Aussie jungle.