Thursday's best TV: Harold Shipman: Doctor Death, Super Fast Falcon and Billions

Documentary-makers always like to claim they’ve got the ultimate specimen to show us. Harold Shipman, for example, may not quite be “Britain’s most notorious killer”, as claimed at the start of Harold Shipman: Doctor Death, but perhaps he really was, to make a nice distinction, “Britain’s most prolific serial killer”, as suggested later.

Let’s hope so. This is not a competition we want to find out somebody else has won, or yet plans to win. Shipman was convicted of 15 murders, but the Shipman Inquiry determined that he had probably killed 250 people over a 27-year “killing spree”, most of them elderly women, most of them in Hyde, in Greater Manchester.

As we’re told in the intro, “If a bomb had gone off, there wouldn’t have been so many victims.”

Yet somehow Shipman has never become one of the great bogeymen in the public imagination. Perhaps because of our continued awkwardness about him having been a doctor? Or because his crimes remained undetected for so long? Or is it because his motivation has remained completely opaque?

Tonight’s programme (ITV, 9pm), marking the 20th anniversary of his arrest, appears simply to be dismayed by the limited story it has to tell, about how he got away with murder for so long and the impact that uncovering his crimes had on the town, on the detectives who worked on the case, and on the relatives of the victims.

Narrated by Gina McKee in a strangely emphatic voice, like a nursery teacher addressing a mixed-ability class of non-native speakers, the documentary claims, as it must, to have new material, people who have never spoken on camera before — including a nurse who, then aged 18 and too naïve to protest, may have witnessed Shipman’s first killings, of patients in Pontefract General Infirmary, and a prison officer who suspects Shipman may have unsuccessfully tried to drug fellow inmates after his conviction.

Meanwhile, a “close family friend” from Todmorden testifies that everybody liked Shipman, “a good friend and a good neighbour”, with “a good sense of humour” too, seeming still not quite to have processed what he did.

So there are no answers here — although look out for a clip from a tape of the police interrogation of the man himself. Asked about the suspicious death that had brought him to police attention, Shipman says curtly: “People do die suddenly. Of old age. They just wear out.” A hint of the man’s murderous dismissiveness is to be heard there. He hanged himself in Wakefield prison on the eve of his 58th birthday, so ensuring that, since he had died before retirement, his wife received his full NHS pension, plus a £100,000 lump sum.

A zippier ultimate specimen, also the murderous type, stars in Super Fast Falcon (BBC2, 8pm). Peregrines are the fastest animal on earth, reaching speeds of 200mph, when they swoop. Although part of the Natural World strand, this programme, fruitily narrated by Peter Capaldi, would fit well into Top Gear, being basically boy racing.

One thread follows urban peregrine chicks being raised on the balcony of a skyscraper in Chicago and includes great footage of them learning to fly and hunt, more or less naturally. The other, though, tracks bird handler Lloyd Buck enthusiastically demonstrating just what his highly trained peregrine can do, competing with a high-speed “prey drone”, and then chasing down a lure fastened to the helmet of an Olympic freestyle skier. He rockets down a mountainside, flying through the air himself, but is unable to outrun the bird. “What a boy! You top man!” Lloyd cheers. Daft but thrilling.

Pick of the day

Billions - Sky Atlantic, 9pm

The financial drama is all about the battle between Chuck (Paul Giamatti) and Bobby (Damian Lewis), but the show is confident enough to cede the stage to the supporting players.

It’s a big week for non-binary genius Taylor Mason (Asia Kate Dillon), whose trip to meet billionaire venture philanthropist Oscar Langstraat (comedian Mike Birbiglia) is resolved in a surprising way.

Yes, romance is definitely in the air: when Oscar invites Taylor to dinner, he is thinking about more than just breadsticks.

It’s a breakthrough for Taylor, not least because the character has, up until now, been defined by icy logic and outsider intelligence.

Meanwhile, the amoral “Dollar” Bill Stearn (Kelly AuCoin) is planning a big short position on a pharma company that is about to be targeted by animal rights activists, but he comes up against the company compliance officer Ari Spyros (Stephen Kunken) who has been itching to take him on.

The two lock horns over their conflicting attitudes to insider dealing, much to the chagrin of Wendy (Maggie Siff), who may see the battle as an echo of the show’s central conflict.

Screen time

Urban Myths: Johnny Cash and the Ostrich - Sky Arts, 9pm

The comedy series in which notable moments in pop culture are re-imagined allows Frank Skinner to add his spin to the tale of Johnny Cash being attacked by his ostrich, Waldo, in 1981. Skinner plays the Man In Black, and places the singer in a Nottinghamshire hotel, telling the hotel manageress that he fears the ostrich is in the East Midlands, plotting another attack (The truth is, Cash trashed the hotel room, under the influence of painkillers).

The whole evening on Sky Arts is dedicated to Cash, with documentaries on his gospel influences at 7pm, his concert at Folsom Prison at 8pm, plus a look at his Native American concept album Bitter Tears at 9.30pm.

London Go - Tomorrow, London Live, 7pm

What if, by 2019, that wall is built and Trump has been impeached but his legacy has been genocide? That is portrayed in controversial new play Building the Wall, which receives its UK premiere at the Park Theatre.

Tomorrow evening, leads Angela Griffin and Trevor White speak to host Luke Blackall about the play’s bleak outlook.

It’s All About Love - London Live, 10pm

Just as the sun finally returns from a longer-than usual break, I have to upset everyone by declaring there’s a new Ice Age on the way. And not the film about that squirrel and his nut.

That’s what is looming in this woozy psycho-drama, a new era of freezing temperatures; someone who will be equipped to deal with all that ice is champion figure skater Elena, played by Claire Danes.

Her divorce from John (Joaquin Phoenix) takes a nightmarish turn when strange forces conspire against them and their respective futures.

Sean Penn, Alun Armstrong, and Mark Strong also appear in this surreal drift through the end of everything, directed by Danish Dogme 95 filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg.

Deep dish

The Kate Bush Story: Running Up That Hill - BBC iPlayer

This 2014 profile of the retiring singer disappears from iPlayer on Sunday evening, so catch it now. There are interesting archive clips but also testimonies from John Lydon, Tricky and Viv Albertine. Annie Clark (St Vincent) confesses that she does Wuthering Heights as her karaoke turn (if she’s had enough to drink). “They’re not normal songs,” says Sir Elton John. “None of her songs are normal.”

Serial box

Happy! - Netflix

First shown on the US network SyFy, all eight episodes of this adaptation of Grant Morrison and Darick Robertson’s graphic novel are released today. It follows the adventures of former cop Nick Sax (Christopher Meloni), who is now working as a hitman. Then, after a near-death experience, he starts seeing Happy, a flying blue horse (voiced by Patton Oswalt) everywhere he goes.