Making Families Happy, ABC, 8.30pm

The final instalment of the latest in the ABC’s ‘‘Happy’’ series in which psychologists John Aiken and Clare Rowe try to ‘‘fix’’ three families through various exercises, ends exactly where you’d it expect it to. Despite things looking particularly grim for two of our families – single mum Amanda and surly teenage daughter Amelia, and Kate and her unruly daughter Ashleigh – everything seems, for the most part, rather too neatly tied up by the program’s end. Even though these families spent eight weeks in the glare of camera crews and psychologists, it’s hard to gauge  how much of these dynamics were real and what was performative for the program.

Empire, Eleven, 8.30pm

Part of the appeal of this modern Dynasty-with-rap-music soapie (apart from Cookie’s magnificent wardrobe) is that you can miss a few episodes and still catch up easily enough, even if someone has been shot (most likely), fired (also likely), or recorded a smokin’ new R&B hit (guaranteed). Really, the only major difference between this season’s scandals and last is that Andre (Trai Byars) is trying to balance his new-found faith with his past (and present) family life, and the number of Cookie’s (Taraji  Henson) handbags, which seem to change in every scene. Then of course there’s the guest stars, which this season include Ludacris, Ne-Yo, Kelly Rowland, Chris Rock,  Pitbull and Mariah Carey.

Aquarius, Seven, 11.35pm

This 1960s-set series was something of an experiment for US network NBC, premiering originally as a digital-first release (here it streamed on Presto) before moving to the traditional television format – and it’s proved a wJinner; NBC has renewed it for a second series, which means the cliffhanger’s in tonight’s finale still offers some genuine suspense. Ice-cold detective Hodiak (David Duchovny) and his partner Shafe (Grey Damon) are still on the case of Charlie Manson (Gethin Anthony), whose antics are increasingly demented. Meanwhile Hodiak tries to negotiate a deal with the army for son Walt (Chris Sheffield), which doesn’t go to plan, and he and Shafe track down the homosexual robbery-murder suspect – which also doesn’t go so well. Lots of unfinished business that bodes well for the next season.
Kylie Northover

PAY TV

From Dusk Till Dawn, FX, 7.30pm

The arrival of Danny Trejo (Machete) as a super-cool undead Terminator dude provides the excuse for some gross-out gore in an encounter with a Mexican cop. Make-up and effects guru Greg Nicotero (The Walking Dead) keeps the rest of the snake-vampire action looking pretty good.
Brad Newsome

MOVIES

Brokeback Mountain (2005) Masterpiece Movies (pay TV), 8.30pm

During the summer of 1963, Ennis (Heath Ledger) and Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal) tend sheep on remote Brokeback Mountain. Isolated from the world around them, love slowly and tenderly unfolds. But ’60s Wyoming is not a place where all men can live as they please, and Ennis and Jack are forced to make tough decisions, including marriage, in order to survive in a society that does not want their love story.

Director Ang Lee’s gentle film illustrates the challenges that what Gore Vidal called the ‘‘heterosexual dictatorship’’ presents for lovers daring to live outside the perceived norm. Lee had tackled this topic before in his sweet second film, A Wedding Banquet. But Brokeback is a much finer exploration of the societal and personal maelstroms into which even the purest heart may be forced to venture. Based on a short story by E. Annie Proulx and co-written by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana, this is actually pure McMurtry, the unparalleled chronicler of kind souls battling fate in harsh but beautiful landscapes.

Ransom (1996) GO!, 9.30pm

Tom Mullen (Mel Gibson) is an airline tycoon with a beautiful and talented wife, Kate (Rene Russo), and a cute son, Sean (Brawley Nolte). At a party celebrating Tom’s success, an uninvited journalist brings with him an eerie hint of trouble ahead by questioning Tom over a bribe to a union official. That uneasiness is soon played out at The Mall in Central Park, when Sean is abducted – presumably by a gang associated with the corrupt unionist.So far the film is workmanlike and solid, with talented actors more than comfortably inhabiting their roles. But there is no elegance or substance on show, nothing to convince you that this is anything more than filmmaking by the numbers. Just imagine what Alfred Hitchcock or Brian De Palma could have done with this and its picturesque location. The film then cuts to digital images of Sean lying handcuffed and gagged on a bare mattress. More torture follows.

Did director Ron Howard really need to show us this? Sean is just a child. From here on in, Ransom is a stock-standard movie about an angry parent who is as cross with himself for failing to protect his son as he is with the kidnappers. Tracking the villains down and exacting ‘‘justice’’ becomes his obsession. Howard generates tension between Tom and some FBI agents with differing views on how to handle the situation, but overall this is a enervating affair with a typically American reliance on guns and death to resolve everything.
Scott Murray