HD Highlights: August 6

SoHo Highlight: The Pillars of the Earth (Sky 10, 8.30, 5.1) In the final episode, Jack has become fixated with the cathedral, Aliena’s fixation with the Earldom has married her to Alfred, and Waleran and Alfred plot to get rid of Jack for good. While this marks the end of Pillars, watch for the sequel, World Without End (above), another eight-hour medieval epic set in the same town but 150 years later, when England is under siege from natural disasters, plague and war. The cast includes Cynthia Nixon, Miranda Richardson, Ben Chaplin, Peter Firth, Charlotte Riley and Rupert Evans. ✭✭✭✩

Movie: Star Trek (TV3, 8.30, 5.1, R) Has a sci-fi franchise ever lived as long or prospered like Gene Roddenberry’s? This enterprising, new-generation prequel to the original is shrewdly cast and retains only Leonard Nimoy’s Spock for a pivotal cameo in a complicated, alternate reality plot that’s not as much fun as the visual effects. JJ Abrams (Mission: Impossible III) directs Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and Karl Urban. Fringe scribes Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman wrote the screenplay. (2009) ✭✭✭✩