Tonight in HD: February 17

SoHo Cinema: Warm Springs (Sky 10, 8.30, 5.1) Kenneth Branagh and Sex and the City’s Cynthia Nixon star in a heartwarming dramatisation of how polio politically liberated Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Branagh’s transformation as FDR is astounding yet he rarely overshadows Nixon as Roosevelt’s stoical wife, Eleanor. Warm Springs occasionally succumbs to sentimentality but mostly is an illuminating and honest insight into a political legend when he was less than presidential. (2005) ✭✭✭✭

Series premiere: Persons Unknown (TV3, 1.15, 5.1) This newcomer about seven strangers under surveillance in a ghost town lasted only three months on US TV in 2010, hence its overnight slot. Created by Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects), it was dubbed “delightfully weird and foreboding” by The Hollywood Reporter and brimming with "pretzel-twist plots and out-of-the-left-field surprises" by Entertainment Weekly. But the Los Angeles Times wasn't as dazzled: “Take Lost, mash it up with The Prisoner, throw in a little Saw, over-season with badly written and poorly delivered dialogue, glaze with horror-film lighting, dream-scene camerawork and elevators like you haven't seen since The Shining, and you've got Persons Unknown.” ✭✭✭✭

Friends (TV2, 6.30, R) Chandler demands Eddie, his creepy new roommate, move out. Watch for Adam Goldberg (Eddie) as porn star Harry Reems in the Linda Lovelace biopic, Inferno, due out next year. ✭✭✭✭

Shortland Street (TV2, 7.00) Sarah fights to find a balance; Chris can’t help helping out; Roimata’s haunted by the past. ✭✭✭

The Vampire Diaries (TV2, 10.30) Elena, Bonnie, Matt and Tyler decide to oblige Caroline when she urges them to celebrate senior prank night, but uninvited guests make for a deadly evening. ✭✭✭

Human Target (TV2, 11.30, F) The mysterious woman implicated in the death of Marshall Pucci comes to the team for protection, and the team try to lure those responsible. ✭✭✭

Numb3rs (TV3, 12.20, 5.1) A female magician is suspected dead after she performs a vanishing act on stage and doesn’t reappear. ✭✭