Tonight in HD: May 31

SoHo Highlight: Veep (Sky 10, 9.00, 5.1) According to The Guardian, which was correct in its assessment of last week’s disappointing episode: “Finally, after three episodes of over-long scene-setting and forgettable dialogue, Veep gets it together. The difference between episode four and the previous three is that here the situation provides the comedy and the pace, rather than some laboured one-liners straining to create atmosphere. On behalf of Armando Iannucci’s fans: phew. Also, what took you so long? I was just about to give up.” Echoed the AV Club: “Veep has more or less lived on the margins of policy so far, avoiding anything beyond a clean-jobs initiative. (Filibuster reform? Only a partisan issue to the party out of power.) But Chung sprints right into the immigration scrabble with cynicism so staggering and realistic it basically leaps offscreen and stabs you.” ✮✮✮✮

Movie: Lethal Weapon 4 (TV One, 8.30, 5.1, R) Less a movie than a slew of spectacular action sequences aimlessly in search of a screenplay. The overcrowded plot mixes in everything from the Triads, slave labour and counterfeiting to Riggs (Mel Gibson) becoming a dad and Murtagh (Danny Glover) a grandfather. Outrageous stunts like Gibson being dragged along a motorway on a coffee table don’t disappoint but fans deserved a better finale. (1998) ✮✮

Home & Away (TV3, 5.30) Mr Townsend retaliates against Casey; Sasha encourages Dex and Lottie to get together; Brax finds Hayley still in Summer Bay. ✮✮

Friends (TV2, 6.30, R) Rachel joins in when she realises that her co-workers at her new job are smokers; Monica and Phoebe plan a surprise birthday party for Rachel; Joey and Ben audition for a commercial. ✮✮✮

Shortland Street (TV2, 7.00) Vasa buries her concern for Ula; Rachel’s thrown by Chris’ sacrifice; Zac fails to be a better man. ✮✮✮

Once Upon a Time (TV2, 8.30, 5.1) Emma is kidnapped by a man whose sanity teeters on the edge of madness, and the Evil Queen persuades a man of magic to steal something from the Queen of Hearts. ✮✮

The Finder (TV3, 8.30, 5.1) Isabel’s friend Joyce asks Walter to find the men who murdered her father, a racetrack aficionado. ✮✮

Fringe (TV2, 10.30, 5.1) Walter is forced to leave the lab for the first time in years when he and Olivia go to Massive Dynamic to examine files that may connect one of Walter’s test subjects to a new series of crimes. “Right off the back, we know Subject 9 is a mythology episode because the crazy science event of the week didn’t happen to an unfortunate random stranger, it happened to Olivia,” the Los Angeles Times says. “Not only that, it happened before her alarm went off (it’s terrible when a floating, disembodied magnetic cloud won’t even let you sleep in). As the audience, we know the hovering blue light show has something to do with Peter. The fun is watching Olivia and Walter slowly figure it out.” ✮✮✮✮