» Composer of the Week (9.00 am R3 and rest of week) is Schubert.
Random Edition (11.00 am R4). The Strand Magazine for Christmas 1897: Peter Snow consults Chris Willis of Birkbeck and others about the magazine’s readership.
» The West (11.10 am BBC2, also Tues 11.15 am, Wed and Thurs 11.00 am, Fri 10.50 am). Re-showings of the 1996 Ken Burns series about the North American West, made for PBS in America and first seen here two years ago. (See also this Thursday’s Night Waves for more on the subject).
Fantastic Tales (3.30 R4 and for rest of week). A series of classic European stories "exploring the weird and the wonderful" begin with Hans Christian Andersen’s The Shadow , read by Peter Capaldi.
» Space Detectives (3.55 BBC1). Final programme in children’s series ponders the future of space exploration.
Saints and Sinners (6.00 History Channel, also rest of week) Re-run of history of Papacy series.
The Business of the Arts (8.00 R4). New forms of patronage examined by Kate Mosse.
Sir William Glock Memorial Concert (7.30 R3). Live concert in memory of the influential BBC Controller of Music (a post that no longer exists), with music by Boulez, Haydn, Gerhard and others. With two Twenty Minutes programmes in the intervals (8.00 and 8.55 R3) reflecting on Glock’s impact and rebroadcasting one of his radio talks.
University Challenge (8.00 BBC2). Sheffield Hallam vs. Warwick.
» Animal ER (8.30 C5). A sick shire horse, a pig with a tumour and a collie that cannot walk – another week at the Royal Veterinary College.
» Meet the Ancestors (8.30 BBC2). Repeat of the episode about Spitalfields (a new series starts in January).
» Andes to Amazon (9.00 BBC2). "Penguin Shores" – from Patagonia northwards on the Humboldt Current to the Galapagos.
» Animals that Changed the World (9.00 R4). Animal carriers of disease.
Cutting Edge: A Very British Christmas (9.00 C4). Documentary about what Christmas means to people "from turkey farmers to Samaritans".
» Castaway 2000 (9.00 BBC1, also Tuesday 9.05). Almost the final glimpses of life of the artificially constructed community on the Hebridean island of Taransay. Is Peter, the university lecturer, becoming more tolerable? (The last Castaway programme will be on New Year’s Eve, I think.)
» Trouble at the Big Top (12.30 am BBC2, also Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, same time). Re-runs of the revealing series about the Millennium Dome project, from its early days to the opening last New Year’s Eve. These will be followed by Death of the Dome (Friday Dec 22, 9.00 BBC2), which promises to analyse what went wrong.