SBS, 7.30pm

If, like me, your knowledge of blood is limited to the facts that: a. keeping it on the inside is generally speaking a good idea and b. your favourite shirt will never be the same again after you tried to scrub the collar that time you cut yourself shaving, then you'll find this a fascinating hour of television. (If, however, you go all funny and fall over at the very thought, let alone sight, of the stuff, you should probably give it a miss). The likeable Michael Mosley is our guide for this tour through our arteries, veins and capillaries. Never one to sit on the sidelines when there's an experiment or demonstration in the offing, Mosley cheerfully gives up what seems like gallons of his own blood at every opportunity. As well as turning himself into a human pincushion, he gets strapped into an MRI machine for a staggering four hours, plunges into a freezing whitewater canoe course (to show what goes on in our blood when we're stressed) and even cooks up and eats black pudding made from his own blood (not bad but could use a bit more salt, apparently) all in the name of science – and entertainment. He also serves up some staggering nuggets of information such as the fact the average person has about 20 trillion red blood cells hurtling around 100,000 kilometres of tubing. I found it, ahem, bloody amazing. Nick Galvin

Pay: Barbarians Rising

History, 8.30pm

This ripping new dramatised documentary series begins with a scene that looks like something out of Game of Thrones – a huge barbarian army slogging its way through a snowstorm in a high mountain pass. The impression isn't diminished by the presence of Clive Russell, who played Brynden "Blackfish" Tully inGame of Thrones.Here, though, Russell plays a barbarian who has become a fatherly adviser to Hannibal (Nicholas Pinnock) during his crossing of the Alps in 218BC. Once they're down the other side we're into a bloody re-enactment of the Battle of Cannae, which provided the blueprint for future battles in everything from The Lord of the Rings to Game of Thrones. A small host of historians and retired military officers do a good job of explaining how the whole campaign unfolded, and how Cannae changed warfare forever. Barbarians profiled in coming weeks include Boudica, Spartacus and Attila. Brad Newsome

Movie: Midnight Express (1978)

SBS 2, 9.25pm

For a while, Alan Parker was the great directorial hope of British cinema, a man who forged a famous partnership with Lord David Puttnam, whom he famously mocked in cartoons. Today, Parker is rarely mentioned, which is a pity because at his best he was a fine and exuberant craftsman, albeit a bit crude at times, but, given what has come since, the very model of restraint. His Midnight Express, about the imprisonment of a young American drug smuggler in a brutal Turkish jail, is typical of his visceral filmmaking. Can anyone forget the guard's head embedding itself on the wooden peg jutting from a wall? The film was a major success, elevating Parker and scriptwriter Oliver Stone to cult status. But then a backlash started, claiming the film racially portrayed the Turks in a bad light. No, it portrays sadistic prison guards in a bad light. Parker had more successes (including Fame), but his vibrant light dimmed just a little. Scott Murray

Scandal

7flix, 10.30pm

With a great guest turn from Lena Dunham as an author threatening to reveal all about her creative sexual encounters with some of DC's highest profile bachelors, this is vintage Scandal. Fast-paced, fun and landing just the right side of hokey. Along the way, it also picks up neatly on issues around women's empowerment and the skewed nature of sexual "morality". Nick Galvin