Tonight's TV highlights

The Chinese Are Coming 9pm, BBC2 Debut of a three-continent travelogue by Justin Rowlatt, examining one of the underexplored geopolitical phenomena of our time – the rampaging expansion of China. As quietly as a billion-strong superpower can, in the last couple of decades China has been economically colonising substantial tracts of the planet. This first episode visits Africa, in which China has taken an enormous and influential interest. In Angola, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rowlatt looks at what the Chinese are doing and how they're doing it. AM Big Fat Gypsy Weddings 9pm, Channel 4 Tonight's episode of the "we're not laughing at them, we're taking an interest in another culture" documentary focuses on contemporary Gypsy life from the male perspective. The men are expected to be domineering, physically strong and, above all, bread-winners. Gigantic fairy dresses don't grow on trees, after all. And there's another wedding in the offing as Violet Ann prepares to waddle down the aisle wearing a tulle depiction of Krakatoa, mid-eruption. OK, so they like big dresses and fake-tan their children, but that doesn't justify the online knee-jerk hate-spewers. JNR The Big C 11.05pm, Channel 4 You can't beat a terminal disease as the ideal plot device to jumpstart a character into living rather than merely existing. Here, a teacher takes the news that she has incurable skin cancer as the impetus for her to commence getting her life in order. While it may have a central premise that is a little tasteless, the going is made smooth and even enjoyable by Laura Linney as the teacher and Oliver Platt as her husband. PO'N Cougar Town 8pm, Sky Living Those who saw the early episodes of Courteney Cox's horny housewife comedy may have run for the hills, but once the show decided to play to Cox's slapstick strengths and dampen the "cougar" part, it vastly improved. And now she's back for a second season. Jules's relationship with Grayson is going surprisingly well, as are her therapy sessions with the new shrink, played by a very special guest star. You'll never guess who she is. Oh, all right, you will: it's Jennifer Aniston, obviously. RN Arrested Development; Bob's Burgers 9pm, FX; 10.35pm, E4 "The burger business is a battlefield, people!" Promising new cartoon about a family restaurant, featuring Flight Of The Conchords players Kristen Schaal (Louise, with bunny ears) and Eugene Mirman (Gene, loud middle child). Meanwhile, earlier on FX, there's another chance to enjoy the phrases "never nude", "there is money in the banana stand" and "the Bob Loblaw Law Blog" as the mighty Arrested Development returns to UK screens. Come on! RV True Stories: Britain's Supreme Court 10pm, More4 In an apparently impressive show of accountability, Britain's newly established supreme court opens its doors to the TV cameras as it wrestles over cases brought by individuals against the state, including that of a mother of a soldier who died of heat exhaustion in Iraq in 2003, a businessman facing extradition to the US and victims of tough new anti-terrorist legislation. Although visually mundane, with unrobed judges slouching in high-back leather chairs and storage boxes of papers being wheeled through corridors, the issues are gripping and depressing, in that recent legislation seems to be stacked in favour of the state over the people. DS