THE VIETNAM WAR, BBC4, 9pm

IF you don’t know who Ken Burns is, then get yourself a Netflix subscription and happily lose hours and days watching his mammoth documentaries about the American Civil War and the Second World War. Now he has created another monster series, this one about Vietnam, and the whole ten episodes have been snapped up by BBC4. (It’s enough to make you forgive the channel for all their Friday night pop music clip shows.)

It took ten years to make this series; an episode for each year of hard work.

We start tonight with the origins of the Vietnam War, going back into the nineteenth century when it was invaded by France, and then found itself divided into north and south. In the twentieth century, communism took hold and the Americans, locked in a Cold War ideological battle and desperate to contain the spread of the Soviet system, decided to get involved.

STAR TREK: DISCOVERY, NETFLIX

IF you want to annoy a Star Trek fan, just keeping asking them when the new series of Star Wars is coming out on Netflix.

Yes, the fans are all on tenterhooks for the new series which goes out on Netflix after the US broadcast on CBS.

It will be led by a female but, unlike the recent Doctor Who controversy, Trekkies will be cool with it as it’s not the first time a woman has been in charge.

The new series is set ten years before the original series, which adds a nice little kick to it. Most other information has been carefully guarded, but we know the Klingons will feature and that a war begins between them and the Federation.

The trailer shows a series which looks slick, clever and eerie – a far cry from the camp colours and gaudy charm of the original series.