TV highlights 06/01/2012

New Girl 8.30pm, Channel 4 A promising start from Fox's hit sitcom. Impossibly cute Jess (Zooey Deschanel) comes home to find her boyfriend with another woman, and is catapulted into a flatshare with three single men. And so the twisted take on Friends begins. In true romcom style, all Jess wants to do is watch Dirty Dancing on repeat, but with a little help from her new flatmates and smart-mouthed model best friend, Cece, she embarks on the hunt for a rebound fling. By the end of this pilot, you can't help but care about Jess as Zooey plays the "adorkable" card with just the right amount of indie weirdness. Hannah Verdier Law & Order: UK 9pm, ITV1 We're straight back to the scene of the shooting at the end of last series and Bradley Walsh is unable to move on. Literally: they can't shift him from the crime scene. The fallout from DS Devlin's gunning-down takes up the rest of the episode, so there's no time for any other crime-solving this week. And of course everyone struggles to separate the personal from the professional when the victim is one of their own. Lots of tight-lipped crying behind office blinds and desk-banging. Julia Raeside Top Of The Pops: The Story Of 1977 9pm, BBC4 Even if it came to seem like an elderly family member trying uncomfortably to keep up with modern trends, Top Of The Pops, through its sheer longevity, built up an unrivalled archive of British chart pop and its attendant fashions. These were perhaps never more opposed than in 1977, the vault of which is accessed here: the year of cultural forces as diverse as the Queen's silver jubilee, reggae, punk and, of course, the flares and mirror balls of that unkillable 70s perennial, disco. Critics such as Alexis Petridis and stars who may as well be critics, like Nicky Wire, address the confusion, with the benefit of archival clips. John Robinson Stella 9pm, Sky1 Ruth Jones writes and stars in a new Wales-set comedy drama about working mum-of-three Stella, her alcoholic best friend (played by Elizabeth Berrington) and various other supporting characters. Jones has powerful screen appeal and her script radiates all of the charm of Gavin & Stacey, with rather fewer of the cynical set pieces that so often marred it. Tonight, Stella visits her eldest son in prison, discovers her daughter is on the pill and finds an unusual alternative when she forgets to make her young son's costume for the school play. JNR Making The Iron Lady 11.25pm, More4 While some senior Conservatives have grumbled about Abi Morgan's script not quite bringing the hagiography they hoped for, Meryl Streep's note-perfect portrayal of Thatcher has received widespread praise. In this behind-the-scenes special, Streep gives an insight into how she captured those famous Thatcher mannerisms, while co-stars Jim Broadbent and Richard E Grant – who play husband Denis and Michael Heseltine respectively – are also interviewed. Gwilym Mumford