Hairy Dieters: How to Love Food and Still Lose Weight, BBC One

HAIRY DIETERS: HOW TO LOVE FOOD AND STILL LOSE WEIGHT Humour and matiness with a serious intent from the Hairy Bikers

Humour and matiness with a serious intent from the Hairy Bikers

What do you do after nine series celebrating the cooking and eating of food? You make another, charting the effort to lose some of the weight gained. This time out, the bike-riding Si King and David Myers are still eating and travelling, but trying to adjust what they put in their mouths, to make it less calorie-tastic. Some exercise was on the menu too. As was selling copies of the tie-in book.

Wallander, BBC One/ Sinbad, Sky 1

WALLANDER: Can the Swedish detective find true happiness with Sir Kenneth Branagh?

Can the Swedish detective find true happiness with Sir Kenneth Branagh?

Every leading thespian needs a depressive Swedish detective in his repertoire, and Kenneth Branagh has the knighthood to prove it. He may also face a little extra critical scrutiny this time around, since the return of his Anglicised Wallander comes in the wake of the recent Scandi invasion, courtesy of The Bridge, Borgen and The Killing II. We've even had a little dose of Sebastian Bergman, starring Rolf Lassgard, famous in Sweden for his portrayal of Kurt Wallander. And we've had the Swedish Wallander itself.

True Love, BBC One

TRUE LOVE: Dominic Savage's nightly drama asks actors to adlib romantic banalities

Dominic Savage's nightly drama asks actors to adlib romantic banalities

In traditional drama, actors are vessels for the written word. They do the looks, the sex, the tears - the dynamics: they perform. But the words are supplied by the writer. True Love gives the mummers the opportunity to go the extra mile. A series of five half-hour films going out across the week and set in a seaside town, it is the latest work from the defiantly lo-fi director Dominic Savage.

The Voice: The Final, BBC One

THE VOICE - THE FINAL: Climax of singing show showcases BBC awkwardness at its very best

Showcasing BBC awkwardness at its very best

I love the BBC. “Auntie Beeb” really is the appropriate nickname for the Corporation, at least when it comes to television, because you just know when they try and get involved with any kind of pop culture it's going to be with all the gaucheness of a very enthusiastic auntie trying to adopt kids' tastes. This goes double with Danny Cohen – a man who gives the impression that he starts every sentence with “hey guys” and thinks “mega” is the latest street slang – at the helm of BBC One. And it's precisely this which has made The Voice such compelling viewing.

Sporting Heroes: After the Final Whistle, BBC One

Michael Vaughan asks where the validation comes from when no one's watching any more

It’s a funny old game. Sport rewards the talented when they are young and their bodies responsive. A profession which requires the reflexes to work in instant harmony with the brain means that beyond a certain age, the gifted become instantly unemployable the moment they lose their magic powers. A case of they don’t think it’s all over: it is now.

One Night, BBC One

ONE NIGHT: Douglas Hodge leads the cast in a promising opening episode of Paul Smith's new drama

Promising opening episode of the BBC's new four-part series

“Everything’s so bloody uphill, isn’t it?” whined kitchen salesman Ted (Douglas Hodge) upon realising that he’d left the charcoal for the evening's barbeque at the supermarket. But the charcoal wasn’t really the problem. There was the girl from the estate over the road - “all big earrings and attitude” - dropping litter outside his house and then shouting abuse when he suggested she pick it up. There was the unspeakable package shoved through the letterbox shortly after he complained to the girl’s school and got her suspended.

The Apprentice, Series 8, BBC One/ You're Fired!, BBC Two

THE APPRENTICE: Thoroughly welcome return of the addictive reality TV show and its offspring

Thoroughly welcome return of the addictive reality TV show and its offspring

You may think that, eight series in, applicants for The Apprentice would rein it in a bit. Overblown egos, fantastical verbal imagery to describe their always unique talents, hyperbolic self-assessment - we had all of those, and so much more, in last night's hugely enjoyable series opener. Welcome to another bunch of hopelessly, and hilariously, deluded men and women in search of Lord Sugar's £250,000 investment.

Empire, BBC One

EMPIRE: The first part of Jeremy Paxman's riveting history of the empire on which the sun never set

Jeremy Paxman's riveting history of the empire on which the sun never set

The scene is ineffably English. The thock of mallet on ball, the clack of ball through hoop, the gentle sun adding a benediction. A senior gent in natty English threads looks on from the pavilion, a member of this club for 55 years. Everything is just so, apart the setting: Cairo. “Was there nothing good the British did here?” wondered Jeremy Paxman. Apart from croquet. “All kinds of imperialism is bad,” ventured his host with a wily smile.

Upstairs Downstairs, Series Two, BBC One

UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS: The BBC's answer to Downton Abbey returns - and this time it's war (almost)

The BBC's answer to Downton Abbey limps back without its two creators, and this time it's war (almost)

You remember Upstairs Downstairs – the lavish 2010 period drama-cum-soap based around servants and their masters that had the misfortune of not being named Downton Abbey. Making its entrance some three months after ITV’s series despite being filmed first, Upstairs played like the indignant, overshadowed elder sibling to Downton’s effervescent, effortlessly successful young upstart.

Super Smart Animals, BBC One

SUPER SMART ANIMALS: Fascinating if surface-skimming look at a whole new world of animal intelligence

Fascinating if surface-skimming look at a whole new world of animal intelligence

We humans think we’re the bee’s knees don’t we? We’ve got language, music, art, cars, fridges, bank accounts. Essentially we’ve left all of the other planet’s creatures faltering on the starting line. Well, if that’s what you believe then it may have come as a surprise to see a chimp on last night’s Super Smart Animals solving a number-centred memory challenge that we oh-so-superior primates couldn’t even begin to do, and doing it so quickly and effortlessly that the chimp was suspected of having learnt it by rote.