The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been saturating the globe with its multi-format superheroes, leaving its DC rival looking clumsy and disorganised by comparison. However, DC’s “Arrowverse” – a roster of TV shows including Arrow, The Flash and Supergirl – is part of its fight-back effort, and now joining its ranks is this new take on the Batwoman character (E4).

The joke in Dead Pixels, a new sitcom on E4, is that there is a better life to be pursued in the fantasy world of videogames. In this alt. environment, outcomes can be controlled by consoles and keyboards, squeamishness about violence can be parked and you are free to be your best or worst self. Probably the show’s target audience is gamers under 30, but I’m very far from either and I found it a hoot.

Welcome to your first day in the afterlife! Everything is fine! Eleanor Shellstrop (a sparkling Kristen Bell) is dead, but hey, that’s cool, because she’s made it into the Good Place. Michael (the divine Ted Danson) is architect of this brightly coloured afterlife with its abnormally high ratio of frozen yoghurt parlours. “People love frozen yoghurt. I don’t know what to tell you,” sighs Michael.

Jack Thorne's new eight-part drama is set in a fictional but recognisable small English village, Overton, where life is centred on farming and racehorses. A green and pleasant land? Not so much; this is a series with a group of pill-popping, shagging teenagers at its heart – well, it is from the man who wrote Skins.

By the end of its first series, My Mad Fat Diary had departed far enough from memoirist Rae Earl’s frank, funny source material that the adaptation taking on a life of its own shouldn’t have been a cause for concern. Still, there’s always that niggle when something that got it so completely right first time around returns: can it possibly repeat that magic, or live up to expectations?

No definitive answers to what was "the best" of 2013 of course, and I daresay opinions will differ wildly. For instance, despite the plaudits showered on it elsewhere, I felt that Broadchurch stretched itself too thin after showing initial promise. An increasingly acute allergy to serial killer dramas meant I couldn't get too involved with Tony Grisoni's Southcliffe, let alone The Fall, with its extended, voyeuristic murder scenes.

As the second series of Zooey Deschanel-starring US sitcom New Girl gets underway on E4, it’s an interesting exercise to revisit first impressions. I note that when the pilot originally aired, theartsdesk was not as harsh as I was on a show which, over the course of its first year, quickly became one of my favourites.

About the only thing I dislike about My Mad Fat Diary is the title. Based on a similarly-titled teenage memoir by the writer Rae Earl, the first episode of this six-part comedy drama is touching, hilarious and perfectly cast. And the lead character, who introduces herself as a “16-stone 16-year-old”, has just been discharged from a psychiatric hospital after four months of in-patient treatment, so it’s certainly apt.

Is Misfits now a misfit on E4? When it first announced itself three years ago, the series about probationers with sci-fi superpowers straddled the bridge between the WTF generation and the can-do ethos of the comic strip. It was quite a lot of fun, even for those outside the target demographic. As is natural with any series targeted at a youth audience, success breeds the one thing that no cult series wants: staff turnover.

Just when it seemed that thrillers on British television were supplied solely by Scandinavia's finest, along comes a new US series to remind us that when it comes to densely plotted ensemble pieces the Americans have form too. Revenge, the pilot episode of which aired last week and which started a 21-week run last night, has some promising names attached. It was created by Mike Kelley, a writer on One Tree Hill and The O.C., and it stars Madeleine Stowe.