TV: Damien Love reveals his pick of the week's TV

Homeland

9pm, Channel 4

Interesting times in Homeland. Since about three episodes into the second series, I've been convinced this show should have ended, with a bleak bang, at the end of its paranoid first run - a position the tortuous third season only strengthened. Back for a fourth time, though, the scent of reboot is in the air. Damian Lewis's Brody is gone, executed at the end of the last series, and with his family's soap opera removed, focus falls squarely on Claire Danes's ever-fraying CIA agent, Carrie Mathison, now heading a unit in Kabul, where her cold-hearted enthusiasm for the shadowy work has earned her the nickname The Drone Queen. Meanwhile, there's the guilty issue of the baby she had by Brody, a little girl, left with her sister back home: probably a good idea, as one troubling scene makes clear. There's a lot of nonsense, of course, not least the idea that someone with Carrie's track record would be given a job running a CIA stationary cupboard, let alone their Afghanistan Station. But, with her mentor Saul (Mandy Patinkin) now attempting to work in the private security sector, there's a least a chance of Homeland regaining some urgency as a funhouse mirror of our anxieties. (Then again: what to make of these stories about Lewis having been spotted filming more scenes…?)

Monday, October 13

Gotham

9pm, Channel 5

Leaving aside the comics themselves, in recent times Batman has been all about the movies, thanks to the era-defining work of Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan. But Ol' Pointy Ears has a noble history on the small screen, too, with two television series under his utility belt that are landmarks in their own right.

The first, of course, was the glorious 1960s TV show, half parody, half pure-Pop paean, with Adam West's hysterically straight-faced Bats surrounded by a giggling gallimaufry of villains who instantly colonised hearts, minds and memories, notably (if for different reasons) Frank Gorshin's definitive Riddler and Julie Newmar's slinking Catwoman.

The series divides Batfans still. Some serious souls, brandishing annotated copies of Frank Miller's potent, grimdark 1986 Batman reboot, The Dark Knight Returns, shudder at the very thought. Others - those you'd probably rather share a drink with - relish every eye-popping frame. There's a broader unity of affection, however, for the Caped Crusader's second great TV outing, Batman: The Animated Series, the loving 1990s cartoon, etched in sharp deco-noir lines, which doffed its cowl equally to Miller's glowering world, 1960s pop and Batman's late-1930s roots. You would expect some hangover from Nolan and Burton, but it's heartening to also detect dim echoes from both old Batshows in Gotham, the latest series to venture down Bruce Wayne's mean streets. The first thing to know is that this is Batman without Batman, or rather, before Batman. Miller did an excellent comic reimagining the hero's beginnings called Year One, but Gotham winds back to Year Zero. We see Bruce in his primal moment, as a child watching his millionaire parents gunned down; but from here, focus shifts to the straight-arrow young cop on the case, James Gordon (Ben McKenzie), destined to become Batman's wily old confidante Commissioner Gordon.

We continue to glimpse the wounded, waif-like Master Bruce. But Young Gordon is our guy here. A new recruit to Gotham's detective squad, as he earnestly pursues the hot-potato Wayne murders, we learn about the city, a gang-warring sink of corruption, in whose shadows are beginning to stir Batman's future foes. The opening episodes are a comic geek's birdwatching quiz, asking you to tick off the younger, unformed versions of Catwoman, The Penguin, The Riddler and Poison Ivy, while challenging you to spot The Joker.

What's good is Gotham itself: a rain- and neon-soaked metropolis, part Blade Runner, part Dick Tracy, floating in some no-time between now and the 1940s. There come surprisingly unconvincing model shots of skyscraper-strewn skylines, yet they work in a flat, cartoonish way, tying in with the enjoyably overblown performances of the best baddies, gangboss Fish Mooney (Jada Pinkett Smith) and budding Penguin Oswald Cobblepot (Robin Taylor).

What's bad is, well, a lot, including generally horrendous dialogue. "You're a cynic. A slovenly, lackadaisical cynic!" Gordon growls at his shabby cop partner. Even Adam West would have trouble delivering that with a straight jaw, but while McKenzie's Gordon is as square as West's Batman, the show doesn't realise it, or want to send it up. The main problem is a seesawing uncertainty of tone. The series can't quite decide whether to be dour Nolan-Miller or glittering Burton-West, for kids or for grown-up kids. But it warrants keeping tabs on, if only to see if they will work out which way to jump. My advice: atomic batteries to power, turbines to speed, fire up the Julie Newmar-Signal.

Tuesday, October 14

The Apprentice

9pm, BBC One

Holy Prattling Pit Vipers! Time to leave aside all thoughts of nice people baking cakes as The Great British Bastard Off returns in a blizzard of shiny suits, billows of testosterone and oestrogen, and a cavalier approach to history, logic, economics and the English language that leaves you with little hope for mankind. "I see myself as a mixture between Ghandi and The Wolf Of Wall Street," offers one candidate. And who's to say that's wrong? Marking the show's 10th anniversary, there are a record-breaking 20 well-groomed terrifying idiots on parade as the series begins. Seasoned Apprenticionados will know these early weeks are the golden weeks, before the editors finally allow some them to actually come across as almost decent human beings. Tonight, thrill as they size each other up, attempt to avoid becoming leader for the first task (flogging tat) and - joy - anoint themselves with inspirational team names. Episode Two follows tomorrow, and features "wearable technology". Dara O Briain looks on in wonder both nights with his companion piece, You're Fired (10pm, BBC Two).

Wednesday, October 15

Storyville: Particle Fever

9pm, BBC Four

Rounding up some of the best documentaries being made around the world today, Storyville is the strand that keeps on giving, and it maintains its strike rate with this superb film by Mark Levinson on the workings of the Large Hadron Collider at Cern. If science stuff turns you off, hang around, as Levinson, who filmed at the facility for seven years, does a fine job in taking an unfeasibly complicated and elusive subject - the hunt for the Higgs boson, aka "The God Particle" - and delivering it in a way you can just about get your brain around, without dumbing it down. Simultaneously, by focusing close-up on a handful of characters from the installation's 10,000-strong staff of scientists - their heartfelt hopes, fears, mind-expanding theories, sly jokes, geek rapture and unexpected rapping - he humanises the story and significance of "the biggest machine ever built by human beings". Edited by the legendary Walter Murch (Apocalypse Now, among others), it moves beautifully too.

Thursday, October 16

The Knick

9pm, Sky Atlantic

Steven Soderbergh announced his retirement from movies last year, but he's kept busy since, not least by directing all 10 episodes in the first series of this fascinating new period piece. A medical drama set at the turn of the last century, we're in the New York of 1900, a city that's a little more Deadwood than Downton. The Knick is the Knickerbocker Hospital, a pleasant name for a grim and grisly place, as doctors struggle, often unsuccessfully, with early experimental procedures that will eventually lead to surgical breakthroughs. Chief among them is Clive Thackery (Clive Owen), a brilliant, driven surgeon of the doesn't-suffer-fools variety, running on aggression, ambition, cocaine and opium jags. Some of the retrospective 21st-century concerns about the period's racism and sexism seem forced, but if you can get through the ick, it's instantly intriguing, getting its hands dirty alongside characters caught up in the painful birth of the modern world. There's a faintly Cronenbergian steampunky buzz, Soderbergh shoots it in a way that's dreamlike yet immediate, and Owen delivers a character who doesn't care whether you like him. Be warned, though, the surgical sequences are not for the squeamish; if you don't wince, you should probably consult a doctor yourself.

Friday, October 17

Stand Up To Cancer

From 7pm, Channel 4

If you're looking for the Channel 4 News tonight, you need to head to More4, as the main channel is devoting the evening to its fundraising comedy juggernaut in support of Cancer Research UK. Davina McCall, Alan Carr and Christian Jessen are hosts as the night kicks off with a quick visit to a special Gogglebox that sees some unexpected faces popping up amid the regulars (there's more of the show at 9pm). At 8pm-ish, there's the first instalment of Andy Murray In Andy Murray: The Movie, in which the tennis hero and Richard Ayoade screen test a mixed bag of hopefuls for the lead part in a Murray biopic, including Terry Wogan, Pharrell, Gordon Ramsay, Michael Sheen, Andy Serkis, Britney Spears and Tim Henman. 10pm brings a new brain-twisting Derren Brown stunt, with Martin Freeman and his wife (and fellow Sherlock star) Amanda Abbington as guinea pigs; and look out for an exclusive contribution from Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) around 11pm. It's all surrounded by plenty more comedy, music and chat, through until 2am.

Saturday, October 18

The Code

9pm, BBC Four

It's the middle double-bill chunk of the Australian conspiracy thriller, and it continues to move fast enough, and with enough simmering, twisty incident, to pass a couple of hours quite painlessly. Investigative journalist Ned Banks is wracked with guilt at having dragged his fragile hacker brother Jesse into the affair, and anxious when he discovers that Jesse has disappeared from home, gone off on a road trip with his suspiciously eager girlfriend, Hani. Trying to locate the pair, he calls on the aid of his colleagues, and begins to uncover more information about Hani and her motives. But he's not the only one on their trail, as the killer Andy is hunting them down too. Meanwhile, back in the outback community of Lindara, tensions are rising.