Sunday

Top Gear

8pm, BBC Two

The wait is over. Top Gear is back. Which means the term of my Non-Disclosure Agreement has elapsed, and the secret can be revealed: Reader, I was involved in the committee that was assembled to decide what the new incarnation of the programme should be like.

Admittedly, we were an unofficial consultation board, and our opinions were never actually sought by the BBC. Whether they even read the document we produced is moot, as the only address we could remember to post it to was the old Multi-Coloured Swap Shop one. Around the table with me were my Tom Stone Action Man, a picture of Diana Rigg in her Avengers years that I had in my pocket anyway, a C90 with most of John Peel’s 1985 Festive Fifty, and one of the cats who acted as chair, until she spotted a nice spot of sunlight on the carpet across the room, and went over there. After a vote, she was replaced by half a watermelon that was going off in the fridge.

Substituting a piece of overripe fruit for a cat is one thing. But what could take the place of Clarkson-May-Hammond? That was the question we sweated into the small hours that first day, until, around 4am, we hit on what seemed a winning formula.

Dig, if you will, the picture: In extreme close-up, a middle-aged man’s backside, clad in painstakingly ironed denims. In one pocket, a casually rolled copy of Q magazine. From the other protrudes an original 1977 Corgi model of the Lotus Esprit Roger Moore drove onto the beach in The Spy Who Loved Me, fins fully extended. In the background, out of focus, but still discernible, a figure with the lips of a minor royal who has been held back at boarding school seven years running has his cowboy boots buffed by two scared underlings trying to smile. “Rule Britannia” plays on the soundtrack. For an hour.

It was Tom Stone, when we reconvened next afternoon, who suggested that, while it ticked every imaginable box, this kind of thing was possibly too avant-garde for TV today. “You could get away with it in the 60s,” the Diana Rigg photo nodded sadly, “but things have changed. And not for the better.”

Thus, following furious brainstorming, we arrived at our final proposal. The new Top Gear should be fronted by a former Radio 1 disc jockey, alongside a figure from a 1990s American sitcom. The choice of DJ was a no-brainer: Noel Edmonds, of course, the return of the king. The American comedy figure was, if I may say, inspired: Jeffrey Tambor, back in character as Hank “Hey Now” Kingsley, the role he played beyond perfection in The Larry Sanders Show.

Getting Tambor, we felt, would be a genius stroke. For one thing, Hank himself personifies the type of person Top Gear appeals to most. For another, it would allow us to play on a reference to the famous Larry Sanders episode in which Hank spreads fresh dog poo over guest star Vince Vaughn’s car. “This could replace Star In A Reasonably Priced Car as a fun new regular feature,” we wrote in conclusion. “Imagine the Twitter reaction if we could get Michael Gambon back to take part, especially if he appeared in costume as the elderly Winston Churchill.”

Now: did the BBC’s head of Comedy And Entertainment ever see our proposals? Well, judge for yourself. Sure, it’s been heavily watered down. But I’m suspicious.

Monday

Alan Partridge's Scissored Isle

10pm, Sky Atlantic

Another chapter of the Bible as the great man moves among us once more. In this one-off documentary from Pear Tree Factual Productions, Partridge goes bare knuckle with the hot topic of Broken Britain, leaving the confines of his vast detached house in Norwich to travel across the divide and into the grim region known as The North, there to ponder those less fortunate than himself. "Another of the challenges facing under-privileged people in Britain today. We've all got our favourite kind of bank: high street, investment, sand and sperm. But who's ever heard of a food bank? What's a food bank? Well, it's free food for poooor people." As with Steve Coogan's previous mockumentaries for Sky, it isn't quite in the same league as the proper Partridge outings captured in the Mid Morning Matters series, but there are a few gems here – particularly a late section when Alan accompanies a freegan on a foraging expedition for discarded food, and ends up on a long, dark, bubble-wrapped night of the soul.

Tuesday

Revolution & Romance: Musical Masters Of The 19th Century

9pm, BBC Four

Following Rule Britannia, her lively survey of how music helped define identity in 18th-century Britain, the Radio 3 presenter moves on to explore the creative surge across Europe in the 19th. In the aftermath of the French Revolution, and with the Industrial Revolution waiting around the corner, Europe was undergoing heady change and, reflecting events, music became its dominant art form. No longer restricted to servitude under aristocratic patrons, a generation of composers were emboldened to experiment, and seized by a new entrepreneurial zeal began arranging their own performances, growing in fame to become the rock stars of their era. Among the figures under study tonight are Chopin, Schubert, Berlioz and Liszt, the piano-destroying Jerry Lee Lewis of his day. But Klein begins in the Vienna of 1803, with Beethoven's Eroica. Originally intended as his salute to "people's champion" Napoleon, Beethoven ripped up that dedication when Napoleon betrayed the revolutionary ideal by declaring himself emperor – a statement Klein offers as "the first decisive musical act of the century."

Wednesday

Versailles

9.30pm, BBC Two

It's strangely heartening to see so much money, time, effort, hot air and shampoo being poured into something as tremendously bad as this utterly howling new sub-soap on the reign, tantrums and big gardens of Louis XIV. Created by British writers for French TV with Canadian money, English dialogue and wildly varying accents, Versailles, charting the creation of the Sun King's famous palace, kindles memories of the great stodgy Europuddings of yesteryear, with actors resorting to the kind of rare, perfumed bad acting you see only when the script leaves performers absolutely nothing else to do, unless it's just stand there, looking stunned (the strategy most often employed by Louis himself, George Blagden.) Shot around the Palace Of Versailles itself, it looks classy, in a polished-turd way, but despite injections of softcore sex aimed at viewers without internet access, it's a long haul, never as lustily rubbish as similar recent hewn-from-pure-rubber period dramas like The Tudors. It goes on for 10 hours. And they've already started on Season Two.

Thursday

Going Forward

10pm, BBC Four

It's the final episode of Jo Brand's upliftingly downbeat comedy, but hopefully not the last we'll see of Kim Wilde. It's fun all the way, of course. Following her elderly mother's severe stroke, Kim and her increasingly desperate sister Jackie are waiting to hear whether the authorities will deem the old lady seriously ill enough to qualify for full medical care. Meanwhile, as she's visiting her clients, she's witness to a case of domestic abuse in one home, finds that the hospital transport promised for another has failed to materialise, and discovers that her employers, Buccaneer 2000, are in serious trouble themselves. Elsewhere, after a run-in with some particularly obnoxious passengers and their child, and with the debts mounting, husband Dave debates whether to take that dangerous job in Iraq ... Not exactly Carry On Matron, perhaps, but it's a world that's easy to recognise, and watching Kim go through it is oddly reassuring. I'd rather spend time with her than with that shoeless gonk with the middle-class kids in Love, Nina (Friday, 9pm, BBC One), anyway.

Friday

UK's Best Part-Time Band

9pm, BBC Four

When you boil it down, you could describe this new four-part series as just another reality talent contest, but it's sweeter, sweatier, more interesting and a fair bit closer to reality than most. And, as presenter Rhod Gilbert points out, "There's no prize: no Christmas No. 1; no recording contract; there's shit-all ..." Aided by a trio of music veterans as judges, he's touring the UK in a Transit van, checking out amateur bands who play gigs when not doing their day jobs. The judges in future episodes are ex-Joy Division/ New Order bassist Peter Hook and Soul II Soul supremo Jazzie B. First, though, an amiable Midge Ure accompanies Gilbert on a trip to see ska bands in Edinburgh, blues hopefuls in Glasgow, an all-female Americana mob in Belfast, and some scorchingly good garage types and veteran R&Bers in Wales, among others. Five are picked to perform at a closing gig tonight, and the best two on the evening will go on to compete in the grand finale in the closing episode.

Saturday

The Disappearance

9pm, BBC Four

The Morel house in Lyon continues to be the gift that keeps giving. Last week, Morel Père stumbled over his missing daughter Lea’s cocaine stash. Tonight, in the middle of changing a light bulb – it’s that exciting – he finds a big secret bundle of cash, while, in another room, Ma Morel discovers an incriminating bundle of stolen documents stuffed under a mattress. At this rate, it’ll probably turn out that Lea herself has just fallen down the back of the sofa. Meanwhile, following the family tradition established by the father, various other members of the Morel family are hauled in by the cops because they lied about their whereabouts on the night Lea went missing … only to be let go, because it turns out they weren’t actually doing anything particularly interesting. To be honest, just staying awake through the opening half of tonight’s double bill up to the first devastating cliffhanger is quite the job, but at least Lyon looks nice, flickering there in the sunlight as you fade out of consciousness.