Sunday Unforgotten 9pm, STV

Over the past month, there have been eyebrows raised, foreheads furrowed, and, probably, nostrils pinched over attempts by sections of the media to introduce into popular discourse the word “jobbymoon.” If you’ve missed the great debate, the expression was coined to describe the blissful vacation period between leaving one job and starting another – that happy unemployed holiday many of us associate most strongly with traditional family pastimes like lying awake at nights, and wondering how to pay the bills.

But while the word and absolutely everything behind it is entirely noxious, let’s not be too hasty in flushing it away. With a little repurposing, “jobbymoon” might be a very useful term. For example, it’s the perfect phrase for when a favourite and normally dependable actor suddenly turns around and makes a complete stinker, then goes back to being great again. Like when the terrific Nicola Walker unaccountably starred in BBC One’s horrendous The Split. It was only a jobbymoon. Now she can get back to work properly in Unforgotten. It’s the third series of writer Chris Lang’s quietly engrossing crime drama, reuniting Walker and an excellent Sanjeev Bhaskar as DCI Cassie Stuart and DS Sunny Khan, cold case detectives specialising in historical murder. As ever, the story begins with the discovery of long-hidden human remains, this time a hipbone, uncovered during maintenance work on a motorway central reservation. At first, decomposition being what it is, it takes a while for forensic experts even to work out whether the skeleton dates back thousands of years, or if the burial was far more recent, and unquestionably sinister.

It’s no spoiler to reveal that it turns out to be the latter, and the case falls to Cassie and Sunny, whose job will be first to identify the victim, and then investigate the killing. Meanwhile, as they begin the seemingly hopeless task of giving the body a face and a name, the show introduces the disparate suspects whose lives are about to be derailed by its discovery, including a TV quiz show presenter (Kevin McNally), a crumbling financial advisor whose own finances are in a desperate state (Neil Morrissey), and an eccentric artist (the undervalued James Fleet).

Unforgotten is the best of the wave of crime shows UK television made in the wake of the critical success of Scandinavian imports like The Killing. In common with Broadchurch, it began heavily indebted to the Danish hit – all three follow a crime as it ripples through different layers of society. But, from the first, Unforgotten always had a much lighter touch, and a more straight-ahead style than the increasingly convoluted and lachrymose Broadchurch.

At the same time, as his series has become a hit, Lang has started to shade in his detectives a little more. In the second series, he introduced a half-comic note of will-they-won’t-they that was instantly snuffed out, and, more perilously, brought their personal feelings into play with an ending that saw Cassie acting almost as judge and jury.

Lang seems keen to continue to mine his main characters further. As the series begins, Cassie, who is left alone at home as both her father and son go off to live their lives, seems unusually emotional, and this new case hits her hard. Hopefully, though, she won’t become too weepy. The best thing about Unforgotten is its unfussy, unshowy approach. Cassie and Sunny just get on with their hard, methodical, melancholy work, because they know it’s important. Similarly, the show just gets on with it, too, confident it has stories worth telling.

Monday Sharp Objects 9pm, Sky Atlantic

How slow can you go? While there’s something heroic about the spacey, sleepy-drunk pace of this adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s novel, about a troubled, alcoholic journalist reluctantly returning to her hated hometown to cover a murder case, there are times when it feels laboured.

By the umpteenth teasing, pretty-grungy shot hinting how screwed up the protagonist Camille (Amy Adams) is, and how fractured her relationship with her highfalutin mother (Patricia Clarkson), you’ve already long got the point and are keen to move on. Still, thanks to the way Adams burns through the haze, the series still exerts a strong pull. In this second episode, as the town absorbs the second killing, Camille tries to push on with her investigation despite her mother’s interference, and brushes into the some of the gossips who knew her as a teenager. Meanwhile, the nature of her own trauma comes further into focus, and she gets closer with her bratty half-sister, or, at least, thinks she does.

Tuesday Rip It Up 9pm, BBC Two

Mark Kermode’s Secrets Of Cinema 9pm, BBC Four Complementing the National Museum Of Scotland’s exhibition on Scottish rock and pop history, the three-part Rip It Up is a hectic, charming ride through six scrappy decades. This first episode alone covers the period from the mid-1950s to the early-1980s – from Lonnie Donegan setting off the skiffle explosion that inspired the Beatles to buy guitars, through to bands like Orange Juice, Fire Engines and Josef K, with healthy doses of Alex Harvey and The Rezillos along the way. There’s so much crammed in, you can forgive the odd stretched claim or whiplash connection, and there are great nuggets in interviews with everyone from Lulu and Donovan to members of The Skids, Nazareth, The Incredible String Band, The Beatstalkers, Franz Ferdinand. There’s more cultural excavation on BBC Four as Mark Kermode rolls out a chewy personal guide to how movies work. Examining tricks and techniques of filmmaking, he’s structured his lesson by genre, and begins in the perilous waters of the romantic comedy.

Wednesday Picnic At Hanging Rock 9pm, BBC Two

The exclusive school for young women run by the enigmatic Miss Appleyard (Natalie Dormer) is in torment and turmoil. Three girls, as well as one of their teachers, have disappeared, seemingly just swallowed by the landscape during their Valentine’s Day picnic into the wilderness. There’s much hysterical babble and rumour, but little hard evidence as to what happened. Have the missing women been victims of abduction or attack? Or might the answer be something altogether more…supernatural? Miss Appleyard worries that other secrets, involving her own shadowy past, might come to light, and puts the school into lockdown. Michael (Harrison Gilberston), the British aristocrat who was among the last to see the girls on the day, throws himself into his own private search, aided by his coachman, Albert (James Hoare). The over-egged directing can give this adaptation of Joan Lindsay’s novel the air of a live action cartoon, but, all repression and hysteria, chilly emotions and burning skies, it has a dotty, sunstroke fascination.

Thursday Our Shirley Valentine Summer 9.30pm, STV

‘This real life documentary is inspired by, but otherwise unrelated to, the film Shirley Valentine. It is the authentic experience of eight famous women. Any similarities to the film, play or any related works are purely coincidental. This series has not been licenced by the rights owners.” So, in a touch that would make Alan Partridge shiver with pride, reads the inspirational opening disclaimer at the start of this excruciating new four-part series. Following the likes The Real Marigold Hotel, Gone To Pot and Last Laugh In Vegas, this is the latest in the line of let’s-find-famous-faces-of-a-certain-age-and-pay-them-to-go-away-together reality shows. In this one, Nancy Dell’Olio, Melinda Messenger, Sian Lloyd, Ninia Benjamin, Ingrid Tarrant, Annabel Giles and Aggie MacKenzie follow in the footsteps of Pauline Collins in Willy Russell’s 1980s play, but only by coincidence, heading to Greece, where they pretend to have meaningful experiences. The challenge for the viewer is to pretend the same.

Friday Smashing Hits! The 80s Pop Map Of Britain & Ireland 10.10pm, BBC Four

It’s the final episode of this largely pointless but still quite cheery pop travelogue around the UK, which more or less plays like they’ve just re-filmed clips from a bunch of previous, more interesting and in depth BBC Four music documentaries. Tonight, our blatantly cobbled together but still quite cheery hosts Midge Ure and Kim Appleby head back to London, for some musing on “sophistipop” and contributions from Soul II Soul’s Jazzie B and S-Express’s Mark Moore which make you want to dig out the previous, excellent, Soul Britannia and Dance Britannia series for more information. Finally, they reach Manchester for chinwags with ex-Joy Division/ New Order bassist Peter Hook and Happy Mondays leader Shaun Ryder (“I can actually remember the 1960s better than the late-80s and all of the 90s”), which play like they’ve just re-filmed clips from the far more interesting and in-depth Factory Records film BBC Four did a few years ago. For no reason I can work out, it’s complemented by The Joy Of Abba (11pm) and Abba At The BBC (12 midnight).

Saturday The Undiscovered Peter Cook 11pm, BBC Four

Now, is this the sort of suit one can smoke marijuana in?” That’s Peter Cook, launching into a Not Only But Also sketch with Dudley Moore that was thought lost until Victor Lewis-Smith uncovered it and painstakingly restored it for this affectionate 2016 documentary. For the film, Cook’s widow, Lin, granted Lewis-Smith access to Cook’s Hampstead home, and the vast clutter of material he left when he died in 1995. Hunting through this treasure trove, Smith found everything from home movies and private tapes to an entire unreleased Pete ’n’ Dud album from 1964.

Not everything is on target, but there are gems. The stuff with Moore is the best and the heroically obscene Derek And Clive material remains bracingly shocking. But the sweetest find might be a long-lost clip of Peter Sellers’s guest appearance on Not Only…as he and Moore struggle not to dissolve in giggles, while Cook, as ever, presses mercilessly on.

While the sport continues to dominate the schedules, it’s been a good time to head to Channel 4’s on-demand service All4, to try to catch up with what’s happening on its world drama boutique, Walter Presents. This, though, is an increasingly daunting task. He’s been a busy fellow has Walter, and there so many series currently available there now (I stopped counting at 70) it’s getting almost impossible to know where to begin.

Faced with this, the best place to start is at the top of the pile, with the latest two imports to have landed: the Spanish drama The Cleaning Lady, and The Raid, a thriller from Brazil.

The Cleaning Lady is interesting for a few reasons, not least because it attempts to build a darkly edgy crime show around a really daft set-up. Our star is Rosa (the wearily charismatic Antonella Costa) who does indeed work as a cleaning lady, labouring in museums, hotels and office blocks. One night, while working another regular job, washing down the canvas at her local boxing gym, she inadvertently becomes witness to a gangland killing. Rather than getting rid of her, the villains ask Rosa to clean up the scene, and she does such an immaculate job they decide to start using her as their regular post-murder valet service, calling her in to get rid of the bloodspatter and DNA after every execution. Rosa, understandably, has mixed feelings about this. But she also has a very sick son, and is struggling to meet the medical bills, so the mob money comes in useful. It’s Breaking Bad with a bucket of Flash, but has a sense of humour and a dotty, soapy charm, helped by the fact that each episode lasts under 25 minutes.

The Raid is a harder-edged affair. Set in a Rio favela, the action takes place in 2010, just after Brazil won the bid to host the 2016 Olympics, and the authorities move to “clean up” the area. Simultaneously, the local crimelord discovers his gang has been infiltrated by four undercover cops, and puts out a hit on them. As government units come sweeping violently in and hell breaks loose, the undercover men are caught in the middle, and wind up hiding in a basement, trying to get out, waiting to get caught, and wondering who betrayed them. It’s low on budget, but has energy and imagination, underlines its political points by editing in real news footage from the period, and keeps moving, building real tension.

Mind you, for true tension, few things this week came near the scenes when Roy Keane picked his moment to gently suggest that his fellow ITV pundits, and, indeed, several million heartbroken England fans watching TV back home, all needed “a reality check.” It will take hindsight to know how many truly memorable moments Russia 2018 has produced, but this will surely be one of them.