LIKE the Antiques Roadshow, Who Do You Think You Are? (BBC One, Thursday, 9pm) keeps on trucking, its very sameness series after series considered an asset. We know, for instance, that with the regularity of tides some celebrity will stumble upon the shocking fact that an ancient relative was not an actor or newsreader like them but was in fact an ordinary working bod. At this point there are usually tears. Now and then there’s a wild card to keep things lively, such as when Danny Dyer was revealed to be the direct descendant of a King Edward potato. Or was it King Edward II?

Charles Dance was the man in the white cotton gloves for the first in a new series. The star of White Mischief, The Jewel in the Crown and Game of Thrones often played aristocrats, the narrator reminded us, but was he blue blood or blue collar? Dance knew almost hee-haw about his family bar his mother was a maid and his father died when Charles was four. What he found out was the usual secrets and complications of many a family, but he did uncover a relative who was an art entrepreneur. He also hit the Who Do You Think You Are? jackpot with the discovery of a distant relative somewhere far away and hot. Dance was most moved when anything to do with his father came up, showing, if we needed a reminder, what a loss growing up without a dad had been.

Joanna Lumley is a gal who likes to do her own genealogy. As she told us in Joanna Lumley’s India (STV, Wednesday, 9pm), she was born an army brat in “one of the most intriguing, bewildering and thrilling countries on Earth”. The family left after partition when Joanna was one. Lumley is a charming travelling companion: a little bit Patsy (“Hello sweetheart”), game for a giggle, with just enough detail about the things that matter. She did have the unfortunate habit, though, of telling the viewer that a long-held dream – to see elephants in the wild/her mother’s childhood home – had been dashed, only for there to be a last-minute change in fortunes. One can only try those teases once, dahling.

There were lots of glossy types to gaze upon in the drama Riviera (Sky Atlantic, Thursday, 9pm), but unlike the lovely Lumley, most of this lot had ugly sides. Set in a world where art dealing, money laundering and tax evasion mix, Riviera has ambitions to be The Night Manager, but while it looks the part, the dialogue is more Crossroads motel than le Carre. If the sunshine can blind you to that, the tale of a widowed art dealer (Julia Stiles) trying to piece together the twilight world of her late billionaire husband (Anthony LaPaglia) is warming up to be nicely ridiculous and trashy, like Footballers’ Wives with the odd glimpse of an old master.

Life Behind Bars: Visiting Hour (Channel 4, Tuesday, 9pm) took the cameras into Low Moss prison in Bishopbriggs, Glasgow, for what was in many ways an eye-opening programme. There were plenty of sad stories being played out during the 60 minutes of visiting time, including the fiancee waiting years to make wedding plans, and the mother at the end of her tether with a son who made family life hell when he was out. The people we did not hear from were the victims of those on the inside. Important point, that.

Even the rich folk in Riviera might have blanched at the huge bowl of strawberries on the desk of Today at Wimbledon (BBC Two, Monday-Wednesday). Clare Balding and guests, including Tracy Austin, John McEnroe, Pat Cash and Martina Navratilova, were there as well, and jolly interesting they were too, but one could not help wondering how much that mountain of berries had cost. Were they bought within the Wimbledon walls, in which case they would have cost the equivalent of a flat in some parts of Glasgow? And what happened to them (the strawbs, not the guests) when the programme was over? Did the crew scoff them? I think the licence fee payer should be told.

Still, if they reassured the nervous viewer the soft fruits were worth every penny. Some of us still remember the fuss in 2015 when the BBC tried to “sex up” Today at Wimbledon with bar stools and an audience, Top Gear-style.

The effort lasted barely days before the ravens gave notice of leaving the Tower of London and questions were asked in the Commons. Normal service was restored, the programme became once more an efficient whizz through the day’s matches with a topspin of banter from the pros, and the BBC’s Wimbledon empire survived. Still, according to one newspaper there has been a handful of complaints about this year’s show being too much chat and not enough play. For some folk life is never a bowl of berries.