I DIDN’T like Strike: The Cuckoo’s Calling (BBC One, Sunday and Monday, 9pm) even before watching it. Why the prejudice? Well, it’s written by JK Rowling, and there’s nothing wrong with that as such; the world loves all that Harry Pottering about. But when she decided to go detective and take on a pseudonym it all smacked of hiding in plain sight.

The literary world, or at least her publisher, claimed there was no way they knew Robert Galbraith was really Harry’s mother, so to speak, and the BBC also had us believe the series was being made on its own merits, not hoping to capitalise on the Rowling connection.

And I’m the illegitimate son of Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall.

But on watching the opener there was even more reason to dislike it. Rowling has come up with every private dick trope imaginable. Her hero has an unconventional name, Cormoran Strike, and not only does he have the required emotional disability – can’t form a lasting relationship, his best friend floats in the bottom of a glass, blah blah – like all private detectives he is also dirt poor.

Chandler’s Philip Marlowe once revealed himself as such when he recycles a tea-bag from the bin. Rowling – sorry – Galbraith’s character sleeps in his office in his clothes and in a state of semi-inebriation. To highlight his near vagrancy, he pees in a paper cup and keeps it on his window sill.

Strike also has a beautiful, talented assistant in Robin, who arrives on his doorstep (via the temping agency) and somehow finds herself thoroughly captivated by this excuse for a man in a shabby overcoat.

But to complete the list of must-haves, Strike has the cliched love/hate relationship with the local plod. And as we know, real detectives are never quite as clever as the glary-eyed gumshoe.

So far, so predictable. But more reasons to hate this series come in the form of serious script misgivings. How can Strike afford an assistant when he can’t afford the rent on a bedsit? Why would someone employ a man who sleeps on a camp bed?

But somehow, over the next two hours, Strike begins to hit the mark. Not because of a great storyline – lots of stuff happens, two murders and some very obvious nasties get in the way – but the characters become real. The overweight ’tec, for example, manages to get his one leg over with a model (he lost the other while in the army), which allows for some nice self-deprecation. “Try the other leg,” says Strike, on being stroked. “That one has nerve endings.”

Perhaps the very good acting hides the ordinariness of the story. Holliday Grainger is excellent as Robin to his Batman, and Tom Burke in the lead role hits the right note of being both frustrating and likeable. And a neat touch from Rowling/Galbraith is in giving Strike a rock star father, which allows for entrees into the A-list world.

But perhaps I like the show because it’s best to: we’re going to see a lot more of it in the future, with shooting on the second series having wrapped before the first aired and Rowling having written six books featuring Strike and Robin. Nothing to do with Harry Potter, though.

What a fabulous denouement in Trust Me (BBC One, Tuesday, 9pm), the tale of a Yorkshire nurse who reinvents herself as a doctor in a Scottish hospital.

Starring the new Doctor Who Jodie Whittaker, we learned that if you steal a friend’s identity, stand coldly by as your husband is killed by a van (while in the act of saving your child) and cheat the National Health Service and the tax man – and put innocent lives at risk – you end up with a hunky doctor partner living in an Edinburgh townhouse and get promoted to boot.

Moral judgments aside, what this mini-series suggested was that seven years of medical study to become a doctor is about as useful as taking Junior Disprin to cure a brain tumour. Can’t be true, can it?

What you can be sure of, however, are the storylines for Whittaker’s next TV incarnation as the alien time traveller will be rather more plausible.

Oh come all ye faithful, to see if the reinvention of the popular pastel and pastry show The Great British Bake Off (Channel 4, Tuesday, 9pm) will survive the transference from Auntie Beeb’s hot oven to the two-ring stove that is Channel 4.

Would it work without the innuendo icing layered on by Mel and Sue? Would Mary Berry be missed? Could Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith blend, given reports they sit on the same plate together as easily as mince and ice-cream? It did work, as it happens.

The drama and a neat selection of contestants carried it through, but what’s most obvious is that the format is king, underlining the fact you don’t need presenters earning £2 million a year for the show to be a success. All you need is 12 good people who are passionate about baking the very best chocolate rolls, mix in the usual drama – “I’ve forgotten to switch on the bleepin’ oven” – and the viewing public is sated.