It is the question of the week - what would be your name if you were one of the Gladiators (BBC1, Saturday)? Although the best monikers have been nabbed - Fury, Comet, Dynamite, Viper - there is scope for others. I’ll take Chafing.

The name came to me while watching assorted athletic types in ridiculously tight costumes do battle before the emperor of light entertainment, Bradley Walsh, and his son and co-host Barney. Oh, the relief when the duo entered the arena in Sheffield. For a horrible minute I thought there was going to be an hour of peak-time telly that Walsh snr wasn’t on.

Brad’s approach to proceedings was just the right blend of daft and sarky. There was one segue into borderline smutty, but like the Sky incarnation of Gladiators we will draw a veil over that. Everything was basically the same as the ITV show of 1992-2000, but bigger, noisier, and more flashy.

The stars of the show were the audience at home and in the arena who booed the villains (Viper, Legend, Post Office) and cheered the heroes. One contender, Finley from Doncaster, was the lead in his own Rocky movie. Even when he twisted his knee he kept on going.

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The Scottish contestant, Kerry, made it through to the next round by being gutsier than all the gladiators combined. Never mind Maximus Decimus Meridius and his unleashing of hell: don’t mess with dog walkers from Dunfermline.

My favourite review of Gladiators came in a tweet from Ruth Davidson, the very same, saying her son, having watched the full hour, immediately wanted to see it again. Commendable enthusiasm young sir, even if you are trying to nick my job.

There were echoes of TV past in Finders Keepers (Channel 5, Wednesday). A tale of a detectorist finding treasure - how could the mind not rewind to Lance and Andy and Mackenzie Crook’s Detectorists? Dan Sefton’s drama had a blunter comic edge, most of it brought to the table by Neil Morrissey, James Buckley (The Inbetweeners) and Fay Ripley.

By the end of the first episode things were coming together nicely, though I did wonder if the pressures on Morrissey’s character were enough to make him act as he does, unless he has an interesting past we don’t yet know about.

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As if January wasn’t enough of a chuckle-fest, along came Nuclear Armageddon: how close are we? (BBC2, Thursday) to remind us how crazy dangerous the world has become.

This was not the first nuclear proliferation rodeo for Jane Corbin, who has been reporting on this subject for decades. Much of the story and archive footage will have been familiar to viewers.

But the subject has been given fresh impetus by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It has also had a sprinkling of Hollywood stardust courtesy of Christopher Nolan’s film, Oppenheimer, expected to win big at the Oscars in March.

Before that, on January 23, there will be the annual setting of the Doomsday Clock by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. The clock, which measures how close humans are to Armageddon, is currently set at 90 seconds to midnight. While Corbin did not have the scoop on the new setting, you would have to be a diehard optimist to walk away from her film and not fear the worst.

Gary Neville, where have you been all my life? The self-billed “entrepreneur and ex-football player” was the special guest on Dragons’ Den (BBC1, Thursday), and he did indeed make the episode something to text home about. It has been a long time since anyone said that about Dragons’ Den.

The producers had lined up a winning mix of budding entrepreneurs, including another ex-footballer, this one flogging memorabilia, and all-singing, all-wisecracking hippy-dippy Liam from Manchester who wanted to save the world, one cup of cacao at a time.

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Neville was kind, funny, generous with his time and money, and seemed to know what he was talking about. I’m sure there is a “but” somewhere but I can’t find it.

The rest of the dragons, their noses slightly out of joint at the newcomer (some of them still haven’t recovered from Steven Bartlett’s arrival) soon traded sniffiness for being as impressed as the rest of us.

The BBC already has two King Garys, one is a sitcom, the other is a lethally smug presenter of Match of the Day who is never off social media. Time for a new King Gary, I think.

True Detective: Night Country (Sky Atlantic, Monday) lived up to its promise with Jodie Foster front and centre as a police chief investigating the disappearance of scientists from an Arctic research centre. Spoiler: she did not find them hugging a radiator, which is what the rest of us were doing in a week of subzero temperatures.

Watching Foster it was just like old times again, except she was Elizabeth, not Clarice, and there was no you-know-who type. There was, though, a polar bear. It moved slowly through the town, like an iceberg, swinging its huge head from side to smell the dinner options. Not even Foster could match that sight for magnificence.