He is some man, that Michael Sheen. On Sunday he was part of the best joke at The Baftas (also featuring David “Knocked it out the Park” Tennant and a dog called Bark Ruffalo).

A day later Sheen was orchestrating a very Welsh coup against the Union. Yes, that Union, the one Scotland was supposed to smash. In constitutional upheaval, as in life, you snooze you lose.

Sheen created, directed and popped up occasionally in The Way (BBC1, Monday, all episodes on iPlayer). If there is anyone post Mr Bates who doesn’t believe in drama’s power to shake things up, point them in the direction of this innovatively told tale.

Set in Port Talbot in a not-too-distant future, it opens with local lad Owen Driscoll feeling rooted to the spot, desperate for something to happen. “It’s like I can see where I am, I can see where I’ve been, but I can’t see where I’m going,” he says.

What’s coming down the pipe is the closure of a steelworks and the end of life as the community knows it. But not if Owen’s mum has anything to do with it. There are heated debates and before you can say, “What’s real footage from the miners’ strike doing in a drama?”, the Driscolls are fleeing home with little but the clothes on their backs.

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That’s the way of The Way, a bizarro blend of fantasy, reality, and likeably weird Welshness. It may be too heavy-handed on the politics for some tastes, but there is humour to lighten the load and many fine performances from the creme de la creme of Welsh acting talent.

Breathtaking (ITV1, Monday-Wednesday) was another state of the nation drama. Set in the NHS as the pandemic hit, the nation in this case was in as bad a state as anyone has ever seen it. Played out over three nights under the headings “containment, delay, mitigation”, a summary of the strategy to deal with the virus, Breathtaking did not hold back in its fury at the way NHS lions were misled by government donkeys.

The blistering pace and cliff-hanger endings were pure Jed Mercurio. A quieter, and ultimately more powerful contribution, came from Joanna Froggatt playing a consultant trying to do her best by patients and staff in appalling circumstances. Froggatt has a screen presence that belies her tiny frame. If you need someone to do the acting equivalent of lifting a bus with one hand, she’s your superwoman.

Ukraine’s War: The Other Side (ITV1, Monday) set out to do what it promised in the title, with filmmaker Sean Langan heading into a Russian-occupied area. He listened to Ukrainian and Russian troops telling him why they were fighting, and he spoke to civilians trapped in the middle, all the while accompanied by his Moscow-appointed minder.

Langan made no secret of the limits he was operating under as he tried to get to the front line. These were men you don’t push too far for answers they are not willing to give. There were hairy moments, some when he was out in the open taking his chances with other civilians.

We learned little that was new, the destroyed cities and the First World War trenches looking much like they do on the other side. I guess that was the point.

I have a lot of time for the presenter of Sort Your Life Out with Stacey Solomon (BBC1, Tuesday), and even more so after watching the first episode of this, the fourth series. Single dad Craig had lost his wife and the mother of their two young children to cancer. He had lost his way a little too, and the house showed it.

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This was always going to be a difficult one. It could have seemed crass and exploitative but expert advice was sought, and for all the rest there was Stacey and her hugs. “I’m so sorry Craig,” she said when sorting through the past became too much for him. “It’s just crap.” Said it all, really.

The Pet Psychic: What’s Your Dog Thinking? (Channel 5, Tuesday) introduced us to Beth, who drives around the country solving people’s pet problems. A bit like our Graeme in Dogs Behaving (Very) Badly, but here it’s the animals, not their owners, who do most of the talking. And what a lot of chatty Cathys they are.

Beth’s first job was to find out why Petal the chicken was not laying. Might it have something to do with a recent fox attack in which Petal had lost her best friend? It might. And was she scared of the fox coming back? Well, what do you bloody think? (the cuss word is mine, not Petal’s. She remained composed and ladylike throughout the interview).

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As with any psychic encounter, much of it seemed like a little knowledge padded out with a lot of educated guesswork. Those who wanted to believe did so, and to heck with the doubters. Worth catching if only for the smarty pants narration. Worth noting, too, that save for one woman’s (sceptical) partner, everyone involved was female. I’m saying nothing. But I know what you’re thinking.