BACK in Gilead for a new series of The Handmaid’s Tale (Channel 4, Sunday), and boy don’t we know it.

After a quick recap we’re in a barn with a wounded June, our Joan of Arc, as her fellow handmaids attempt to sear a bullet wound closed with what looks like a red hot poker. Over this gruesome scene plays Say a Little Prayer. Blood, hope and sublime tunes: what more could one ask for?

Those who gave up on this adaptation-plus of Margaret Atwood’s novel because it was too bleak were probably not going to be tempted back by this first episode. It was set on a farm for a start, which is never a good sign. I did laugh when one character named her pig Mr Darcy, though I had a bad feeling it might not end well for our Austenian porker.

Having successfully evacuated a plane load of children out of Gilead to safety in Canada, June (Elisabeth Moss) ought to have been riding high, but with the terrible wounds. and desperately missing her children, her gas was understandably at a bit of a peep, much to the annoyance of young Esther (Mckenna Grace) who wanted revenge on men, and certain ones in particular.

Meanwhile, the men of Gilead were hatching plans to invade Canada to bring the liberated children “home”, and Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd), as ever, wanted June’s head on a plate for insurrection.

Aunt Lydia was looking rough too. Besides its myriad other sins, the patriarchy does tend to play havoc with a lady’s skincare regime.

June told Esther that God would make the bad men pay, but then slowly came to doubt that belief. By episode end she, Esther and the rest were out for full blown vengeance. There will be blood, again, and this time the tune playing was (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.

The Handmaid’s Tale is feminism not for the faint-hearted, and June a stirring heroine. I do hope something cheerier happens soon, though. Has anyone seen Mr Darcy? Mr Darcy?

Time (BBC1, Sunday), being a prison drama, should have been as bleak a watch as The Handmaid’s Tale, and it certainly was at times. We finally got to see what happened the night drunk driver Mark (Sean Bean) killed a cyclist. Writer Jimmy McGovern did not shy away from giving the victims of crime a voice even as he made us sympathise with the perpetrators, or at least led us to the conclusion that prison doesn’t work for the most vulnerable.

Prison officer Eric (Stephen Graham) continued down the path of helping his son, which ended where we feared it would.

If there was a constant in the three parts it was the search for decency in brutal circumstances. Though I could not quite buy the ending, much as I wanted to, I was glad McGovern tried to close on a note of hope.

Wonderful performances from Bean and Graham and a host of others, including Siobhan Finneran as the chaplain (that funeral scene blending events in the church with the prison chapel was pitch perfect), and Sue Johnston as Mark’s mum.

After porridge and dystopian fantasies it was time for some fizz with Piers Morgan’s Life Stories: Joan Collins (STV, Sunday). The occasion was to mark Dame Joan’s 70 years in the movie business, but I suspect it was also an early plug for her “uncensored” diaries, out in the autumn (cannot wait).

As Morgan pointed out with all his trademark subtlety, half the British population were without their own bathrooms when Dame J made her debut in 1951’s Lady Godiva Rides Again. All these years and several husbands later she’s still box office. Yes, Morgan made her cry, but she was more than a match for him, and minutes on from the tears she was laughing and on to the next anecdote. A trouper.

One of the things she did during lockdown, besides her own cleaning for the first time, was watch old episodes of Dynasty. “I was incredibly impressed by myself,” she said. Quite right too. I’d say the dame was back, but she never went away.

Last weekend I spent two hours watching Neil Oliver Live (GB News, Saturday) so you didn't have to. You're welcome.

On the plus side, you could not fault the long-haired lover of archaeology for his level of enthusiasm. “Mum, look at me!” he cried at one point, “I’m on the telly reading the weather!”

Nor was he lacking in confidence, interviewing Shaun Ryder of the Happy Mondays on live television. You wouldn't catch Huw Edwards doing that, for very good reasons as it turned out. Our man Oliver, having boldly declared that he would never say anything on the show because he had been told to, clearly had a little voice shouting in his earpiece after Ryder swore. Oliver duly apologised for the “slightly fruity language”.

Show over, Oliver was a presenter still in search of a catchphrase. Personally, I could not choose between his introduction, “Hello, it’s me!” and “I do go on, don’t I?

As the original anchorman would say, stay classy Neil.