THERE is going to be some musing this week, so you might want to slip into something more comfortable before we begin. A floaty scarf works for me.

First imponderable: what is funny?

Humour is wildly subjective, with one person’s Monty Python another individual’s Morecambe and Wise. As such it can be difficult to pass judgment on. What I ought to do is simply tell you that two new comedies arrived this week, The Scotts (BBC1, Monday/BBC Scotland, Thursday), and The Cleaner (BBC1, Friday), and leave you to it.

But then I ask myself, “What would a brave woman like DCI Amy Silva of Vigil (BBC1, Sunday) fame do?” Even though our Amy of the furrowed brow is starting to bounce off those submarine walls as her past catches up with her, she is still doing her job. Here goes then.

The Cleaner is mince.

It is written by and stars Greg Davies, who was in Man Down, Cuckoo, and The Inbetweeners. We usually like him. Here, he plays Paul Wickstead, a crime scene cleaner. The scene in this instance was a suburban kitchen where a woman had stabbed her husband 38 times. Why 38 times, Paul wonders? “You only need five stabs, the rest is showboating.”

Okay, bit edgy, touch Channel 4 even though it is on BBC1, but don’t be hasty. From there, alas it got worse. There was a mention of Myra Hindley. Then Helena Bonham Carter turned up as the murdering wife. Then Helena Bonham Carter was on a toilet, providing her own sound effects. Then Helena Bonham Carter was singing, alongside Davies, in a musical fantasy number. Maybe some of this looked clever and amusing on paper. In reality? Mince.

The Scotts was by far the yummier dish. It is another written by and starring number, this one with Robert Florence and Iain Connell. Done in mockumentary style, it is the story of the Scott family, a gallery of grotesques. Imagine the Kardashians, but Scottish.

In an attempt to heal a family rift, the Scotts and their pals had a boys and girls night out. Much hilarity with a hot tub and karaoke machine ensued.

The characters were painted with the broadest of brushes, some lines were trying too hard (has anyone ever confused an olive branch with an onion branch?), and the vulgarity was off the charts. What can I say? I’ll be back next week.

Plenty of famous faces had a dribble down memory lane in the documentary Fever Pitch: The Rise of the Premier League (BBC2, Monday). Among them was Eric Cantona, whose rise, fall, and crazy times could be said to sum up the era when the “slum sport” (Sunday Times) of football became a rich and glamorous game.

To Cantona, pondering his handsome head off as usual, football was romance, mystery, something impossible to pin down in words. To the money men he was box office, a “producer’s gift from God”. The likes of him kept the punters watching and the Sky satellite subscriptions rolling in.

The opening instalment of this four-part series boasted plenty of choice clips and a couple of football teams’ worth of talking heads as it went back to the Nineties with a vengeance.

There were no surprises though, and no sit-down with Fergie, or Rupert Murdoch, the man who everyone thought was crazy for trying to sell the working class game to the working classes. “You’ve got to hand it to Murdoch,” said broadcaster Michael Crick through teeth so gritted it was a marvel he could get the words out. “He did spot an opportunity there.”

At the end of the hour a good looking blonde by the name of David Beckham turned up to tell us of the day his parents took him to watch Manchester United lift the first Premier League cup. Wonder what became of that not so spud-faced nipper.

There was a survey last week showing Scotland and Cornwall were the favourite destinations of television shows this year (er, thanks, pandemic). Given every Jeremy, Darcey and Susan have already been here, The Wonders of Scotland with David Hayman (STV, Tuesday) might have been considered far too late to the party. Give Hayman his due, though. He had done his homework (I don’t remember Darcey Bussell citing the 1747 Act of Proscription), he packed plenty of destinations into a half hour show, and he fed a deer by hand. What a dear.

Finally, we on The Herald Magazine like to encourage new talent when we see it, so well done to BBC Scotland reporter Aileen Clarke, who played a reporter on Vigil.

So the role wasn’t exactly Lady Macbeth, but the newcomer nailed it. Bet Judi Dench was spitting tacks.