Central Station in Glasgow is the country’s busiest rail hub. Not that it has always seemed that way of late, its concourse more likely to feature a lone reporter talking about rail strikes than crowds of commuters.

As the fourth series of Inside Central Station (BBC1 Scotland, Monday, 8pm), begins, we’re back in the old, pre-strike days. There is a lot going on, including an eight-week closure of the lower level train station for essential works. The lines have only been closed twice in the last 50 years, so vital are these steel arteries for moving people across the city.

A big deal, then, and civil engineer Tom, who wasn’t born the last time the lines closed, is determined to get the most from the experience. He even sounds enthusiastic after he is told, just as he enters a tunnel, that there’s a dead rat ahead. “It’s like a macabre safari,” he says.

Still on station wildlife, Tina, transferred from the darkened lower levels to the front of the station, feels like a mole surfacing into the light. It is her job to keep track of the replacement buses, one of which manages to get lost en route.

Meanwhile, station manager Drew is on the case of a pigeon that has become trapped in a shop’s roof space. The SSPCA is called and the bird captured successfully. The pigeon takes the experience in its stride. “The way it’s staying calm, you can tell it’s from Glasgow Central says Drew, sounding chuffed.

Some of the dramas are bigger than others, but nothing is the end of the world. That’s part of the charm of Inside Central Station. That and the banter between colleagues.

In the first episode more travellers than expected have turned up to go to the Scotland v Poland friendly and the queue is out the building. Not a problem for station manager Derek, who bolts an extra train together so everyone can get there in time for kick-off. During the same evening shift he keeps tabs on on the arrival of the latest grandchild. See Derek, see multi-tasking?

There is more excitement when the temperature reaches 19 degrees (ah, the good old days of pre 30 degree highs), and a helicopter is sent up to check for hot spots and “encroaching vegetation”, ie shrubs and trees that have taken a growth spurt and need to be cut back. It’s all go at Central. Till the strikes arrive, anyway.

Now making its way gingerly into the station is new comedy Stuck (BBC2, Thursday, 10pm/10.15pm). With sitcom failure rates generally high, and a lot of quality material already jostling for attention, it’s a brave soul who puts another fledgling out there.

Stuck has more of a chance than most, given it’s created and written by Dylan Moran, who also stars. If the fella behind Black Books doesn’t know what makes a sitcom work …

The Irish stand-up plays Dan, who shares a flat with his girlfriend Carla (Morganna Robinson). That the property is now worth “half of **** all”, as Carla puts it, is one of the reasons the pair feel “stuck”. That, plus they have been together a long time, he is older than her, and he has just been made redundant. Get big laughs out of that, Moran.

He doesn’t. Stuck is more your gentle observational comedy than a gag-generating machine, but Moran and Robinson make a credible pair, she’s always worth watching, and each episode, as is the fashion, is only 15 minutes long. If you like the first two the rest is on iPlayer.

There’s a startling moment near the beginning of Arena: James Joyce’s Ulysses (BBC2, Wednesday, 9pm) when Salman Rushdie appears on screen to give his take on the modernist classic. The segment was filmed some time ago, before the recent horrific attack on the writer. It is wonderful to see him on great form, joining in the wry assessment of his fellow novelist’s work. If anyone is to speak out in defence of a once banned book you cannot do better than Rushdie.

Director Adam Low has been making award-winning documentaries on the arts since nineteen canteen (or 1988 if you want the imdb factoid). His trademark style is to explore a subject using a mish-mash of footage, talking heads, and music. The finished film tootles along seamlessly, belying the huge effort that has gone into finding just the right clip.

Aside from Rushdie the talking heads include Anne Enright, whose mother, on finding her daughter reading the notorious novel, wrapped it up and hid it in the attic, there to stay till Anne was 18. Howard Jacobson, given Ulysses as a school prize in 1959 confesses that it took him years before he got round to reading everything but the “rude bits”.

By the end of Low’s 90-minute film, made to make the 100th anniversary of Ulysses’ publication, you might feel inspired to have another crack at his masterpiece. Good luck.