You would think it's difficult not to write scathing satirical jokes considering the daily bombardment of duplicity and incompetence we see on the news. Yet Have I Got News For You misses the target every week. Rather than pursue a 'plague on both your houses' approach, the BBC's soft satirists stroke their own prejudices. So every episode there are digs at Trump (but never Putin) and the Tories (but rarely Labour, the party in office). The King's visit to Canada produced lame Trump-bashing, and Starmer's jibe that Farage was Liz Truss all over again was repeated with approval, despite the current government causing more economic chaos than Truss ever did. Maybe they missed Starmer's sneaky Brexit betrayal the week before, or more likely approved of it. But there was nothing on the Attorney General likening politicians who don't want UK laws to be controlled by unelected European judges to "Nazis", and nothing on London mayor Sadiq Khan saying the police should stop nicking people for possessing cannabis (who knew they did??). We did get a pointless service station quiz, plus two f-words and a s*** though. That's the level now. Older viewers will remember when there was real tension between Angus Deayton and the two captains. That's been lost with the rotating hosts set-up that rarely works. How much did it cost them - or should I say us - to fly in American comedian Roy Wood Jnr (permanent host of the US version and a Biden supporter)? His funniest contribution was to unintentionally mispronounce High Wycombe. Our own Roy Wood would have been better value.

After 35 years, the show is running on empty. The captains phone it in. The guests rarely sparkle (Bob Monkhouse upstaged the regulars so much on his first booking in 1994 that they sabotaged his second). The tragedy is we have never needed sharp, funny, cutting jibes at our substandard political class more than we do now. Real satirists would target this government's lies and ineptitude as fiercely as they did the bungling Tories. Small boat 'asylum seeker' numbers hit a new record last month but naturally went unmentioned. Satire is alive and well and living at Number 10 Downing Street. The BBC just can't see it.

Crime doesn't pay, they say, but it can do on TV. Get the format right - a Morse, a Midsomer, a Death In Paradise - and you're in production for decades. I'm already addicted to Poker Face 2 where Russian Doll star Natasha Lyonne plays beer-drinking, vape-smoking Charlie Cale, a former casino cocktail waitress with the uncanny ability to tell if somebody is lying - not so much Murder She Wrote as Murder She Sussed. If only she could host Question Time! Still on the run from the Mob, every episode finds Charlie in a different location with a new cash-in-hand job and the chance to solve a fresh homicide. Like Columbo, we know whodunnit from the start, the hook is how will she nab 'em? This second season, running on Sky, has seen our idiosyncratic heroine kidnapped by mobster Beatrix Hasp (played by Cheers star Rhea 'Carla' Perlman), working as a ball girl at a minor league baseball club, rescuing a framed alligator (!), and deducing which of five identical sisters played by Cynthia Erivo was a wrong'un. As well as being resourceful, observant, and plain-speaking, Charlie is also fun to be around - as long as you can put up with her "voice like a rusty clarinet". As a bonus, Poker Face acknowledges its debt to Columbo - US TV's greatest detective - in its opening sequence, paying homage in a thick 1970s orange font. The best Columbo tribute act was Monk (currently on Prime and Apple TV+). Tony Shalhoub plays brilliant former San Francisco PD homicide detective, Adrian Monk, who now works as a private consultant assisting police investigations while coping with OCD. Mr Monk Gets Jury Duty is a cracking episode. Meanwhile vintage Columbo can be found for free on Channel 5's 5 USA.

In the real world it often seems there's no arrest for the wicked, but in TV drama justice is served reassuring quickly. And quirky sleuths are on the rise. BBC1's Ludwig worked, despite having plot-holes the size of Frank Cannon's belly. David Mitchell's puzzle-setter was an oddball, but viewers bought in to his smart, logical deductions. Death Valley - BBC1's latest shot at the comic crime genre - took longer to bed in, largely because Gwyneth Keyworth's DS Janie Mallowan is as irritating as eczema. She's a scatty chatterbox, clumsy and tactless too - not qualities you'd associate with a focused crime-buster. Mercifully Tim Spall saves the day as cranky John Chapel, a retired actor who once starred as peerless detective Caesar in a (fictional) still-repeated TV drama. An unexpected death in John's charming Welsh village gives this grizzled loner the impetus to shave off his Ben Gunn whiskers and solve real crimes. Something he does as efficiently as his small screen alter-ego - Chapel swiftly realises the apparent suicide of a local real estate bod is murder most foul.

If you can warm to Janie (not easy) and the soundtrack's tell-tale pizzicato strings, the format works a treat, thanks not least to Paul Doolan's knowing script and the smart use of scenes from Caesar to punctuate the action. Each episode wraps up a new case within 45 minutes - not out-staying its welcome as that other chalk-and-cheesey pairing, ITV's McDonald And Dodds did. Gavin & Stacey fans will love Steffan 'Dave Coaches' Rhodri as Janie's lackadaisical boss. If you like your quirky drama darker there is always Nine Perfect Strangers, which is essentially 'high-end spa therapist plays mind games with the needy super-rich'. Nicole Kidman is wellness weirdo Masha Dmitrichenko. She looks tantalisingly icy, colder than the alpine peaks around her, with her frozen face and platinum wig. Only the laughable cod-Russian accent lets her down. Season one of Prime's psycho-babbling balderdash was bonkers. Season two is unintentionally hilarious. Not even Murray Bartlett as a fallen children's TV star imagining conversations with his toy bear can save it.

Watching BBC2's The Rise And Fall Of Michelle Mone it was easy to sympathise with 'Baroness Bra' Michelle initially. Her rags-to-riches rise from the east end of Glasgow was powered by her drive and her invention - Ultimo, a revolutionary bra that gave women a little extra. That story, from A - D, was inspirational. It was the E - Z that let her down.

Michelle's image started to sag because of her, let's say elastic, relationship with the truth. She drove her workers like a Victorian mill-owner and dumbly fell-out with Rod Stewart, replacing his wife Penny Lancaster with his ex, Rachel Hunter as the face of her bra empire. This storm in a D-cup didn't stop David Cameron elevating Mone to the Lords, but her falsely denying about her involvement with a company that made £30 million in the PPE Covid scandal was a bigger boob. One financial journalist labelled her a "shameless, self-promoting grifter". Harsh but fair. Finally, happy 10th anniversary, Talking Pictures TV. Please get around to screening Big Breadwinner Hog post-watershed soon.