So now we know. Sort of. The missing clue was tweezered into view in time for the final episode of The Missing and the fate of little Olly Hughes has been revealed. Up to a point. To those reading this without having seen the dénouement, it gives only a little away to report that the plot involving the search for a ring of paedophiles has been a gigantic red herring. Probably.

This feelgood programme hit all the buttons with almost unerring precision, as we followed Gareth Malone's project to prepare a military wives choir for a special prom, commemorating the World War One centenary on 3 August 2014. On the way we witnessed the joys of singing, the therapeutic value of music, and the virtues of hard work, mutual support and bonding.

The idea of having a politician crossing the threshold of one's own home is enough to send most citizens diving for the Prozac (or the taser), and Nigel Farage provokes responses at the extreme end of the spectrum. Then again, Farage may have experienced reciprocal emotions on being invited to pop down to the not-so-humble abode of Dominic and Stephanie Parker, the loud and opinionated "posh couple" from Gogglebox.

Some of the best films this year have been the longest. The one most likely to be remembered is Richard Linklater’s Boyhood, at a modest enough 165 minutes, followed soon after by Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Turkish masterpiece Winter Sleep, at a weightier 196. Now, close to year end, along comes Lisa Cholodenko’s Olive Kitteridge, bringing with it a considerable tinge of regret that outside a single theatrical outing at this year’s Venice Film Festival, this HBO miniseries is coming to us only on the small screen. At 232 minutes, no less.

Attracting over one million visitors each year, Canterbury Cathedral is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the country. With its picturesque location and very nice, very white staff, the cathedral offers an easy metaphor for the version of England that Ukip supporters apparently hanker after, the narrator Saskia Reeves describing it as “England in stone”.

Four years ago Christopher Jefferies was the victim of a concerted attack by the British press. His tenant Joanna Yeates had been murdered and, lacking any other leads, police arrested her landlord. While he was still being questioned, the newspapers sniffed around Jefferies’s patch of Bristol and, armed with a juicy quotation or two, chose collectively to forget all about the principle of innocent until proven otherwise. "Weird", "posh", "lewd", "creepy" were among the epithets in The Sun. He was branded a peeping Tom.

It’s only a few years since TV companies wouldn’t let Bear Grylls talk to anything more important than small, edible fauna. So he’s done well to progress so quickly to genuine A-Listers like Ben Stiller and Stephen Fry. By most objective criteria, talking isn’t something Grylls does terribly well, relying on a mashup of puns, clichés and semi-scripted pep talks, like a PE teacher at parents’ evening.

BBC4’s The Life of Rock with Brian Pern introduced us to the former frontman of Thotch and creator of world music. With a promotion to BBC2 for Brian Pern: A Life in Rock, it seems that Pern, the comic creation of The Fast Show’s Simon Day and Rhys Thomas, has switched from object to subject. This is both a blessing and a (slight) curse for the character’s reprisal – familiarity hasn’t bred contempt, but it has made it slightly harder for the conceit to work.

There have been legendary conductors, and then there was Herbert von Karajan. He was a colossus of post-World War Two classical music, equipped with fearsome technical mastery allied to a vaguely supernatural gift for extracting exquisite sounds from orchestras. But that wasn't all. An expert skier with a passion for high-performance cars and flying his own jet, he was as charismatic as a movie star or sporting idol.

There is a tradition in oral storytelling of individual embellishments and flourishes, of one tale taking many forms – the more it is told, the finer the detail. Characters are added and the narrative extended. In this way, stories stand up to near endless repetition for they always have something new to offer us, there is always something new to learn.