What tremendous sacrifice did Armando Iannucci lay before the comedy Gods in order to be offered the gift of the coalition? Labour post-Blair singularly failed to provide rich pickings for political satire; Gordon Brown and his hangdog posse were too obviously doomed for anyone to bother really sinking their teeth into. In the three years since the last series, however, democracy has served up the omnishambles to end all omnishambles. The question is what will The Thick of It choose to do with it?

Praise be, they’ve kept the title sequence. Dallas, the mama of all American soap operas, is famous for a lot of things – Stetsons, satin sheets, surreal shower scenes, the slow disintegration of Priscilla Presley’s nose – but perhaps the most memorable component in its Eighties incarnation was the opening credits in which mirrored skyscrapers were juxtaposed with the bucolic idyll of Southfork, and split-screens showed JR, Bobby, Sue-Ellen et al pulling panto poses to a histrionic orchestral soundtrack. Such things are sacred.

Sometimes when we reconnect with the television of our childhood it seems very different from what we recall, usually lesser in some way. This is certainly not the case with the physical violence of The Sweeney. ITV's hour-long special, to coincide with the release of a new feature film, showcased a mass of beatings, snarling assaults, and men taking limb-breaking leaps into quarries rather than face the actors who went on to play Inspector Morse and Minder.

We have been here before: The Killing wasn’t the first crime drama to open with a damsel in distress. This time it’s a schoolgirl who is being chased across the sand dunes at night. She has been stabbed. She falls – conveniently backwards – to the ground. The pursuer is reflected in the dying pupil’s dilated pupil. “I’m sorry,” whispers the girl. Why?

The verdict may still be out on the BBC’s lavish unfolding drama, Parade’s End, but it’s already done one thing: to bring the name of its writer, Ford Madox Ford, back from the (relative) oblivion where it has been since his death in 1939 (not least thanks to a script from Tom Stoppard). The novel for which he is best known, The Good Soldier (with its immortal opening line, “this is the saddest story I have ever heard”), has always hovered on various lists of best-ever books, but often rather in the lower ranks.

As everybody but the most casual of viewers knows, the titular character in a certain long-running BBC sci-fi series is not “Doctor Who” but merely “The Doctor”. Yet Steven Moffat - showrunner and second most talented writer to come out of Paisley - seems to be having a bit of a love affair with those two words.

A sense of déjà vu strikes from the very first shot. It is a dark and stormy night. A lone man staggers down an empty street through the lashing rain. Once indoors we see he has blood on his hands. A minute has not yet passed but Warren Brown – for it is he – tears his shirt off. Before we can admire the size of the former cage fighter’s guns he produces a real one. Roll titles.

John Barrowman's Dallas was a shameless ad for Channel 5's upcoming new series, an updated retread of the American soap opera, but an enjoyable pointer nonetheless to what pleasures await us - the amuse-bouche, if you will, to the meaty main course starting next week.

Jimmy McGovern’s one-man mission to boost the quota of Scousers seen on the small screen continues in “Stephen’s Story” – the latest bout of button-pushing misery otherwise known as Accused. Seventeen-year-old Stephen Cartwright’s beloved Irish mother is bedridden but this doesn’t stop him table-ending his girlfriend. McGovern and co-writer Danny Brocklehurst thus immediately raise the twin pillars of drama: death and sex.

“I have done stuff,” says Stefan. “But that doesn’t mean I’ve done this." He has been arrested driving the car of a woman killed a short time earlier. Although an instant suspect, it’s soon clear his story and that of the victim’s sister don’t tally. Murder wasn’t a whodunit or a procedural, but a point-of-view rundown of the aftermath of murder. It was also grim, unflinching and memorable.