TV preview: Doctor Who (BBC1), This Country – the Aftermath (BBC3) and Wanderlust (BBC1)

‘The Apprentice’ continues while Channel 4's ‘The Bisexual’ begins

Progressive Whovians will welcome the arrival of the Jodie Whittaker as the 13th Doctor (BBC)

You would have to be a wanderer in the fourth dimension yourself not to have noticed that the BBC has decided to introduce the first female Doctor Who. Well, Jodie Whittaker materialises on Sunday – not Saturday – evening, with three companions (Bradley Walsh, Mandip Gill and Tosin Cole) and a suitably ridiculous outfit. Episode one of the 13th Doctor’s adventures is a self-contained adventure, with our heroes battling a beast on the streets of Sheffield. I know, I know – there’s more than one of those in South Yorkshire.

Whovians are divided about the merits of the casting. Some, who one might term Gammon Whovians, dislike the notion of their scifi series being subjected to some sort of political correctness, probably at the behest of Brussels, and believe that the Time Lord is not a Time Lady. Progressive Whovians, though, liking the idea that the Time Lord is moving with the times, are reassured that the new Doctor still has three beating hearts, all in the right place.

The struggle between these two Whovian factions will be almost as entertaining and vicious as, say, a war between daleks and cybermen. And senseless too, of course. It’s only telly, after all.

Obviously Doctor Who is classic, required viewing, but I really beseech you to catch the latest instalment of the This Country mockumentary. It is just about the funniest thing that has hit our screens over the past couple of years, and, if you’re unfamiliar with it, it’s quite hard to describe. Nominally, it is a spoof version of one of those po-faced socially concerned documentaries “exploring the lives” of Cotswold cousins, Kerry and Kurtan Mucklowe. Who are, and I don’t hesitate to use the term, idiots, and not especially likeable either. At the conclusion of the second series we saw Kerry being arrested and taking the rap for her dad’s criminal activities. And yes, he is that kind of dad, a friend of Fred West indeed.

Eight months on, the crew returns to the Cotswolds to see the aftermath of those traumatic events, and investigate what has happened to both the Mucklowe family and the village community as a whole. The tight, superbly nuanced scripts are by stars Daisy May Cooper and Charlie Cooper (real-life brother and sister), brilliantly assisted by director Tom George and producer by Simon Mayhew-Archer. They’ve won Baftas, you know. I hope we will see much more of the Mucklowes.

Wanderlust, you’ll probably be relieved to hear, enjoys its own climax this week. We will, if we can bear the sex scenes, learn whether the open marriage experiment conducted by Joy and Alan (Toni Collette and Steve Mackintosh) has actually worked, in any sense. Wanderlust is probably the least erotic but most sexually obsessed drama series since Bouquet of Barbed Wire back in the 1970s, and pointlessly explicit.

Wanderlust, like any lover, has its ups and downs, and has enjoyed some touching scenes as well as excruciating embarrassment, but mostly it’s been a bit of a boring old grind to get through. It has asked an awful lot from its audience and if you’ve made it this far, congratulations. You should try tantric sex.

Second episode of the new series The Apprentice this week, which features an unusually vain and absurd collection of candidates, all oozing self-belief from every pore, as one of them puts it. The humour, as ever, lies in the vast chasm between the soaring grandeur of their ambitions and the pathetic reality of their achievements.

The remaining 15 candidates are tasked with creating a kids’ comic with a “hi-tech augmented cover design”, whatever that means. They fail, of course, but in life and in business it’s the one who fails least who wins. The prize is a £250,000 bung from Alan Sugar to start some venture or other, which I would immediately invest in the “Apprentice Payout Company”, which would issue its first dividend of £250,000 to its sole shareholder, me, on its first day of operations. I’m not an idiot.

The Bisexual is the title of Channel 4’s latest comedy series, and, I’m pleased to report, it involves laughing with The Bisexual rather than at a bisexual, which of course would have been the standard comedy treatment a few years ago. Created by and starring Desiree Akhavan, it’s about a native New Yorker, Leila, living in London with girlfriend Sadie. However, as the name suggests, Leila’s secret is that she is bisexual, whence the drama and the comedy emerge. Quite a sign of the times, this series, and a welcome one.

Documentary of the week is A Dangerous Dynasty: House of Assad. It’s the first of a three-part series chronicling the lives, times and, well, murders inflicted on their own people and neighbouring countries by the odd-looking Bashar al-Assad and his more cunning father, Hafez al-Assad.

Between them, they have ruled Syria since 1970, and a disastrous dynasty they have proved – though one with the dubious merit of survival. Like the Kims over in North Korea they somehow managed to combine a nominally socialist ideology with a hereditary approach to absolute power.

A certain level of sadistic cruelty may help explain the longevity of their particular brand of ba’athism; President Hafez Assad required troops on military parades to stab puppies in front of him, and his female soldiers were asked to display their patriotic zeal by biting the heads off snakes. Bashar takes after his dad.

Doctor Who (BBC1, Sunday 6.45pm); This Country – the Aftermath (BBC3, Wednesday from 10am); Wanderlust (BBC1, Tuesday 9pm); The Apprentice (BBC1, Wednesday 9pm); The Bisexual (Channel 4, Wednesday 10pm); A Dangerous Dynasty: House of Assad (BBC2, Tuesday 9pm)