TV preview, People Just Do Nothing (BBC1 today 11.50pm, and BBC3 Tuesday 10am): One sick show

Dog days of August these may be, traditionally a time of repeats and lacklustre TV, but there is a surprising amount of quality viewing around. So maybe that will prove some recompense if you’ve spent your day sweltering at work or bored witless on a staycation.

Whatever your personal predicament the chances are it is preferable to the doleful existence of the Kurupt FM crew, who return to BBC3/BBC1 in the mockumentary People Just Do Nothing. There’s a repeat of last week’s episode tonight, after Match of the Day, and fresh fare available online at BBC3 on Tuesday. Now in its fourth run, the writers and cast of this Bafta-award winning series are still outstanding, indeed if anything they are even more skilful at squeezing the last droplets of humour from the dismal husks of the lives they chronicle.

If I were writing a PhD thesis on People Just Do Nothing (someone will before long) I would focus in on the male/female theme, where the men are all hopeless wasters or corrupt, and the women represent the only barrier they have against starvation or prison (and not always successfully, either). The first two episodes deal, if that's the appropriate word, with MC Grindah’s cocaine addiction and incipient insanity; Miche’s identity crisis; Chabuddy G’s bankruptcy and homelessness and DJ Steve’s terrifying vulnerability and other-worldliness. Congratulations to all concerned for producing one of the finest comedies in recent years, and especially to BBC3 for proving, again, that there is life after digital terrestrial broadcasting and that comedy is livelier than ever. It’s all brilliant, but, like the Koh-i-Noor, Asim Chaudhry (as Chabuddy G) has polished an oriental gem that outshines even the other gems in the BBC crown. Or, as Kurupt FM might say, a properly “sick” show. I beseech you, once again, to catch it online or in its late terrestrial slot.

Watching Astronauts: Do You Have What It Takes? brought The Krypton Factor back to me. For those with no memory of this, it was a quiz show that combined general knowledge and puzzle rounds with various tests of physical endurance and skill. It was quite a clever idea, though the name was a typical Seventies exercise in silliness. This effort is a bit more grown up and serious, but perhaps not that much more because the winner doesn’t, in fact, get to be a real-life astronaut and the nearest they’ll get to space travel is the local Laser Quest. Chris Hadfield makes a good job of pretending any of it matters.

I’m drawn much more naturally to Mike Hawthorn: On the Limit, which is the story of one of the country’s most brilliant racing drivers, indeed the first British Formula 1 champion back in 1958. He managed to survive the massacre at Le Mans in 1955, but ended up being killed speeding in his jag on the A3 in 1959. Had he lived…well there’s the twist because he wasn’t going to live that much longer anyway. A golden boy and a megastar in his day he deserves to be recalled. Unusually for a documentary on yesterday, he wasn’t a Nazi henchman, either.

Having praised People Just Do Nothing I should also give a favourable mention to The Ronnie Barker Comedy Lecture. Seeing as there is nothing wrong with taking comedy seriously, and because it is sometimes all we've got, I'm pleased to see Ben Elton defending "big comedy" in this inaugural talk.

I also ought to add my voice, for what it's worth, to the campaign to persuade the BBC to give Count Arthur Strong another TV series. I’ve been critical of the first three runs, and in truth they weren’t up to much, but they were still better than most of the other stuff the telly stations knock out in the name of “entertainment”. For example, I could quite easily live without yet another food/cookery show such as Jamie’s Quick and Easy Food, Celebrity Masterchef, Superfoods: The Real Story, and of course The Big Family Cooking Showdown, which (whisper it) is the most hyped and boring of the whole parboiled lot. It seems bad taste to mention Wasting Away: the Truth about Anorexia at this point, but at least it will give us some perspective on our increasingly confused relationship with eating.

Three more highlights: The State is a timely drama about British jihadists, universally and rightly reviled but also universally not understood, which hasn’t really helped anyone. You don’t have to sympathise or support them to want to know why on earth they want to murder themselves and others, after all. Peter Kosminsky has written this four-parter, and that augurs well.

Quacks, which shows off the ever-more formidable talents of Rory Kinnear, is a finely shot exercise in costume sitcom, this week introducing Charles Dickens and Florence Nightingale to the bizarre world of our Victorian speed surgeon anti-hero. No less enjoyable, in a slightly different sort of butchering way is Dragons' Den. After 15 years this format (unlike the all that cookery stuff) is as fresh and intriguing as ever, and we have two new dragons to sit in a trendy warehouse with a pile of fake £50 notes for a side table. For now, though, I’m out.