TV preview, Call the Midwife (BBC1, Sunday 8pm): Cold comfort

Call the Midwife, or Heartbeat with added contractions as I like to think of it, is back – which confirms, if nothing else, that the British really do prefer to live in the past. In this case it is the winter of 1962-63, which remains one of the bitterest on record. Somehow, before everyone acquired SUVs and the internet, the British survived, and even managed to give birth in such inhospitable conditions. The NHS muddling through winter crises is nothing new, perhaps.

Lucille Anderson (played by Leonie Elliot) is the new midwife, and in fact one of the migrants who came to this country at that time to help the NHS cope with the unparalleled demands placed upon it – yes, a familiar tale. In fact, many of the nurses and midwives that were recruited from what were then mostly British colonies in the West Indies were encouraged to do so by the then Conservative Minister of Health, one Enoch Powell. He doesn’t, though, make an appearance in this show, and the usual mix of sentimentality – Jenny Agutter, starch, hot towels and epidurals – is served up as before.

You may also be reassured in troubled times by the continuing presence of Silent Witness, Death in Paradise and Vera, and I can also recommend Next of Kin – ITV’s more adventurous dramatic exploration of the world of radical Islamist terrorism. Kiri, featuring the timeless talents of Sarah Lancashire, is an even more challenging watch, dealing as it does with child abuse and what happens when families go wrong. The week’s Scandi-drama imports are Before We Die and Rebecka Martinsson: Arctic Murders, if you’re not bored by Nordic noir by now.

For some reason, art crimes are always presented as the kind of victimless capers that we used to cherish in the Ealing comedies or the Inspector Clouseau series of films. Maybe they are, and few were more audacious than the thefts of priceless (well, about £170m worth, they say) originals from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Andrew Graham-Dixon guides us through the story with its Dickensian charters – “a wasps’ nest of artful dodgers”.

Barack Obama is history. Not, at least in this context, some sort of triumphalist Trump slogan, but a simple fact that his presidency is over and it’s never too early to assess his political legacy. After all, Steve Richards has been doing much the same in an entertaining series on Radio 4 about someone called David Cameron, who you might recall, and was last seen in a shed on wheels somewhere in the Cotswolds.

It seems an age ago that Obama, this graceful, thoughtful, witty man was trying to make America a better place and deliver, successfully, universal free health care to the American people – something poorer nations than the US regard as a right and tend to take for granted. Matt Frei offers an early judgment, and one suspects Obama’s successor merely serves to flatter his record.

I am still much taken with Inside No. 9, the series of perfectly crafted half-hour playlets by, and starring, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, joined this week by Nicola Walker. I make no apology for returning to this highlight, and it will repay your attention. This week’s tale concerns a stale marriage and how not to make it work. Maybe not family viewing, if you see what I mean.

If you’re not too squeamish, you can catch what is billed as “an exorcism of maleness” on peak-time ITV, in the latest episode of the ground-breaking and important documentary, Transformation Street. Ridiculous name; serious topic – gender reassignment and, as here, the revolution in societal attitudes to trans issues we are in the midst of. A long way to go, but it is series such as this that are quietly driving the movement for equal rights, respect and a more civilised society.

Finally, like the MGM movies, I should offer a great powerful roar of approval for the latest example of the BBC’s unparalleled record of excellence in wildlife programming – Big Cats, a fearsome treat for Thursday evenings, which draws to a close this week. This week the mobile camera-on-a-collar is fitted to the rare Iberian lynx, almost lost for good a few years ago but somehow hanging on. Not just for cat fans.

Call the Midwife (BBC1, Sunday 8pm); Silent Witness (BBC1, Monday 9pm); Death in Paradise (BBC1, Thursday 9pm); Vera (ITV, Sunday 8.10pm); Next of Kin (ITV, Monday 9pm); Kiri (Channel 4, Wednesday 9pm); Before We Die (Channel 4, Tuesday 11pm); Rebecka Martinsson: Arctic Murders (More4, Friday 9pm); Stealing Van Gogh (BBC2, Wednesday 9pm); Obama: the President Who Inspired the World (More4, Saturday 9pm); Inside No 9 (BBC2, Tuesday 10pm); Big Cats (BBC1, Thursday 8pm)