TV Picks of the week

Since the hype ended and this drama began, no one has bothered to draw any more comparisons with Our Friends In The North, but there will be at least an echo of that classic in the finale. Just like in Our Friends, this bunch are back in the same room for the first time since the start. Well, minus one. We kne w right away t hat someone had died, but who? For the last six weeks it’s looked like Jack, originator of the social experiment, but wouldn’t that be too obvious? How about Jay? I’m not here to spoil the ending, only to say that White Heat hasn’t fulfilled its early promise, that the social experiment has smelled of BBC compliance and that the central characters always being close to a TV for convulsive news has been too neat. Go on, admit it: you’ve missed momentous events on account of being hungover.

BEST HISTORY

Divine Women

Wednesday, BBC2, 9pm

Bettany Hughes stands on a hilltop, the wind lifting the second-most luxuriant brown mane in the BBC’s history department after Neil Oliver’s, and talks of a “fierce, dangerous sexuality”. Are you sold on this three-parter yet? I am. Hughes is investigating the hidden history of women in religion: “I’m going in search of a world where goddesses ruled Heaven and Earth.”

BEST COMEDY

Have I Got News For You

Friday, BBC1, 9pm

Remember Angus Deayton becoming a tabloid scandal and no longer being able to front this news quiz? And the BBC’s apparent indecisiveness over a permanent replacement? Now it seems like the smartest move to rotate the chair because it’s unlocked the comic flair of actors like Damian Lewis and even the odd MP. Tonight, starting a new run: Stephen Mangan.