The main thing we learnt from The Tudors (Friday, BBC2) was that Henry VIII didn’t just sit around all day composing Greensleeves and drawing up wedding lists. He liked to keep himself busy. Here’s what happened in the first episode – and remember, these are just the highlights: 1 Henry declared war on France, then enjoyed hot sex with a lady-in-waiting. 2 Henry played tennis and made eyes at the Duke of Buckingham’s daughter. 3 Henry took part in a joust and knocked Buckingham to the ground. 4 Henry enjoyed hot sex with Buckingham’s daughter. 5 Henry, persuaded by wily Cardinal Wolsey, decided he wouldn’t go to war after all, then signed a peace treaty with France instead. 6 Henry agreed to have hot sex with the queen, but discovered she was at prayer. So he had hot sex with another lady-in-waiting. 7 Henry met Anne Boleyn, whose sister wasted no time slipping her hands inside the royal undergarments. 8 After great provocation, I think you’ll agree, Buckingham declared that ’appen he, Buckingham, should ’ave been t’king (what with Henry’s family being so nouveau), and that he would raise an army in t’north.

Exhausting, isn’t it? As played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Henry is a rather unconvincing king. He might have chest muscles you could crack walnuts on, and, yes, women’s magazines will soon be publishing supplements devoted to the way he eats a pomegranate, but he’s just not scary and powerful enough. When he is having hot sex with Buckingham’s daughter, he is inconveniently interrupted by her father. Enraged, Buckingham whips out a sword and presses it to the king’s throat. Now, it is my understanding of Tudor England that kings did not look kindly upon this sort of thing, even from enraged fathers. But Henry just seems to shrug off the incident. By contrast, Buckingham (Steven Waddington) is all bottled rage and fury. You just can’t tell what he’s going to do next. There is real tension around him. So, in a proper drama, he would topple Henry – probably by episode three – and rule as Henry IX, while the deposed king would settle down in a cottage near Hampton, enjoy hot sex with Anne Boleyn and write his memoirs: The Two Wives of Henry VIII.

Except, of course, he won’t. The trouble with The Tudors is that we know the plot. Whatever Henry does, he is always going to get away with it. Buckingham can strut and fume as much as he likes, but he’s always going to get his head chopped off in the end. So, when The Tudors cranks up the dramatic tension, it’s never really all that tense. That said, the series promises to be a lot of fun if you don’t expect too much. Think of it instead as Footballers’ Damsels, with Henry as a wayward centre forward and Wolsey (Sam Neill) as his wily agent. At least it will cheer you up on a rainy Friday night.

Which is more than you can say for Jericho (Wednesday, ITV4), the latest American series to carry the following underlying message: what are you doing just sitting there watching television, for God’s sake, because we’re all going to die? The hero seems to be a young man called Jake, who arrives home in the Midwestern town of Jericho after five years away.

It’s not quite clear from the first episode what he has been up to. He tells a friend he has been in the army, an ex-girlfriend he has been in the navy and a shopkeeper that he has been playing minor-league baseball. He’s so mysterious, in fact, that it would be no surprise to discover he has spent the time working at a bar in Twin Peaks or some other oddball town.

Jake is just paying a flying visit, but never makes the return journey because there is a huge explosion in nearby Denver (and, apparently, another in Atlanta). The power goes out, communications are cut off and Jake’s father – who is running for reelection as mayor – must take charge. The whole thing is reminiscent of the sci-fi thrillers that emerged from cold-war America, in which a small town is cut off from the rest of the country, but pluckily closes ranks against an alien invasion. It’s early days yet, but what Jericho seems to offer is mystery. What has Jake been doing all these years? Who is the mysterious stranger who keeps offering advice? Is America really under attack? You can watch the rest of the series to discover the answers, but be warned: you will have to sit through moments of gut-wrenching sentimentality.

The Riches (Monday, Virgin 1) is a much classier act. Older readers might remember The Beverly Hillbillies, in which a family of hicks strike oil on their land and move to Beverly Hills on the proceeds – with supposedly hilarious consequences. This is essentially the same story, and was used to launch the first night of Virgin 1, available on satellite, cable and Freeview. Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver play Wayne and Dahlia Malloy, a couple of traveller con artists who fall out with Dahlia’s family. Fleeing in a motorhome with their three children, they witness a car accident that kills two wealthy newlyweds. In a series of events that would seem highly unlikely if suggested in a British setting, the family move into the dead couple’s luxurious new home and take over their identities, with the wonderful declaration: “The American dream – we’re going to steal it.” Sometimes this is comedy, sometimes psychological drama, but it moves along at such a pace that you rarely notice the indecision. In fact, the only thing I’m not sure I believe is Izzard’s American accent.

It’s 40 years since the arrival of Radios 1, 2, 3 and 4, so, for the past week, television has been patting its elderly relatives on the arm and saying what a jolly good job they’ve been doing over the years. And, for me, The Archers will never be the same again. I’ve met the cast in the BBC canteen, where they all moaned about their parking spaces. That didn’t break the magic. I once interviewed Charles Collingwood, who went on and on about not really being Brian Aldridge, and being a proper actor who did other things. That didn’t break the magic. No, what did it was the discovery, in Arena: The Archers(Thursday, BBC4), that the heart of the serial is an office like any other: open-plan, territory marked out by filing cabinets, a few pot plants scattered about as decoration. That, and the committee that decides on the plots.

Whether you enjoyed the programme depends entirely on whether you enjoy The Archers. But one thought struck me about this and the other radio tributes. When did people in the media begin to think the production process was so fascinating? It’s not just all last week’s stuff about the radio: we are constantly invited “behind the scenes”. In the 1970s, the Monty Python team pilloried the professional classes of that time – accountants and lawyers – as pompous, self-regarding and, in truth, rather dull. It strikes me that now might be a good time for the accountants and lawyers to get their own back.

AA Gill is away

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