No Offence (C4, 9pm)

MANY will feel it's time to arrest the number of police dramas on the box, but not Paul Abbott, the man who gave us Shameless and State of Play, and feels his new series, No Offence, is filling a gap in the TV market... but it's not for the faint-hearted.

"No Offence came after searching for a concept that would match a Shameless landscape, which is enormous. I love cop shows, I love comedies, and nobody has found a blended set of ingredients that make that work and feel like the cop series I wanted to make," says Abbott, who makes it clear that his series can't really be called a sitcom.

"This is proudly a procedural drama, but it's not what I started writing. I thought we were getting away with writing a comedy in my head, but it was just too big and eventually it got squeezed all the way back down to near real life – it's heightened by two millimetres – and I think it is those two millimetres that define the personality of No Offence.

"You can't call it a comedy, as it's as dark as can be... and it gets darker and darker."

He adds: "No Offence is trying to fit a square peg in a round hole and we've done it beautifully, with a set of ingredients that don't look like they should belong together, but they do."

This wouldn't be a British crime-cracking team without a very capable, but slightly unhinged leader like DI Vivienne Deering (Joanna Scanlan), and her right-hand women DC Dinah Kowalska (Elaine Cassidy) and DS Joy Freers (Alexandra Roach).

Abbott says: "I love watching people being good at their job. I remember I used to watch Casualty when all they did was complain about the agency nurses and I'd shout 'go get another job'. I don't want to watch people moaning about their occupation on TV – it's like being haunted by your eight-hour shift isn't it?"

However, in this first episode, it looks like even this apparently unshockable team – which also includes Will Mellor as DC Spike Tanner and Colin Salmon as Det Supt Darren Maclaren – are about to be confronted with one of their most difficult case as Kowalska notices a pattern connecting the deaths of two young women. It seems the team could be dealing with a serial killer – and a third girl has gone missing...

"I don't write for shock value. I think all crimes have been seen on television before, whether on the News At Ten or in a drama. But No Offence isn't about whether you've seen them before, it's about the attitude towards them. We've done it with such dignity and humanity," says Abbott.

24 Hours in the Past (BBC1, 9pm)

THIS grubby glory of a reality documentary continues as six celebrities experience the working lives of the poor in Victorian times. There's no rest for the unlucky volunteers after the filth of the dustyard as they are sent to work at a recreated coaching inn – the 19th Century equivalent of the motorway service station. Alistair McGowan, Ann Widdecombe, Zoe Lucker, Colin Jackson, Tyger Drew-Honey and Miquita Oliver find themselves constantly against the clock as there are horses to be groomed, coaches to be cleaned, guests to be fed, sheets to be laundered and chamber pots to be emptied. Soon several find they haven't got the stamina to survive the long hours and relentless grind.

Later with Jools Holland (BBC2, 10pm)

JOOLS presents a performance by FFS, a collaboration by Scots pop-rockers (and Sunderland FC supporting) Franz Ferdinand and LA new wave duo Sparks, who have recorded a self-titled album together. It should be good, as they've apparently spent 11 years contemplating it. They are joined by US band Alabama Shakes, who have just released their second album Sound & Colour, indie-country trio the Lone Bellow and Canadian singer-songwriter Tobias Jesso Jr, making his UK TV debut.

Viv Hardwick