Father Brown (BBC1, 2.15pm)

USUALLY, daytime telly plods gently along on a diet of chat, gardening, reality rescues and escaping to somewhere else.

Entering its third week is the one programme I’m constantly tempted to tape and watch later, the Father Brown series starring Mark Williams as the ecclesiastical clue-cracker taken from GK Chesterton’s books.

I was fascinated to discover that Father Brown has gone down in history as TV’s first clerical sleuth after the mighty Kenneth More played the role on ITV back in 1974.

Little has changed in this quaint village- set series apart from Williams’ Roman Catholic priest gaining 1.9m viewers and nearly a quarter of the whole daytime viewing audience in the first two series.

Tom Chambers has arrived as the latest exasperated policeman, Inspector Sullivan, on the receiving end of Fr Brown’s ability to work out whodunit and replacing Hugo Speer, who played the more scruffy country copper Inspector Valentine. But, as always, it’s the wonderful list of colourful characters that surround the good father, who make even the weirdest plot pull together... and we’ve had a fiancée agreeing to marry a mindreader she hates on the eve of the wedding to the man she loves, having turned down a murdered circus clown’s earlier proposal.

Sorcha Cusack is the essential gossipmonger and always dubious housekeeper Mrs McCarthy, while the flighty Nancy Carroll plays the mysterious and wealthy English rose Lady Felicia plus an often sterling turn from Alex Price as Sid Carter, her ladyship’s shady handyman and Parker-like chauffer.

Series producer Sam Hill and lead writers Rachel Flowerday and Tahsin Guner also deserve credit as we enter the final week of five shows.

Today, Fr Brown is into HG Wells territory as he investigates the strange case of Jacob Francis. The quantum physicist is convinced he’s invented a time machine to discover if his father’s death a year earlier was murder. Let’s hope that the confessional doesn’t double as the Tardis.

Catastrophe (Channel 4, 10pm)

CO-WRITTEN by US comedian and bestselling author Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan, the awardwinning Irish actress who co-created BBC3’s Pulling, this is about two fortysomethings as they struggle to fall in love in the hustle and bustle of London.

The foundations for romance are all in place: chemistry, an instant pregnancy and genuine disaster. This sitcom dallies a little on the late side because there are comedy sex scenes in a plot of an Irish woman and an American in London on business trying to find a future together in spite of her ghastly choice in friends.

Winterwatch 2015 (BBC2, 9pm)

LET’S take our minds off the distinct chill in the air and focus on how nature and wildlife deal with the changing of the seasons.

As usual, Chris Packham, Michaela Strachan and Martin Hughes-Games are in Aberdeenshire, presenting from their base at Mar Lodge Estate in the Cairngorms National Park. The trio will be keeping a close eye on animals including golden eagles, otters and black grouse. Meanwhile, Martin explores the world of the red squirrel, and in Norfolk, Iolo Williams tells of a baby boom among the seals at the National Trust’s Blakeney National Nature Reserve.