LEAD PREVIEW

American Gods

Available from Monday

Amazon Prime Video

Just when it was first foretold, none now can say. The prophecy has always been there, passed down from parent to faithful child. Ancient ones whispered it to the stones. The promise fuelled the swords of Rome and Alexander and Genghis as they sang in red mists. Yet, as time crawled forward like a wounded fly, mankind chose to forget. The eternal belief was pushed into shadow by thinner, shinier newer promises, plastic deities, smaller eternities.

Truth is stubborn, though, and even though we no longer listened, the prophecy kept coming. Now, terribly, it has arrived. We are unprepared, but that which was long promised is here: the Deadwood/ Strictly Come Dancing mash-up is finally upon us.

There’s much to be said about American Gods, the expensive new adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s 2001 novel, mostly to do with how awful it is. But why dwell on the negative? It’s the only new show featuring Ian McShane, and, while watching him do anything that isn’t Deadwood when that story remains unfinished is like having a stake driven into your eyeball, it’s still better than not seeing him.

The gist of Gaiman’s metaphorical fantasy runs thus. When they first came to America, immigrants from older countries brought their old gods with them, carried on Viking longboats, European expeditions and slave ships from Africa. Over time, however, new gods seduced Americans: gods of wealth, celebrity, technology. The old gods slumped away – but now they want to reclaim their place. A war between gods is coming.

For anyone who hasn’t read the book, it’s worth knowing this, because for the first few episodes, there is no story. The incoherence isn’t the biggest problem, though, nor is the rote unveiling of the blood-and-boobs content obligatory for American pay-TV. It’s the sheer lack of style – or the crushingly desperate attempt at “style.”

The series plays like it was directed by a 12-year-old being indulged by weary technicians instructed to follow his every whim, a constant mess of slow-fast motion, rain falling upwards and turning to blood, brooding close-ups turning 360 degrees and exploding into computer-generated psychedelic amphibious monkeytrees. A character can’t stir a coffee unless it’s mounted like a violent jazz Xbox version of the Odessa Steps sequence from Battleship Potempkin. With every scene pitched at the same that’s-awesome note, it’s like watching a migraine. Added to this trauma is honking dialogue such as a moody Iron Maiden fan might pen after being dumped and taking refuge in HP Lovecraft and 1990s action movies. A character can’t just discover his dead wife was having an affair with his best pal. He must be told the sordid details.

The receiver of this bad news is an ex-con called Shadow Moon, because he just is. Fresh from jail, he’s travelling to his wife’s funeral when a mysterious stranger offers a mysterious job. Shadow is played by Ricky Whittle, previously best known on my sofa for his cha cha with Natalie in the 2009 Strictly final. He could be a decent actor, but the turgid flash single-note doominess makes it hard to tell. Required to be muscular, brooding and little else, he’s perpetually stranded midway between his Tango and Paso Doble frowns.

Thankfully, there’s McShane, all twinkling Quickstep as that mysterious stranger, Mr Wednesday, aka Norse overgod Odin, out to stir up trouble. The only shaded performance in sight, it’s easy to believe he is an immortal divinity. He makes everything around him look as if it had been animated from reconstituted cheese, merely for his amusement.

Sunday

Line Of Duty

9pm, BBC One

Listen here, fella, it’s the last episode, and a good thing, too, because writer Jed Mercurio probably needs a lie down after such a long game of Twister. He’s a mercurial writer. If you wanted, you could remind yourself how bad he can be by turning over to the Drama channel tonight at 9pm for a repeat of his Lady Chatterley’s Lover adaptation, one of the worst BBC productions of recent years, yet still to be cherished for gifting us this hilarious line of dialogue: “In the event of fluid, Your Ladyship will be required immediately.” On the other hand (perhaps an unfortunate phrase, given the state Roz Huntley’s in), he delivers a belter of an LOD finale tonight. It might be preposterous (it is), but it rattles along fast enough to keep you from caring, drawing together all the clues that have been dangling this series, pulling in hangovers from every series before, and sewing seeds for the next one, already being made. Who is that mysterious “H”…?

Tuesday

Later ... Live With Jools Holland

10pm, BBC Two

Series 50 sashays on in style as Jools is joined live by the eternal and glittering Blondie, with Debbie Harry and Chris Stein leading their faithful troops through songs from their imminent new album Pollinator, which features tracks co-written with the likes of Johnny Marr, Laurie Anderson, Sia and Charli XCX. Although, with luck, they’ll also pull out a classic from the back catalogue. Elsewhere in the studio tonight, there’s a return appearance from Orchestra Baobab, the Senegalese veterans of laid back Afro Cuban lilt, who are approaching their 50th year in business. Back in action a decade on from their last album, they’ll be performing numbers from the recent LP, Tribute To Ndiouga Dieng. Also back for another taste of Jools are Baltimore’s Future Islands, unveiling songs from their new album, The Far Field, while clearing the floor for the committed and interesting dance moves of frontman Samuel T. Herring. Rounding out the line-up are quavering melancholists London Grammar, and poppy R’n’B hopeful Mabel. There’s more from them all in the extended repeat on Friday at 11.05pm.

Wednesday

Better Late Than Never

10pm, ITV4

This new fake reality series is another entry in the burgeoning let’s-randomly-stick-some-old-celebrities-together-and-send-them-somewhere-because-hey-old-people-are-funny-and-grumpy-and-weird genre, like a brasher, faker, American version of The Real Marigold Hotel. For TV fans of a certain age, the cast on this bucket list will be either delightful or depressing: former universal saviour William Shatner, former coolest guy on Earth Henry Winkler, and former formidable heavyweight champion of the world, George Foreman. (They’re accompanied by a fourth veteran, former American football star Terry Bradshaw, who might mean less to UK audiences). The idea is, lump them together on a trip through “exotic” Asia, and watch them pretend to be entertainingly buffoonish. First stop: Tokyo. The chemistry is actually pretty charming – especially between Kirk and The Fonz – but the trumped-up shenanigans they have to enact can get in the way. NB: this is based on a Korean TV series called “Grandpas Over Flowers.” I mean, why would you change that title?

Thursday

Arena: Ken Dodd's Happiness

9pm, BBC Four

It might take him just a little longer to get his tickling stick working these days, but as he approaches his 90th birthday, the recently knighted Sir Kenneth Dodd is still very much with us – in fact, he’s already out on his latest annual tour of the UK, and coming to a town near you soon. His birthday isn’t until November (it’s the 8th: just mark your envelope “Knotty Ash” and the card will get there), but as an early celebration here’s a repeat of this tattyfilarious documentary, originally shown in 2007 to mark his 80th. Made in the characteristically impressionistic Arena style, Dodd discusses his (then) 55-year career, and the influences and ideas that have fed it, accompanied by a welter of clips from performances in the 1960s and 70s, as well as more recent tours. Look out for the diddytastic footage from a chat show with The Beatles, as he causes John Lennon to dissolve with laughter.

Friday

Jamestown

9pm, Sky 1

A new series from Bill Gallagher, a writer maybe still best known for the summery frocks of his greatest success, the BBC’s Lark Rise To Candleford, but who sometimes swings in the opposite direction, producing odd, bad mood thrillers like 2012’s not-great Christopher Eccleston series Blackout and last year’s ITV potboiler Paranoid. Produced by the makers of Downton Abbey, this one finds him back on the female-centred period drama beat, but he throws a little grit into the mix. It’s 1619, and a ship from England has just arrived on the American coast, bearing a cargo much-anticipated by the men of the young British colony of Virginia: women, who the settlers have paid to come be their wives in the New World. The story follows the spirited trio of Alice (Peaky Blinders’ Sophie Rundle), Verity (Holby’s Niamh Walsh) and Jocelyn (Waterloo Road’s Naomi Battrick) as they get their first look at the waiting men of Jamestown (including faces like Burn Gorman, Max Beesley, James Flemyng and Shaun Dooley), and don’t necessarily like what they see.

Saturday

Doctor Who

7.20pm, BBC One

I had a dream that Bill Potts is actually the next incarnation of The Doctor, and that Peter Capaldi is just getting her ready to take over when he regenerates. But never mind that. It takes some contrived faffing to get there (in the old days, the Tardis would just have turned up and pitched them in about it), but once it gets going this is actually, finally, a decent creepy wee Doctor Who story tonight. Bill and a bunch of student friends we’re not interested in have decided to rent together, but they can’t find anything they can afford, until a mysterious, dark-eyed old gentleman (a lovely turn from David Suchet) appears from nowhere and politely offers what seems the perfect accomodation – a grand, isolated old mansion all to themselves, complete with a forbidding, forbidden tower. The floorboards (and walls) might creak, but the rent is absurdly cheap. Helping Bill shift her boxes in, however, The Doctor begins to notice something is very wrong. And soon, the screaming starts …

LAST WEEK…

It was pretty cold at the start of the week there, but it wasn’t until 6.30pm Tuesday I understood why. It was Christmas Eve! I had no idea. They say time gets faster as you get older, but, man, this is getting ridiculous. Being blindsided like this meant there were only a few hours left to get everything ready for the big day. But, flying into a blind rush, by 11.30 Wednesday morning I had all the decorations up, sent off a batch of sorry-I-forgot-your-card-but-you-didn’t-send-me-one-either emails, gift wrapped some old VHS tapes I don’t want any more, and was already in my Santy hat and elf slippers, nibbling the twelfth Pernod Snowball and trying to get the cats to join in on the carols.

It was the arrival of the postie that made me begin to think something might be wrong with the picture. For one thing, she doesn’t tend to deliver Christmas Day. And for another, there still weren’t any cards for me. Retracing the previous hazy 17 hours, I realised I had made a rookie error: it wasn’t Christmas in reality. It was only Christmas in Fair City, the entrancing Irish soap that this week helped launch a whole shiny new channel, STV2. Why the STV2 overlords decided it was best to start with Christmas episodes in late April is a question high above my pay grade. All I can say is, thank god the rush to get the tree ironed meant I missed the Taggart repeat that was on later that night. If I’d seen that, I might have started thinking it was 2003, and the last time that happened wasn’t pretty at all. Because it was actually 1996.

Sadly rolling up the tinsel, I had time to reflect on how the launch of a new TV channel isn’t quite what it once was. Of course, we’ll never know the thrill of November 2 1936 again, when the BBC started the first regular service. But some of us recall the buzz of November 2 1982, when Channel 4 first landed and, for a while there, was so exciting the government was eventually forced to pass a secret bill ordering it to become the constant stream of crap it is now.

The last big world-changing launch of terrestrial TV’s golden era, of course, was March 30, 1997, the glittering dawn of Channel 5, ushered in by all five Spice Girls, together, live, singing Manfred Mann songs. Try telling the kids today about the street parties we had that night, and they won’t believe you. Or care. These days though, it seems there’s a new channel pinging up on the Freeview guide every week. All the same, I’m very glad to have STV2 in my life. Although, I might give Fair City a swerve for a while. Life is confusing enough with these time warping mind games. And anyway, I need to get things ready for Hogmanay.