RIDDLE me this. What has Mary Berry in it but is not the Great British Bake Off? What has a group of amateur cooks doing battle with each other but is not the GBBO? What features pally chats over a hot food processor but is not the GBBO? That’s right, it’s Britain’s Best Home Cook (BBC1, Thursday, 8pm), aka Not the GBBO (in case the lawyers are watching).

To be fair, there was no marquee in Home Cook, but give it time. Mary looks like she is itching to get busy with the tent pegs. Oh, and the new BBC1 show has the contestants living together, as in Big Brother, and a “silent judging round”. Wonder how many W1A-style meetings it took to come up with that one. (“They taste the food, but they say nothing. Silent TV. Genius.”)

Host for the eight-part series is Claudia Winkleman, whose primary duty is to dispense hugs whether the contestants want them or not. Among the ten hopefuls is a woman from Glasgow called Josie, who I dearly hope turns out to have a partner called Frankie. Despite valiant attempts to stir up tension, including bellowing how many minutes were left in each round (not at all like GBBO), this was stodgy stuff. But it does have Mary Berry and it doesn’t have Bake Off in the title, so “result”.

Foreign affairs reporter Lyse Doucet attempted to explain the longest running multinational conflict since World War Two in Syria: The World’s War (BBC2, Thursday-Friday, 9pm). Doucet has been there from the start, as we saw in clips from her many reports. This was gold-standard, plain-speaking journalism, exactly what the subject needed, with Doucet taking many high profile players, including representatives of the Syrian government, to task. While the world for the most part continues to look away, we cannot say we were not told.

Love in the Countryside (BBC2, Wednesday, 9pm) was the latest spin on dating shows, this one hosted by Sara Cox. The Radio 2 DJ was keen to talk up her credentials, billing herself as “a farmer’s daughter”. Heaven forbid we would ever think a reality show matching city slickers with country mice was in any way shallow and contrived. First Dates with cowpats it is, then.

Among the rural hopefuls was Christine, who runs a 250-acre sheep farm in Dumfries and Galloway, and a bluff Yorkshireman (do they make any other kind?) called Pete.

Christine seemed a lovely sort. In true Scottish style, before meeting her would be suitors, she declared: “There’s no point in getting too excited in case it doesn’t work.” She was right: they were pretty hopeless, including the one who asked what her “inner animal” would be. His was a turtle, which came in handy when the time came for him to wind his neck in and leave the show.

Ed was more confident, as were the ladies he had opted to meet. Lisa, an entrepreneur from Falkirk, declared him to have “a great set of teeth”. She’ll fit right in at the county shows. Another, Francesa, said she was looking forward to meeting the “moo-ies”, by which I think she meant cows. I smell a hit.

Here’s a confession. As someone who used to commute to London from Glasgow almost every week, hating every minute, my guilty pleasure is airport reality shows. Passengers sprinting to the gate to find it is closed, people sleeping on floors, adults throwing temper tantrums: I love them because the misery is not happening to me. No, I’m not proud of myself.

Heathrow: Britain’s Busiest Airport (STV, Wednesday, 8pm) was the latest in a long line of shows that began with BBC’s Airport in 1996. It started promisingly with a tower of stats: 1300 planes taking off and landing each day, 80 million passengers a year. Plenty of room for mayhem, but what a snooze this was. A skint traveller got a full refund on a ticket, enabling him to fly next day, and a young man from Brazil, almost refused entry to the UK, got through just fine. Everyone was smiling at the end. Not good enough, people.

Happily, my favourite sitcom was back to lift the mood to 33,000ft. Friday Night Dinner (Channel 4, Friday, 10pm) had all the familiar characters present and correct, including mum Jackie (the ever wonderful Tamsin Greig), exasperated dad Martin, their heroically sarky sons, and Nervous Nelly neighbour Jim (Mark Heap) and his dog, Wilson.

Jim was taking a lady friend out this week, so the reluctant Goodmans were pressed into dog-sitting, yet another interruption to their Friday night. Alas, the lady in question, who giggled incessantly, turned out to have not such an amusing side. Jackie sorted her out. Giggles, drama, dog gags, and not a wooden spoon or food processor in sight. Yummy.