And so, after starting life as Miranda Hart's Joke Shop on Radio 4 in 2008, then continuing for three series on the BBC from 2009, Miranda is no more. Its co-creator, co-writer and star, Miranda Hart, has decided to pull the plug on her eponymously named sitcom.

Apologies in advance to fans of The Missing, The Honourable Woman, The Fall, Game of Thrones or House of Cards, none of which feature in the list below, but might well have done. So might The Good Wife, Ripper Street and Peaky Blinders. The fact is, in our teeming everything-everywhere world now boosted by Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Now TV and many more, whittling a whole year down to a handful of nuggets requires the wisdom of Solomon, the patience of Job, and the devious brain of a superhacker.

Despite appearances, Jeremy Clarkson aspires to be taken seriously, as readers of The Sun and The Sunday Times will know. With this Top Gear Special he managed it, being chased from Argentina into Chile by a stone-wielding mob that appeared to have designs on his personal safety, in an incident widely trailed in the news media at the beginning of the month.

Back for its third series [***], Sally Wainwright's saga of Yorkshire folk continues to tread a precarious line between syrupy soapfulness and a family drama with sharp little teeth. Its excellent cast helps to carry it over the worst of the soggy bits, and its best moments have a way of catching you unawares. You'd have to guess that it also scores strongly by not being crammed with serial killers, paedophiles and corrupt cops.

“But I do want to be stuck with you.” Five series and five Christmas specials down, Downton fans heard a line of dialogue they had no idea they’d been waiting for all this time. Never mind that the scenario was a straight lift from The Remains of the Day, in which the stuffy old butler proposes to the starchy old housekeeper. Stone the crows and knock us all down with a feather, Carson popped the question to Mrs Hughes. And what, of all the wonderfully blindsiding things, did she say in reply?

The Christmas scoop was the first appearance of the authorial voice, Vanessa Redgrave, playing Jennifer Worth, writing Christmas cards, looking at the photographs of herself with her two midwife friends and plunging us into memory from 2005 to 1959. She tells her husband Philip (Ronald Pickup) with tender affection how different it was, but "once a nurse, always a nurse," he responds. Bookending this episode were her words as she and Philip finished Christmas preparations, that if we are lucky we find love, and even its meaning.

The recent comedy awards on Channel 4 threw up little in the way of surprises – or, indeed, laughter for that matter. It was, however, notable for the first real-time, on-screen mugging at an awards bash, as Harry Enfield strolled off with the Best Comedy Actor gong, leaving Mathew Baynton looking very much the wronged man. That James Corden wasn’t even nominated was another crime.

It’s never a good start when the performers have more to gain than the audience. The album Cheek to Cheek, of which this was a televised performance, came out in September to a respectfully reserved reception in UK, while American critics, seemingly more demanding of originality, gave it a vigorous pasting. Musically, it has as much substance, and as many holes, as one of Gaga’s dresses, but the novelty of the concept, if not the interpretations, is just sufficient to see the hour’s show out.

The concluding episode came, and in a confusion of dates I missed it. If you’ve been following the weekly podcast Serial, you, like me and millions of avid listeners, would have been counting the days. I caught up only once I’d read the spoilers, which let it be known that they’d be no neat “did he or didn’t he” conclusion (was anyone actually expecting one?) and that we’d still be left in the realm of “maybe this, maybe that”. How frustrating. 

Before the second series of The Fall began, I was watching Gillian Anderson being interviewed on This Morning. While the subject matter of the drama - a tense game of cat and mouse between Anderson’s DSI Stella Gibson and Jamie Dornan’s perverted serial killer - was never going to translate well to daytime telly, but I was still a little taken aback by Amanda Holden’s fawning over the apparent sexiness of Dornan’s character.