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So, the new – and supposedly final – season of Stranger Things has arrived in Netflix, just in time for Thanksgiving. Expectations have been through the roof that this installment will not be a turkey, but the good (stranger?) thing about the series so far is that it has maintained a remarkably high level of quality since it began in 2016. This is by no means a given for an Eighties-inflected fantasy show that is so devoted (the cynics might and have said slavishly) to all things that Steven Spielberg produced in that decade that the bearded one might have sued for plagiarism, were it not for the fact that the homage remains an affectionate and heartfelt, rather than cynical, one.

Say what you will about Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul creator Vince Gilligan, but there are few showrunners who are better at starting a series off with a bang. Who could forget the spectacle, from the pilot episode of Breaking Bad, of Bryan Cranston’s pants-less, intense-looking Walter White, addressing his family – and by extension, the audience – by saying “My name is Walter Hartwell White. I live at 308 Negra Arroyo Lane, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87104. To all law-enforcement entities, this is not an admission of guilt?" Or Bob Odenkirk’s half-hapless, half-sly Jimmy McGill, aka Saul Goodman, leading a black-and-white half-life in Omaha, Nebraska, as we slowly, inexorably observe the circumstances that have led to his downfall?

If you watched The Paper and, like most of its viewers, remained unimpressed by its comparatively limp updating of The Office – and I’m still haunted by the sheer awfulness of Sabrina Impacciatore’s performance in it – then you’ll be delighted to hear that Tim Robinson’s new show, The Chair Company, which is made by HBO, is the dark workplace comedy that the world needs right now. While it’s too early to say whether it’s a true classic along the lines of The Office, or a less impressive but still enjoyable achievement, it represents another success for Robinson, who is inexorably turning himself into one of the most interesting comedians and writers in the industry.

Since it launched in 2022, Slow Horses has been one of the most reliable television treats for all its four seasons. Based on the excellent novels by Mick Herron, it has focused on a group of “misfits and losers,” as none other than Mick Jagger sings over the credits, who have all been semi-exiled from MI5 for various misdeeds. They have ended up in the purgatory of Slough House, where they are stuck doing various soul-destroying administrative tasks until they quit. The joke is that most of them are good at their jobs (although not without some seriously challenging interpersonal issues), led by Gary Oldman’s superspy Jackson Lamb, whose belching, flatulent and deeply unhygienic exterior belies a razor-sharp mind and a keen grasp of human nature.

The defenestration of the supposed talk show host Jimmy Kimmel, for the inflammatory remarks that he made during the monologue in his show on Monday night about Charlie Kirk, is both an unexpected and deeply predictable development. It was unexpected because Kimmel clearly believed that he was, like Lehman Brothers, “too big to fail,” and was therefore within his rights to make such comments as how “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang trying to characterize this kid who killed Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.” And it was deeply predictable because Kimmel now becomes the latest scalp that the right have seized this year, and perhaps the most high-profile yet.

You won’t be aware of this because the BBC has been keeping it very quiet. But the new Doctor Who is — wait for it — a woman! Let me say straight away that Jodie Whittaker is a delight. Opening as the new Doctor is never easy — all that tiresome establishing rigmarole you have to go through along the lines of ‘I’m feeling all funny. Almost like I’m a completely different actor but in the same body. What can it be? Who am I? Has anyone watching at home worked it out yet?’ But already we like her. Yes, at the moment she’s still a bit of a mishmash of previous Doctors but this will change as she grows into the role.

Ed Balls has become the left’s Michael Portillo, reviled as a politician, now a game, well-loved, almost cuddly TV personality. I met him once on This Week and I was instantly struck by how easy, funny and genuinely likeable he was: as engaging in person as he was totally bloody awful as chancellor. Happily it was the gentle man rather than the leftist bruiser who dominated Travels in Trumpland (BBC2, Sun). One fatuous previewer I read in the papers grumbled that he hadn’t challenged Trumpism enough. Tosh.

Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest series Who Is America? isn’t funny. But then, nor was his terrible 2016 movie The Brothers Grimsby. Nor was his rubbish 2012 film The Dictator. Nor, let’s be honest, were his classic original characters Borat, Brüno or even Ali G. Obviously, they had their moments: the ‘mankini’ — that bizarre, electric green, giant-thong-like swim wear worn by Borat; the classic late-Nineties catchphrase ‘Is it because I is black?’ And sure it must have taken some nerve — even in character — to explain to a clearly impatient and unimpressed Donald Trump his business plan for some anti-drip ice-cream gloves. But how often, even at his best, does Baron Cohen ever make you laugh?

When President Trump refused to take a question from a CNN reporter at the Chequers press conference last week, I imagine a lot of British viewers thought —as Theresa May clearly did — that he was being graceless, capricious and anti-freedom of speech. But I think we’re in danger of underestimating the extent to which the media landscape has changed in the past few years. Gone are the days — if they ever existed — when political interviewers were dispassionate seekers-after-truth on a mission to get the best out of their subjects. Now, it’s mostly activism-driven, the aim being to advance your preferred narrative while showing up your ideological opponents in as unflattering a light as possible.

‘The rule in our household is: if a TV series hasn’t got subtitles, it’s not worth watching,’ a friend told me the other day. Once this approach would have been both extremely limiting and insufferably pompous. In the era of Netflix and Amazon Prime, though, it makes a lot of sense. There’s something about English-speaking TV — especially if it’s made in the US — that tends towards disappointment. Obviously there have been exceptions: The Sopranos; Band of Brothers; Breaking Bad; Game of Thrones. But too often, what’s missing is that shard of ice in the creative heart that drama needs if it’s to be truly exceptional. American drama is a slobbering puppy dog.