It is a terrifying thought that wherever you are in this country, you are never more than six feet away from a podcaster. It used to be a rat, but then some spoilsport crunched the numbers and declared that notion bunkum.

Podcasters, though, really are everywhere. They got in through the streaming services and multiplied on the airwaves, finally making it to mainstream television. New crime drama The Jetty (BBC1, Monday-Tuesday) had a podcaster, and in the opening scenes she introduced herself.

“My name is Riz Samuel and I chase the darkness for a living,” she cooed into the microphone in that special podcaster way.

Local copper Ember Manning was not keen at first on Riz reinvestigating the disappearance of a young woman 17 years ago, but then the cold case began to echo a current investigation.

In both instances, the women were involved with older men. There was a similar age gap between DC Manning and her late husband. and there was nothing suspicious in that, was there?

Written by Cat Jones and set in some unidentified, out of season Lancashire tourist spot, The Jetty seeped into the bones like winter’s chill. While there was nothing we had not seen before in similar crime dramas, there was an edge to the female characters, especially the nicely sarky DC Manning, that kept the viewer on their toes.

Played by Jenna Coleman (Victoria, The Cry), Manning was barely off the screen for the first hour yet she was still a mystery going into part two. Or as she put it to her cop partner, “I’m a riddle, wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in inexpensive office wear.”

The strong casting extended to Riz (the excellent Weruche Opia, the best pal in I May Destroy You) and Amelia Bullmore as Ember’s mum, who just so happened to be psychic (snore). If you could forgive the odd questionable decision and iffy line, this was a surprisingly decent watch.

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Surprising not least because with the wall-to-wall sport on, I had almost forgotten that some programmes did not involve balls being kicked or whacked by racquets.

True, there were footballs in Changing Ends (ITV1, Saturday), but I can forgive Alan Carr’s comedy anything because is sponsored by Greggs (take note, BBC4!). Just as scrumptious was the performance of Oliver Savell, who plays the young Carr. He is so over the top it’s laughable, but in a good way.

The comedy in Changing Ends, now in its second series, is political with the smallest p imaginable, but it gets its point across about difference, and bullies duly receive their comeuppance. Plus the period detail is wonderful. Watching Saturday wrestling with Findus crispy pancake and chips on a tray anyone?

Carr’s co-writer Gabby Best also stars as a catty neighbour, and naturally grabs some of the best lines. “You’ve got very Celtic skin,” she tells Alan’s lovely red-haired mum. “I look at you and I think, ‘bagpipes’.”

Suspect (Channel 4, Wednesday-Thursday) popped up for a second series trailing lots of questions, the first of which was “How on earth did this pile of blancmange ever get commissioned again?”

Agreed, the first series boasted a cast of big names, including Anne-Marie Duff, Richard E Grant, Tamsin Greig, and James Nesbitt, but it was overcooked and unconvincing.

First suspicions fell on Nesbitt, who played a detective investigating the suspicious death of his daughter. Nesbitt is very good in most things, but he occasionally strays into bonkers territory. This seemed like one of these occasions.

Series two took up the tale several weeks after the first run ended. Nesbitt was nowhere to be seen. His ex-wife Susannah (Anne-Marie Duff) was on leave from her psychotherapist’s job, only no one had told the man (Dominic Cooper) who turned up on her doorstep asking for help to stop smoking.

After some faffing the doc agreed. Who was he? Why did she let him in? Why was he behaving so weirdly? Had the writer lost the plot or were we, the viewers, being skilfully drawn into the same state of paranoia as the characters in the drama? Here we go again, all these blooming questions.

Fortunately, Duff was better at getting answers than Nesbitt and for a while the show stayed on the road. With each episode just half an hour long it is possible, and probably advisable, to take Suspect in small doses. Duff is unequivocally great, but I’m halfway through the eight episodes and still don’t know if it’s New York or New Year.

Natalie Portman Natalie Portman (Image: Ian West)

The same goes for Lady in the Lake (Apple TV+), starring Natalie Portman as a housewife turned investigative journalist in 1960s Baltimore. Based on the book by Laura Lippman, it looks the very dab as you would expect from an Apple production, but it doesn’t make it easy for the viewer to work out what is going on.

There are so many timelines running and sub-plots mushrooming I’m going to need one of those special Carrie Mathison/Homeland walls to keep track. The football and tennis were never this complicated.