There have been so many retrospectives with Billy Connolly, most using the same old clips. So kudos to the team behind In My Own Words: Billy Connolly (BBC1, Monday) for venturing further than *that* joke on Parkinson and “An Audience With”. The effort paid off in Connolly’s responses and generated a few revelations besides.

When he was the subject of This is Your Life, for example, one of those paying tribute was introduced as a fellow worker alongside Connolly in the shipyards, the one who gave him the nickname “the Big Yin” no less.

As the clip played of the chap coming through the This is Your Life doors, the Connolly of today shot forward in his seat. “That guy was a total fraud!” he shouted. “I didn’t know him, he came on and bluffed it.” Connolly decided to play along and not to “blow it” for the man, but he found it creepy.

He was fiercely critical of some early performances, including one from 1973 of a “Song for Glasgow” competition, but then he liked a few lines and warmed to the moment after all.

Filmed at home in Florida, Connolly was rocking the full Old Testament, Moses from Govan look. More than a decade on from his diagnosis with Parkinson’s, the physical decline is marked. Yet mentally he seems sharper, more reflective. Generous too in his praise of others: Peter Kay was a “genius”, the late Robin Williams “the best ever”.

Programmes like this prompt mixed feelings. While confirming what a gift Connolly is to Scotland and the world, they are also a reminder of the day he won’t be around. Until then, enjoy.

Moving on with all the grace of a hippo on roller skates, one little fella who almost wasn’t around any more was Colin from Accounts (BBC2, Tuesday). If you have yet to be introduced, Colin is a border terrier who was hit by a car. The humans involved in the accident, Ashley and Gordon (writer-actors Patrick Brammal and Harriet Dyer) fell for Colin and each other, but mostly for Colin.

The first series was a word-of-mouth smash. It might have been insufferably cutesy and emotionally manipulative (did I mention Colin needs a chariot gizmo to get around?), but its sheer ocean-going Aussieness, including lots of swearing, kept it right.

Delighted to say the second series delivers more of the same. If the gag-packed script, solid characters and unashamed silliness don’t win you over, there’s always Colin in close-up, his fur blowing in the wind. Missed you, mate.

Also returning, and not before time, was Slow Horses (Apple TV+). Like spy boss and demon farter Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), series four didn’t faff around with introductions, preferring to get straight down to another case of secret service skullduggery that somehow falls to Lamb and his team of “rejects” to solve.

This remains Oldman’s show first and last, but everyone has a chance to shine. Since the action was moving to France, Lamb had the chance to show off his language skills. “You know me,” he said. “When am I not full of joie de ******* vivre?” Exactly.

“This is the story of a comedian who played the president, and then became the real president, of Ukraine.” The intro to The Zelensky Story (BBC2, Wednesday) was like the film that followed - punchy, to the point, with a wry nod to the stranger than fiction nature of the situation.

The first of three parts followed the young Zelensky and the older Putin as the lives of the KGB man and the cheeky performer converged. It was fascinating to see how much the pair had changed, yet the essentials remained the same: Zelensky fearless in the face of a power that could potentially crush him, Putin the hard-faced upholder of the established order.

We saw rare archive footage of Putin actually smiling while watching a satirical show, but it was the same grin/grimace Donald Trump wore that time he was teased mercilessly by Obama in front of the press.

Telling, too, that so many friends have stuck by Zelensky down the years, and lined up to pay tribute to him. One said he trusted the former comic turned commander because he had “a lucky star” that leads and helps him. He certainly needs one.

The Perfect Couple (Netflix) followed the example of The White Lotus in having terrific fun at the expense of the rich and famous, and those unlucky enough to be their lackeys. Nicole Kidman played Greer, whose wealth could be traced back five generations, making her near as dammit royalty in Nantucket. One of the queen’s sons is to be wed in the family home, a place described by one observer as “just a cosy $40 million cottage by the sea.”

The story starts with the discovery of a body and spools back from there, Big Little Lies-style. The money spent is there on screen, and I don’t just mean La Kidman and her usual wispy gorgeousness. Dramedys like this will get old in time, but not yet, and not with this one.