This week we welcome back to the small screen a pair of relative new starts named Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks. Something in the movies, I believe. Now and then the pair like to slum it on television with a war drama, the latest being Masters of the Air (Apple TV+).

Not that you would describe anything with a reported budget of $250 million as slumming it. That’s almost as much as The Crown cost, but it stretched to six series compared to Masters’ nine episodes.

Based on the book by Donald L Miller, Masters of the Air follows the path set by Band of Brothers and The Pacific in focusing on one company, in this case the 100th Bomb Group. The mission, says one, is to “bring the war to Hitler’s doorstep”.

The tale opens with Major “Bucky” Egan (Callum Turner, War and Peace) having a farewell drink with his pal Major “Buck” Cleven (Austin Butler, Elvis). Like the rest of the company the pair look impossibly young.

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Much of the first episode is taken up with introductions to who’s who and what’s what, which makes for a slow start. There is a long list of faces and names to remember.

But then the clouds part and the first mission takes to the skies. It is here that Masters comes unto its own, with the viewer right there in the plane as the crews battle subzero temperatures, mechanical failure, and the enemy.

The battle scenes are spectacular and unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. I did rather wish, though, that I was watching it on the biggest screen possible.

George Clarke: Adventures in Americana (Channel 4, Sunday) found the architect and presenter fulfilling a childhood dream. He was travelling through the US primarily to talk about the buildings, but he also covered the food, design, history, people, anything he fancied really.

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Fizzing with enthusiasm is what endears Clarke to viewers and the anxious homeowners he is usually steering through a nightmare build. With America being the land of thrills he was in his element, which did become exhausting after a while. He made good on his promise of introducing us to the architecture and design, making this more than just another “celeb does America” travelogue.

Wilderness with Simon Reeve (BBC2, Sunday) found another of television’s good eggs doing his sunny side up thing. With 20 years of travelling behind him, often to some of the world’s trickiest spots, Reeve knows an easy and polite manner, and a sense of humour, can take a person a long way.

But even he was finding it hard going as he hacked his way through the rainforest in Congo, the first stop on a four-part tour of the world’s remaining wildernesses. Waist deep in swamp water, the heat and humidity were punishing enough. “This is bloody mad,” he said. “I don’t know if we’re going to make it.”

Then the snakes and insects got to work, every one of them seemingly hell-bent on biting, stinging and generally feasting on the travellers. I’ll never complain about midges again (clegs yes, because they are evil, but midges no).

“Beauty and wonder still exist,” said Reeve at the end of the hour. There was a taster of next week’s episode in Patagonia where our hero could be seen walking along a terrifyingly narrow mountain path. In the words of Salt-N-Pepa, what a man.

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Someone has been mad enough to make a television series out of Sexy Beast, the British gangster classic, and got a right slap for their trouble. Forgive the money cockney but if you had sat through several episodes of Sexy Beast (Paramount+, from Friday) you too might have a bad case of the Chas and Daves.

Certainly it was cheesy in parts. The dialogue was whiffy, and the sex scenes naff. The violence was off the chart brutal, as seems increasingly the case in crime drama. When did everything get so nasty? Is there some kind of violence inflation at work, a competition to see who can go furthest over the line?

But I can forgive any drama in which Tamsin Greig plays a bottle blonde hard nut who effs and jeffs as if her life depended on it. They breed ‘em tough in The Archers. Gawd knows what Brian will say.

Besides Greig, it was left to Scots actors James McArdle and Emun Elliott to save the day. For the most part they do.

No one was going to match Ray Winston and Ben Kingsley, but McArdle and Elliott bring their own take on the characters to the table. Elliott had the hardest time with Don’s way of speaking, coming across as nasal and whiny. He would have been better advised not to even try. McArdle, though, was spot on as charismatic Gal, his accent and attitude perfect. What a find he is.