DON’T ask me who H is. I haven’t a clue. With one episode of Line of Duty to go on Sunday night, it could be H from Steps for all I know.

One of the pleasures of the weekly wait for the latest episode of Jed Mercurio’s police drama are the theories that swirl around it. The inevitable debriefing and theorising that fills Twitter and even the odd podcast (the actor Craig Parkinson, who played the corrupt cop Matthew “Dot” Cottan in series one to three hosts Obsessed with … Line of Duty every week). That and the inevitable Gogglebox take. But, to be honest, I’m much more of a passive watcher. I figure I’ll find out in due course.

When it comes to Line of Duty, I must admit I’m also one of those “I liked the early stuff” types. It’s never been better than the first two series, if you ask me. But after a bit of a dip in quality last time around, the current season is perfectly entertaining if a bit (OK, a lot) unbelievable.

It’s also proved a reminder that the idea of “appointment TV” isn’t quite dead. A record-breaking 11 million tuned in last Sunday night. Quite impressive in the current multi-channel broadcasting environment.

Living in a house with one daughter in her early twenties and another still in her teens I’m used to the call of binge-watching. Whole seasons of New Girl, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Buffy the Vampire Slayer can pass before the eyes in a couple of days.

I’ve answered it myself from time to time. I hoovered up Call My Agent! on Netflix in short order and I watched the entire run of Rose Matafeo’s funny and very sweet new BBC Three sitcom Starstruck, currently available on the iPlayer, in a oner (it’s just six, short episodes, so perfectly doable).

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Terrestrial TV schedulers have tried all sorts of options for keeping us engaged with their output. Stripping dramas across weeknights (ITV’s favourite gambit), or screening the first episode and then sticking the rest up online (Channel 4’s regular approach for its international drama purchases).

But there is something in the anticipation of the weekly wait for the latest episode of a show you’re keen on. Partly it’s nostalgic for those of us over 40 (well over in some cases) who grew up with this pattern of watching. But it also offers a structure to our viewing habits, one that may have meant more over the last year when days have blurred into each other and we’ve been confined to our sofas for so much of the time.

If anything, social media is an amplifier of the appointment TV model of broadcasting. It’s on display during live sport coverage from the Six Nations to the Champions League. (Disappointingly, we have been robbed of the pleasure of tweeting along to Eurovision in the last couple of years.)

But you can also see it every week when the hashtag #TOTP regularly trends on Twitter as people ritualistically slag off 31-year-old repeats of bad music TV and yet masochistically come back for more the following week (snooker permitting, of course).

And, as a result, the ubiquity of the #lineofduty hashtag is a reminder that streaming has not yet killed off traditional broadcasters. The licence fee may have some life in it yet.