Well that’s an odd choice for an opener, thought your previewer as she looked at the line up for the The South Bank Show (Sky Arts, free to view, Wednesday, 10pm).

Frank Skinner scheduled to sit down with Melvyn Bragg the first week, then Helen Mirren, and Carlos Acosta. A stand-up comic topping the bill ahead of an Oscar-winning dame of the acting empire and a choreographer and dancer extraordinaire? I would have gone with Mirren.

But then what do I know? Nothing, clearly. As I should have been aware from watching the telly road trips he and Denise Mina wenton, there is far more to Skinner than fantasy football and the odd mucky joke. As they traced the steps of Wordsworth and Coleridge, Boswell and Johnson, Skinner and Mina wore their serious learning so lightly they were a joy to watch.

Writer, documentary maker, broadcaster and poetry podcaster, Skinner has turned full circle back to his first love, stand-up, and it is this Bragg concentrates on for the most part. It was stand-up that saved Skinner from the drink, making him feel “noble” in a way quipping away on a panel show did not.

Like Bragg, he grew up working class. Dad worked in a factory in the West Midlands and, in an act of uncanny foresight, told his son that getting on the telly was the way to go.

His childhood memories of school, home, and watching wrestling on a Saturday afternoon will chime with many viewers. There’s a Roland Barthes essay you’ve probably read, he ventures to Bragg, that says wrestling is a great morality play.

Bragg smiles. It’s just like you to bring in a French intellectual in a discussion of wrestling, he says. The two are so alike in many ways, but chiefly in their love of learning.

The hour flies by as they chart Skinner’s return to education later in life and the various turns his career took after that. At times he comes close to tears. Bragg is such a skilful interviewer, always knowing when to hang back or press further.

I was late to the party with Better Things (BBC2, Sunday, 10.15pm/10.50pm), but I am so glad to have found it in the end.

Pamela Adlon’s comedy drama about an actor, Sam Fox (no, not that one), bringing up three daughters in current day Los Angeles, is back for a fifth, and reportedly final, series.

Adlon writes, directs and plays Sam, a Generation X-er who likes to think of herself as a strong, independent, capable chick. She is, but as her daughters would testify, she can also be a major league drama queen when the occasion demands it.

Living nearby is Sam’s mother Phyllis, played by Celia Imrie (yes, that one), who is a kook in her own right.

As the new series begins, Sam is in a good place. Her career is on the up, she’s directing and writing as well as acting, and there’s a movie in the works. Her daughters have turned into great young women, “Phil” seems stronger and less confused and forgetful, and Sam’s best friend Rich (Diedrich Bader) is by her side as always. She even has a back-up generator for the next time the power goes out. How sorted and chilled is she? Mercifully it does not last.

Better Things is a winning mix of family soap and sitcom that’s happy and sad, shouty and shallow one minute, and quietly moving the next. Sam can be a Marmite character at first, but to know her is to love her. All previous series are available on iPlayer.

A quick mention in dispatches to Islelanders (BBC Scotland, Monday, 10.30pm, and on BBC iPlayer). One of three BBC iPlayer comedy shorts commissioned by BBC Scotland, it is the tale of two chancers, the aptly named Arran and Lewis (Matthew Mcgill and James MacColl), who like to think they can turn their hand to anything if there is cash in it. Written and directed by Alessio Avezzano and filmed on Arran, Islelanders is short (15 minutes long), very sweet, packed with promise, and deserving of a wider audience. More please.

Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams (BBC1, Tuesday, 8pm) comes to the end of its brief, three part run. The former England cricketer’s attempts to get working class youngsters involved in the sport could have been another “celeb tries his hand at inspirational telly” cringefest.

But Flintoff is a likable sort and he has put his own money where his mouth is. The lads themselves, some of whom have not had the best starts in life, are the real stars here. Flintoff has been afraid throughout that he has taken too much on, and as he puts his team together for another match it is touch and go whether all those who started the project will make it to the end.