WE shall miss Amanda & Alan’s Italian Job (BBC1, Friday). The series, featuring Amanda Holden and Alan Carr buying a derelict house on Sicily for a Euro and bringing it back to life, has been home to the biggest skive in television history.

The pair did occasionally pick up a power tool, but mostly they left everything to Scott the project manager, a man for whom the description “long-suffering” hardly touched the sides. Shopping, days on the beach, sitting in bars: the pair would do anything other than work.

Before they unveiled the finished house (gorgeous) a little local difficulty arose. On the way back from another shopping jaunt the car was stopped by the polizia. We saw nothing of the exchange that followed, but judging by Amanda’s face the local plods were unfamiliar with her oeuvre.

So farewell to the banter, the sunshine, Amanda’s cackle, and Alan just about keeping a lid on his temper. His closing words of wisdom: “It could have been a lot worse."

The light relief was welcome after Desperate Measures (Channel 5, Tuesday-Friday). Amanda Abbington played Rowan, a single mother, bank cashier, and all round good egg doing her best with the iffy hand fate had dealt her. After one thing and another Rowan found herself planning and executing an armed robbery. Such a bore when that happens, but when a gal’s gotta do …

All concerned with Desperate Measures should be commended for sticking with the increasingly deranged plot. At times the loopy twists and improbable turns took the drama close to “so bad it’s good” territory, and by the end of the four, hour-long episodes I was cheering for the hapless Rowan. Or maybe I was just relieved it was over.

The same went for You and Me (ITVX/STV Player, Thursday), which promised much and delivered mush. Harry Lawtey (excellent in Industry) played Ben, a young Northerner living in London who meets the woman of his dreams while sprinting for a bus.

Alas, it’s downhill from there as Ben suffers even more outrageous bad luck than Rowan in Desperate Measures. When even his misfortune is in danger of running out another character with a tragic past is thrown into the pit of doom.

The cast, including Julie Hesmondhalgh, ex of Corrie, was grand but the direction was comically manipulative, and the whole shooting match about as subtle as Punch and Judy. There was one bright moment when Ben, a features writer, said he made a living out of one column and an interview a week. Hilarious.

Beyond Paradise (BBC1, Friday) deserved a couple of stars for being “no better than it ought to be”, as they used to say on Coronation Street. A spin-off from Death in Paradise, this light comedy caper was precision engineered to be Friday night, switch your brain to standby, viewing.

DI Humphrey Goodman and fiancee Martha (Kris Marshall and Sally Bretton) have left paradise, and London, for the not too shabby environs of a small village in Devon.

The fictional Shipton Abbott, being the usual sleepy backwater with a murder rate comparable to 1970s New York, DI Goodman is soon on the trail of a wrong ‘un who pushed a lady off a ladder. Suspects include a 17th century witch, back from the dead to have her revenge. It was that kind of show.

A sub-plot involving Humphrey and Martha’s fraught attempts to have a baby ensured the hour wasn’t all chintz and chuckles. If you are allergic to Marshall’s Hugh Grant, accident-prone, style of acting, steer clear. Otherwise, it was easy-osey enough viewing, with Alan Partridge’s Lynn (Felicity Montagu) as the station manager, and Barbara Flynn as Martha’s mum.

There were sure to be tears before bedtime when The Supervet Safari Special (Channel 4, Thursday) rolled up. Noel Fitzpatrick can break hearts treating a chihuahua in Surrey, never mind an orphan rhino in South Africa.

Young Khaleesi had been mauled by hyenas and one of his back feet was in a terrible state (courage mes amis, courage). He had a special boot that allowed him to walk, but his human mates wondered if Noel could do better. No spoilers as to what happened next.

Same goes for the next patients, a tiger and a lion, their limbs deformed by years of cruelty. Enough to say it was Prof Noel’s turn to get emotional when his stay was over. It was going to be hard to go home, he said. No wonder, given the attractions, including stroking the head of a lion (anaesthetized of course). “Truly, mind-blowingly gorgeous,” purred Noel.

Home did have its attractions, mind. Say what you like about tetchy chihuahuas, you generally don’t have to fear them ripping your head off if they wake early from an operation.