IT is the sort of experience you probably have to laugh at, after you are done crying, that is. One of many memories set out in Paula (Channel 4, Monday-Tuesday, 9pm), a two-part documentary about Paula Yates, concerns something a tabloid sent her by accident (or so they said). It was a page proof of her obituary, headlined “Suicide blonde”.

“It’s kind of a weird feeling that everyone’s waiting for you to die,” says the writer and broadcaster in a previously unheard interview. The journalist who spoke to her is part of a band of friends and admirers lining up to pay tribute to Yates and mourn her death at the age of 41.

To fellow writer Grace Dent, who grew up watching Yates on The Tube and The Big Breakfast, she was a role model. “She was everything, all plates spinning at once, everything a modern woman could be.”

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Her ascent to front page status was followed by a brutal plunge when the tabloids turned on her for leaving one rock star, Bob Geldof, for another, Michael Hutchence. Instead of a happy start to a new life, Yates’s troubles were in many ways just beginning.

Even in the multi-channel age there is still event TV to be found: must-see programmes that stand out from the rest, the kind of shows that make people watch television the old-fashioned way – together, even if it is only on social media.

The start of Wild Isles (BBC1, Sunday, 7pm) qualifies as such an occasion. For a start, it’s an Attenborough production so you know the visuals will be world class.

It is also his first to focus on the British Isles rather than abroad.

Plus, where else in the schedules can you see a 96-year-old still putting in a full shift?

Still, we have Springwatch and Autumnwatch and any number of domestic programmes focusing on domestic flora and fauna. Do we really need an Attenborough on top?

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As if to counter such criticism (which surely counts as treason), Wild Isles presents its headline offerings early.

After signing up with Sir David to “celebrate the wonder of these islands that we call home”, it’s off to Muckle Flugga in search of Orcas.

Killer whales return to this spot in the Shetland Islands each spring to feed on the area’s many seals. Even though the prey is everywhere it is still a job to catch them. It’s no mean feat to film them either, as we see from the usual “how we made this” section at the end of the programme.

Watching this particular pod in action makes for a thrilling if ultimately grisly spectacle. Not for the faint-hearted, as is the sequence showing a female dormouse searching for food while an owl waits nearby.

Scotland gets a good showing in the first episode, with trips to the Cairngorms to see golden eagles and Bass Rock, aka gannet central. With four more hour-long episodes to come I expect Sir David and his team will be back in these parts before long.

Paying no heed to the arctic weather, TV starts its great spring clean this week, with several series reaching their end and being sorted into piles for dumping and recommissioning.

With great self-restraint I’ve managed not to binge on Couples Therapy (BBC2, Friday). Now there’s only one episode of New Yorker naval-gazing left. How will we cope? This third series has shown there is no end of people willing to bare their souls in front of a camera. Enthralling as the sessions are it’s still the enigmatic Dr Guralnik who fascinates most of all.

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Parting is going to be such sweet sorrow when Endeavour (STV, Sunday, 8pm) departs. Everything about this final series has been just right, from performances to plots.

After a pause for the news, the show is sent off in style with Morse and the Last Endeavour (STV, Sunday, 10.20pm), a behind the scenes look at the making of the show.

What did we think of Better (BBC1, Monday, 9pm) in the end? Well, it got, er, better after a slow start but the central riddle, the relationship between Lou and Col, cop and gangster (Leila Farzad and Andrew Buchan), still doesn’t entirely convince. Would she really place her family and career in jeopardy for so long? Now it’s the finale, when all has to be revealed.

Just like that we have reached The Piano: The Final (Channel 4, Wednesday, 9pm). This is one show that is surely going to get the commissioning editor’s big tick of approval and another series.

Having amazed judges Lang Lang and Mika, and passengers at railway stations from London St Pancras to Glasgow Central, it is time for the winners of each heat to perform at the Royal Festival Hall. To see the concert in full, head over to More 4 at 10.15pm.

I feel butterflies already.