George Gently

BBC One, 8pm

While US police series such as The Wire (back tomorrow on the FX channel) and The Shield snarl their way through the urban jungle with ferocious naturalism, British police serials on the whole are far more sedate affairs. Like Morse and Foyle, Detective George Gently (Martin Shaw) is a wry melancholic, honourable to a fault and going about his business at a measured pace, surrounded by ripe characters and immaculately laundered costumes. Tonight, Gently investigates the murder of a German pharmaceutical magnate and looks on with long-suffering weariness as his wayward subordinate (Lee Ingleby) continues to cut corners. It is for viewers who prefer Ovaltine to tequila slammers.

The Seven Wonders of the Muslim World

Channel 4, 7.30pm

The subject-matter could scarcely be more important. Despite having more than one billion followers worldwide, Islam continues to be misunderstood in the West, but Channel 4 – to its great credit – is committed to chipping away at the misconceptions, even if its ratings suffer as a result.

This documentary looks at seven of the architectural wonders of Islam in Mecca, Jerusalem, Istanbul, Mali, Granada, Isfahan and Lahore. It describes their beauty and symbolism; it examines each of the five pillars of Islam that Muslims adhere to, and it follows four pilgrims from around the world as they journey to Mecca. Nobody watching this programme is likely to be sitting on the edge of his or her seat, but that doesn’t detract from its value.

Midsomer Murders

ITV1, 8pm

There are much darker goings-on in Midsomer tonight. The story begins in Honeysuckle Cottage, where a passing psychic on a bicycle discovers two dead bodies. “I can sense what happened here, Inspector,” she tells Barnaby. “And it won’t be the last.” What’s more, she’s right. As the body count steadily rises, men in masks conceal themselves in the shadows; the dead come back to haunt the living; dreadful secrets lay concealed at the bottom of a well; strange creatures lurk in dark cellars, and children behave like the savages in Lord of the Flies.

If this carries on, it won’t be long before Lynda la Plante and Quentin Tarantino are asked to guest-direct an episode. Come to think of it, that would be fun.

Top Gear

BBC Two, 8pm

There was a time when you could buy a grandfather clock or a tower of oversized Wharfedale speakers for next to nothing because nobody wanted these giants taking over their homes. Same thing with cars. Jeremy Clarkson and James May – who, it is probably fair to say, have never put petrol consumption at the very top of their list of anxieties – cruise around in the elderly luxury cars they bought for the price of a Ford Mondeo.

In the same programme, the Nissan GT-R (described by its chief engineer Kazutoshi Mizuno as “among the fastest mass-production cars in the world”) is put through its paces at the notorious Fuji Circuit in Japan, while Peter Jones and Theo Paphitis of Dragons’ Den fame whiz around in this week’s Reasonably Priced Car.

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