The Secret Millionaire
on Channel 4

Despite making you stay up later than you originally intended, late-night phone-in quiz-telly shows have a habit of inducing despair. It’s part of their ploy to get more calls, but you can’t help screaming at your telly amidst the endless stream of witless wonders calling in. It feels dramatically unfair, when some monosyllabic moron with a living room of whooping idiots chances it and wins.

Coming as some kind of antidote to these haunting unwarranted prize fiestas, The Secret Millionaire aims to give money to people who really deserve it. This show arrives from a similar starting point as 12 Yard’s Without Prejudice format and quite frankly it’s good to see focus returning to the concept of a deserving winner.

Each week, a different wealthy and powerful ‘Secret Millionaire’ goes undercover in some of the country’s most deprived areas. They conceal their full identity and immerse themselves in the local community, with the aim of identifying the most deserving people to whom they will offer their time, their expertise and most of all - tens of thousands of pounds of their own money.

The ‘Secret Millionaire’ joins the community for two weeks, making new friends, meeting the local residents, taking on new jobs and even doing voluntary work - all with a view to deciding who are the most deserving. At the end of their visit, these modern day philanthropists reveal their true identities to those they’d like to help. When knowingly competing for cash, people tend to whoop annoyingly - in this case the arrival of fitting good fortune will surely come with understated surprise… and a warm glowing feel within even the most hardened viewer.

The Lookey Likey Show
on ITV2

Ever believe Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie would tie the knot in a two-star British hotel? No neither would I, but some wazzocks did! Or could you believe that George W Bush would check into a £40-per-night room in Manchester? Again, they found a plonker who’d fall for it. ITV2’s brand new hidden camera show borrows a bit from Double Take, pulling the wool over the eyes of the public by bringing them face-to-face with famous celebrities - who we presume don’t talk much so as not to give the game away. Strange people exist and strange things happen in the world of showbiz and celebrity, and the British public, it would appear, are willing to accept it. A crack team of celebrity look-a-likes have been working undercover to fool victims (or victimize fools) up and down the country. It’s as yet unclear whether the entertainment will come from the bizarre nature of the set-ups or the stupidity of their prey - but it should be a nice lightweight laugh.

Saturday Night Live
on ITV4

This US institution has been broadcast on American TV almost every Saturday night since its debut in 1975. It is one of the longest running entertainment programmes in American history and now we finally get to see it regularly with ITV4 broadcasting episodes two or three weeks after they have aired in the States.

Featuring sketches and parodies, all Saturday Night Live cast members are expected to write as well as perform. It has been the launch pad for many a Hollywood star’s career. Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy, Billy Crystal, Mike Myers, Robert Downey Jr, Ben Stiller and Chris Rock all made their names on the show and several Saturday Night Live sketches have spawned box office successes, most notably The Blues Brothers and Wayne’s World.

Man to Man with Dean Learner
on Channel 4

Live from his luxury apartment in London’s glittering East End, Dean Learner: club owner, celebrity manager, restaurateur, entrepreneur and publisher of high-class gentlemen’s magazines (including Flesh Wrangler and Skin City), invites you to meet some of his closest friends, Man to Man.

Mr Learner is delighted to host a series of exclusive, in-depth discussions with six of the most monumental names in the world of The Arts and Entertainment; towering figures of the industry whom, entirely coincidentally, he also represents (In his capacity as producer of Man to Man with Dean Learner, sole owner of Deano’s After Dark Productions and manager of the clients appearing thereon, Dean Learner acknowledges that there is a potential conflict of interest between his private business concerns and his duty to Channel 4 in providing high-quality, un-biased programming). All are apparently men of substance and erudition; heroic pioneers within their chosen fields… despite the fact the only one you may have heard of is Garth Marenghi and he’s made up. Created by Perrier award nominees Richard Ayoade and Matthew Holness, the show ‘offers an oasis of culture and sophistication in the rancid scrubland of depravity that passes for modern television’. As Dean himself says: “I see this show as a shimmering beacon of refinement and class. It’s my legacy. My The Hay Wain. My Bat Out of Hell.”

Never Did Me Any Harm
on Channel 4

Having recently endured the frustration of Ian Wrights Unfit (and obscenely fat) Kids, Jamie’s Return to School Dinners and Family Brat Camp, I have loudly advised my telly on several occasions that surely the best way to deal with these ‘little angels’ is with a slap. In fact a couple of times I’m sure I prescribed a punch in the face, or tying them up and leaving them in a corner - but that’s probably why a few more years should pass before I become a parent. As we all inevitably get older, we amass our own selection of ageing jibes towards the moaning, miserable, misbehaving minors we see before us.

As I think Churchill said; Britain’s kids have never had it so good. But many parents are wondering if material riches, such as TVs in every bedroom and the latest electronic gadgets, are really so good for their offspring. Never Did Me Any Harm sadly doesn’t show us lots of spoilt teenagers taking hits and getting caned (they probably do enough of that already!), but rather gives the parents a chance to put the theory to the test.

Much like That’ll Teach ‘Em but at home, in this intriguing four-part series four families travel back in time to the childhoods of the 1950s, 60s, 70s and 80s, enabling the children to live as their parents once did. But what happens when you take the 21st Century away? Out goes the mobile, iPod, and multi-channel TV; in their place the kids get paper-rounds, choir practice, chores and home-cooking.

Will these individuals be re-made as a family unit? And will the parents be strong enough to impose the kind of discipline they experienced as kids? And will you be able to cope with watching all the inevitable tantrums?

Never Mind The Buzzcocks
on BBC2

After ten years Mark Lamarr has gone off to be sarcastic somewhere else, so following the success of his guest presenter role last series, stand-up comic and former Popworld star-botherer Simon Amstell is to be the new host of Never Mind the Buzzcocks.

At the start of his one episode hosting stint in March he gallantly stated: “If you think I’m a bad booking, you should see this week's guests!”

Simon now says: “I hope I can be the one exception to the universal, exceptionless rule that when a new host takes over an old show it is a horrible embarrassing disaster. It’s going to be great! Woo!”

Apart from the man in the middle, it’s basically more of the same, Bill Bailey and Phill Jupitus continue as team captains, joined each week by celebrity guests showing off their musical trivia and demonstrating why pop music should never be taken too seriously.

Viewers can expect more anarchic and unpredictable musical shenanigans, regular features such as ‘intros’ and ‘identity parade’ and, of course, with Amstell now on board even more celebrity ribbing.