THE onset of autumn used to signal a rash of quality programming to keep us company during the long winter nights ahead.

Not any more. For the most part, the schedules are as crammed as ever with superficial, lame-brained, sneering shows that serve little purpose save that of momentarily occupying us in that gap between getting home and going to bed. Still, seek and ye shall find...

It was good to see Panorama (BBC1), the Beeb's flagship investigative strain, can still hold its end up in an age of dumbed-down news and shallow, tabloid-style current affairs programmes. Last Sunday, badger-haired reporter Shelley Jofre fronted Taken On Trust, a mature and considered feature on the misinformation surrounding the safety of prescription medicines.

Although, as the likes of Michael Moore have shown, opinionated issues-based film-making has its place, this was a refreshingly classic piece of BBC objectivity exposing serious failings in the system of regulation that is supposed to monitor drug safety.

Over the last two years Panorama has investigated claims that the anti-depressant Seroxat can cause - or exacerbate existing tendencies towards - addiction, self-harm, aggression and even suicide.

The medicines regulator has always denied there was evidence to back these claims, but Jofre unearthed proof that has been in the regulator's archives for more than a decade.

The drug's manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline, was represented; as was the drugs regulator. Both squirmed, as did the viewer when hearing the appalling tales of how some Seroxat users had drifted into a world where their emotional intelligence was so stunted that suicide, self-harm and aggressive behaviour were all too easy for them. And again, when the medical professionals who tried to alert the authorities to their concerns about the drug told how their voices were ignored and their careers blighted by their stance.

It was gripping television - dynamic without being sensationalist; emotive but not sentimental.

The search for quality entertainment requires equal dedication, but in The Sopranos (C4) there's a reliable oasis every Monday night. Well into its fifth series it continues to provide brilliantly written, superbly acted and cleverly directed television that shows the small screen can house great work just as comfortably as the cinema.

Recent guest directors including Peter Bogdanovich and Mike Figgis only add to the show's standing already boosted by the inclusion of big screen actors like Steve Buscemi and Robert Loggia. The storylines have more to do with family matters than the crime world in which they're set as the characters - endlessly flawed to a person - look ever more familiar.

It's usually at this point in the season that The Sopranos begins to play out its own dysfunctional relationship with the audience as stories start to slow up and stall, characters get stuck in a rut and the odd episode puts the brakes on the building tension, but you know - with absolute certainty - it will rally to a rousing finish.

Monday also threw up the shockingly hilarious sight of Never Mind the Buzzcocks (BBC2) host Mark Lamarr pretending to douse himself in petrol and play with a lighter. This after he'd passed petrol cans to pop Svengali Louis Walsh and invited him to torch members of Westlife and Girls Aloud.

Tasteless, rude, politically incorrect, confrontational, Lamarr gets more objectionable (and funnier) with each series - though he has still to surpass his defining mom-ent: informing us the only thing he'd like to see around Ronan Keating is a white chalk outline.

A final word about Grand Designs (C4). It is perhaps the only property programme that isn't about making your house look better than it is or pretending someone else's house isn't as good as it is so you can make/save money.

Wednesday's Grand Designs Abroad found presenter Kevin McCloud charting the progress of a Dublin couple who renovated and converted a 150-year-old derelict church.

He followed his usual formula, but what sets him apart is the sense you get that he appreciates how fortunate he is to see people pursuing and realising their dreams at such close quarters. Positive stuff indeed.

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