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I keep hearing that mainstream television as we once knew it is on its last legs, doomed, dying, divided into micro-slivers of multiple channels all strangling each other like weeds in an overgrown border. Hmm. I'm not so sure. I think there's life in the old dog yet. The old established TV channels still have the power to bring us together, whether it's to engage, enrage, or inform. Take this week. Two new series, both utterly different yet both dominating the national conversation (when it wasn't focused on the soap 'Downing Street'). One heart-wrenchingly, devastatingly impactful and capable of bringing the blood to boiling-point - the other a fabulous comedy, crammed with terrific lines and even more terrific performances.

Believe Me was in the first of those categories. ITV1's dramatisation of the crimes of John Worboys, the so-called Black Cab Rapist, was a bleak triumph. Darker and even more impactful than the same channel's Mr Bates versus the Post Office, Believe Me threw a pitiless light on how women who report genuine - and terrible - sex crimes to the police can find the odds horribly stacked against them.

Worboy drugged his victims with champagne laced with sedatives he'd ground up at home earlier. He convinced the young women travelling alone in the back of his London cab late at night that he'd just won big at the casino, and insisted they toast his success.

When they initially declined, he was insistent. 'What's the matter wiv yer? Go on! Drink up! Do it for me - I'm driving, so I can't 'av one! That's my girl! Get it dahn yer!''

It was repellent to see Worboys (played sleazily and convincingly by Daniel Mays) operating his filthy con trick. And yes, my blood boiled when the women he went on to rape, in their semi-conscious state, were routinely disbelieved and dismissed by police.

One was even asked: 'You're wearing red nail varnish... are you the type of woman who wears red nail varnish?', whatever the hell that meant.

In the end of course, Worboys was nabbed and jailed. But the drama made clear that he was allowed to continue his foul, predatory behaviour far longer than he should have been. It was strong, quietly campaigning stuff and all credit to ITV for commissioning it.

Meanwhile series two of Amandaland on BBC1, starring the peerless Lucy Punch as the would-be-influencer and hopeless social climber, is a sheer joy.

Spotting a trendy new coffee bar that's just opened in the downmarket area of London she's been forced to move to post-divorce, Amanda glowed with misplaced self-awarded credit. 'She came, she saw, she gentrified,' she purred.

What is now rather quaintly referred to as 'terrestrial TV' - i.e. the BBC, ITV, C4 and C5 - can still corner the viewing market. It's also known as free-to-view - but it's not, is it?

We have to buy a TV licence and all that dosh goes straight to the Beeb. That's Richard's bete noire, though. I'm sure he'll bang on about it again soon.

So, the consensus this week seems to be that the new Tess Daly is NOT, er, Zoe Ball, Alex Jones, Angela Scanlon, Miranda Hart, (the list goes on for pages). No, Tess's replacement on Strictly is, by common media consent (though as yet unconfirmed by the Beeb): Emma Willis.

Most newspapers agree that Emma, a mum of three, 50, and an established TV host (Big Brother, The Voice UK, Loose Women, This Morning) came through the middle of the pack and nailed her audition for the Beeb's Saturday night big-hitter. Well good luck to you, Ems. You don't have anything to prove. You'll be brilliant.