On television this Christmas

In what has steadily become a season of bank-breaking budgets and divisive dramas, there’s plenty to squabble about this year.

On top of the pile, Christmas Day sees the anticipated return of BBC’s Doctor Who (BBC1, December 25, 7.30pm), which, with more questions to answer than a post-pig out game of Trivial Pursuit, features the arrival of Peter Capaldi in the title role. Famed for his turn as political shin-kicker Malcolm Tucker in Armando Iannucci’s fantastic The Thick of It, Whovian eyes across the nation will be wondering whether Capaldi can bring the same gusto to a much more family-focused format.

It won’t be easy, with fans already wondering how writer Steven Moffat and co are going to solve a riddle that has been raging for 50 years: “The 12 regenerations limit is a central part of Doctor Who mythology,” Moffat told one interviewer after John Hurt showed up in the 50th-birthday episode and confounded us all by making Matt Smith the final Doctor. “Science fiction is all about rules, you can’t just casually break them.”

How’s Moffat going to get round that one then? Is Capaldi even going to be a Doctor? We shall see.

On New Year’s Day, Benedict Cumberbatch in Sherlock (BBC1, January 1, 9pm) will no doubt be facing a similar grilling from his onscreen sidekick Dr John Watson (great name), played by Martin Freeman, as to why he allowed everyone near and dear to him to believe he’d snuffed it after a rooftop showdown with Moriarty at the end of the last series.

How did he survive that fall? Producers are very tight-lipped on that front, but they have promised a new love interest for Watson who, it seems, should be a welcome antidote to our lead man’s shameless know-it-all narcissism on Baker Street.

And, as if writing for both Doctor Who and Sherlock wasn’t enough, it doesn’t stop there for Mark Gatiss, who also makes his directorial debut with an adaptation of MR James’ The Tractate Middoth (BBC2, December 25, 9.30pm). It promises to be a mystery complete with everything we like at this time of year – ghosts, apparitions and menaces, and lots of them. Gatiss then complements this by paying homage to the aforementioned horror writer with the documentary MR James – Ghost Writer (BBC2, December 25, 10.05pm). In this programme, Gatiss retraces the life of James, from his time at Eton to his tenure at King’s College, Cambridge, where the author apparently developed that appetite for gloomy cloisters and echoing libraries.

After last year’s controversial move to kill off a major character in a car crash on Christmas

Day, ITV has promised much sunnier climes for the people of Downton Abbey (ITV, December 25, 8.30pm) this time around. Well, at least in terms of the weather, that is – the special will be set in the sunshine, as the Crawley family heads to its London residence for summer. That brings with it the delicious prospect of another face-off between the incomparable Maggie Smith and Shirley MacLaine, as Martha Levinson. Meanwhile, Lord Grantham will be joined by his wearisome brother-in-law Harold, played by the always-magnetic and rubber-faced Paul Giamatti, continuing ITV’s growing appeal to big hitters from across the pond who keep popping up in period dramas.

More doughy-eyed nostalgia for the bygones arrives in the shape of Death Comes to Pemberley (BBC1, December 26, 8.15pm) an adaptation of PD James’ ‘sequel’ to Pride and Prejudice that picks things up six years after the end of Jane Austen’s novel and recasts the story as a murder mystery.

Apart from the obvious allure of Matthew Rhys as Darcy and Anna Maxwell Martin as Elizabeth, it is the chance to see Jenna Coleman (Matt Smith’s former assistant in Doctor Who) in a whole new light that has tongues wagging. Why? She’s playing Lydia, the youngest of the Bennet girls, and apparently had James herself hooked when the author visited the set. “The director’s note was, ‘We should want to slap you in the face’,” Coleman has said. “I just couldn’t say no to it.” Indeed, and nor should you.

Of course, none of this is likely to keep the kids entertained, which is where David Walliams’ Gangsta Granny comes in (BBC1, December 26, 6.05pm). Just like Mr Stink last year, this adaptation of his children’s bestseller promises to be a similarly star-studded affair that sees the likes of Miranda Hart – who also pops up in a Christmas encore of Call the Midwife (BBC1, December 25, 6.15pm) – Rob Brydon, Joanna Lumley, the author himself and Robbie Williams. Together, the cast looks like a mob of professional tan hunters – Walliams and Hart play parents obsessed with Strictly Come Dancing. Their son, Ben, embarks on an adventure with his granny after discovering she is an international jewel thief. With the Strictly Come Dancing final airing just a few days earlier (BBC1, December 21, 6.30pm), the timing couldn’t be better.

Other highlights include a Christmas special of The Great British Bake Off (BBC2, December 23, 6.30pm), and the divisive Mrs Brown’s Boys (BBC1, December 25, 9.30pm), which, despite its critics, drew a whopping 11 million viewers over the festivities last time around. And then there’s ITV’s airing of the final pieces of the Harry Potter puzzle The Deathly Hallows Parts 1 and 2 (ITV, December 26, 7.15pm, and January 1, 2014, 8pm), a new Agatha Christie’s Marple (ITV, December 29, 8pm), and Sky1’s new flagship family drama Moonfleet (Sky1, December 28-29, 8pm), starring Ray Winstone as the leader of a band of 17th-century smugglers.

But the last word, surely, has to go to the return of David Jason as Granville in the all-new Still Open All Hours (BBC1, December 26, 7.45pm). He has now inherited the shop from his uncle and invites us all in to have a look around and sing the changes. P-p-p-p-perfect.