Thank God (or Brian Cox, if you’re not the religious type) that we’re out of that critical mid-February telly slump.

Not meaning to sound like an old bag but modern life (ie February 2015) can be pretty depressing if you take the lead from your screen.

The telly, which is usually a friend to the lonely, fed-up and single, does not seem to offer much joy at this time of year.

If you’re not trying to dodge the soul-shredding global barbarism shoved at you from every news channel or navigate a half term without relying too much on the show-as-childcare parenting model, there are slim pickings, entertainment-wise.

So, if you too accidentally watched Car Crash Britain: Caught on Camera on ITV1 last week (now on catch-up, but, really, do not go there), I sympathise.

In a world a little too hyped up on rage, this programme stoked the beast, with its jaw-dropping footage of real-life road smashes and near-misses. You know that sickening horror you feel when you watch a kid step into a road without looking? When you watch two drivers lose their rags and start brawling in the street, sparked off by some minor shunt? This show is like that, accelerated to such nightmarish proportions that you might never want to step into a car again. The footage is collected from various cameras now installed in vehicles, cyclists’ helmets and at crossings and presented in cut-and-shut relay, like a Driver’s Special edition of You’ve Been Framed, without the laughs.

Another miseryfest I hope you did not catch (and a classic example of the awful February fodder on telly) is Eat Well For Less? which is made by the BBC, which should know better. Although Gregg Wallace and his presenter pals claimed to be on a mission to save us all from being swallowed by their grocery bills, good intentions and no imagination do not good entertainment make. Unless your idea of entertainment is watching two middle-aged men rifling through the contents of a family’s freezer and decanting beans into a pan.

At least now we can praise the lord that Valentine’s Day is long gone for another year, right?

Up until that mid-February milestone, television turns against the singleton.

With the arrival of Fifty Shades of Grey in cinemas, you have hardly been able to switch on the telly without having someone remind you of dreadful commercial telly claptrap.

Philip Schofield was even testing nipple clamps on This Morning recently, which is something no one, least of all the bondage industry, needs. Every single February, I wonder why I haven’t yet ever fulfilled my long-held, life-enhancing plan to book a cheap, sunny holiday.

And, every single February, I’m broke, having spent all my cash on heating bills, languishing in the cold, dark purgatory that is Britain before the spring.

So, I’m very grateful that some of the telly big guns start arriving about now – not least Indian Summers, on Channel 4 on Sunday nights for ten weeks.

This arrived like the most colourful splash of exoticism into our dreary lives, filling the previous Downton Abbey slot nicely.

Set in the Himalayan hill station of Simla, in March 1932, this slow-burning drama, starring Julie Walters, is all sun, sex and scandal and the budget (reputedly a massive £14million) is a Sunday treat that makes you feel special.

And, also, the aforementioned Brian Cox. He’s back, this time in BBC2’s Wonders of the Universe, hotter than the sun and more mysterious than Venus.

Amid our grey skies, Brian makes you feel… astounded by our existence, and thrilled to be alive in the greatest age of discovery ever known.

Watching Wonders is like succumbing to a constant surge of awe as Brian describes our sun in exquisite detail – one star among 20 billion starry wonders.