Oh no, not another series about India! The Story of India (BBC2) actually promises to be quite good. Whereas many of the recent TV programmes commemorating the anniversary of India's independence concentrated on the last 60 years, Michael Wood is delving back into ancient history.

Admittedly, Wood's language tends to be bombastic - for instance: "Only India has preserved the unknown thread of the human story that binds us all." But the first programme was a user-friendly guide to how India developed. Michael started by tracing how people emigrated from Africa to southern India. In Kerala he found Brahmins uttering ancient wordless chants which seem to predate language. Then he moved to the Indus valley to find evidence of large cities which flourished more than 5,000 years ago. These cities disappeared when the monsoons diminished and the rivers dried up. A scientist said: "Climate change isn't just happening now, it's happened in the past" (strangely, when nobody was coughing out carbon dioxide from their cars or planes). Eventually, Michael ended up at a festival where he was spattered with coloured powder, a scene already witnessed in Sanjeev Bhaskar's recent Indian series.

Oh no, not another situation comedy about the troubles of a middle-class family! The first episode of Outnumbered (BBC1) introduced us to dad, mum and their three children as they prepared for the over-familiar morning ritual of getting the kids off to school. Hugh Dennis and Claire Skinner played the harassed parents without convincing us that they were a married couple, although they did the sort of stupid things that parents do in sitcoms. All the children were difficult, although the only credible one was the young daughter who kept asking questions like "What is a hypocrite?" (followed by "What is a twat?").

I expected some sharper comedy from the duo that wrote Drop the Dead Donkey but it wasn't particularly funny. Indeed, there were several disturbing aspects to the portrayal of the children. The young actors were made to say gruesome things about stabbing and shooting. And what sort of father is it who keeps an electric drill (complete with sharp bit) where his young son can find it and play about with it?

Oh no, not another drama in which Martin Clunes plays a fish out of water! The Man Who Lost His Head (ITV1) was just that - and also a lengthy drama of the kind that ITV employs to pass the time. It was about Ian, a museum curator (played by Clunes) who goes out to New Zealand to see if a Maori sculpture should be returned there. The story was stuffed with predictable clichés. Naturally, New Zealand turned out to be an idyllic country inhabited by simple, superstitious people. Naturally, Ian's stuffiness was thawed by meeting unstuffy people, and he was naturally attracted to a Maori girl, even though he already had an irritating fiancée that you knew he would never marry.

It was endearing and good-natured (except when the New Zealanders were punching each other unconscious) and there was lots of pretty scenery, making a change from all the views of Britain that TV has brought us recently. But Ian was very much like the Clunes character in Doc Martin, the story was highly implausible, and the two hours seemed long.

Oh no, not another teatime game show! Identity (BBC2) actually has quite an interesting premiss. Contestants try to guess the occupations of a dozen strangers - which will probably remind older viewers of What's My Line? This is a challenge which exercises their powers of observation and guesswork (as well as ours). Unfortunately it's one of those many shows where the presenter (Donny Osmond here) drags out the proceedings with endless reminders and comments. There is also that unnecessary ten-second pause as we wait for the strangers to identify themselves. It's an annoying habit which probably started with Big Brother and now seems endemic in many entertainment shows. This viewer is strongly tempted to shout "Get on with it!" at the TV screen.