So, summer finally bothered to turn up, bouncing into our lives and luring most of us away from our caves.

And nothing will dim the highlights of television quite as much as that glorious, blazing ball in the sky. Until, of course, the Wimbledon final smashed in on Sunday afternoon which – who’d have thought it? – turned out to be ideal viewing for the sunburnt and listless everywhere.

And, just like during last summer’s Olympic pinnacle, British people bathed together in mutual admiration, united by victory.

And, for a time, it was good, all that slo-mo footage of sportsmen and cups. Except... we Brits aren’t really very good at all that. Luckily, there were a few down-and-dirty dramas to scare the bejesus out of us.

Idris Elba was back in BBC1’s crime drama Luther swaggering along endless smoky/rainy/grotty /smoggy streets and corridors and I for one was worried the hype would really spoil this third series for everyone (as it did with The Wire, for me anyway).

But: BOOM! There were enough bumps in the night to jolt you out of your comfy sofa spot. He’s back, and – trust me – the frights in the second and third episodes are even edgier, bigger and badder. But I won’t spoil them.

Just as dark is the supernatural chiller The Returned set in the French Alps. I’m ashamed to say that I missed the first few because, well, it was in French with subtitles and somehow that all seemed a bit too much effort for a lazy Sunday evening. But after rave reviews from friends “it’s sooooo creepy!” I took a chunk out of the first series at episode five and it was so wondrously surreal that the lack of plot background didn’t matter.

Much like with Wallander, the creators of The Returned know their audience, and their genre. I was amazed that what is essentially a schlocky premise about the undead could be so classy.

Channel 4, that home of the weary freakshow and shock-doc (The Man With the Ten-Ton Testicles, anyone?) this week aired A Very British Ramadan, which was actually very touching, purely because the format played it straight. Unlike My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding and the rest, which shoves a community at the viewer in full-on caricature mode with all that campsite fiddle music, this was an illuminating, unsensational look at how a community comes together to fast and feast.

The joy, and also frustration of this was that it focused on both the spiritual and utterly mundane. So, we got a format so sensible it reminded you of a schools programme and various Bradford warehouse workers talking, animatedly, about selling bulk-loads of chickpeas.

Unnecessary. But the day was saved by the presenter: ex-rugby league player Rashid Khan, a bloke so brimming with infectious enthusiasm that I felt the closest I’ve ever come to converting to Islam.

And, if you missed its multi-platform release on July 5 (cinema, on Film 4 and video on demand), it’s worth checking out A Field In England. This is a film by Ben Wheatley who made Sightseers – the low-fi British tale of a couple who go camping and accidentally become serial killers.

As his debut was so fantastically funny and surprisingly romantic (I reckon), A Field would be worth a squizz even without the karmic joy of its release (a la Radiohead’s In Rainbows, which was also given away freely). It’s a thriller set during the mid-17th century English Civil War, which, I grant you, does not sound tempting. But add death, destruction, magic mushrooms and a big, god-shaped hole and this really is a winner.