Catch up TV: Game of Thrones, Wallander and Mad Men

The end is nigh for Wallander (BBC iPlayer), at least in his Swedish incarnation. Poor old Kurt, who is curt but is pronounced “Koort”, has Alzheimer’s on top of his emotional reticence and general Nordic moodiness, and has started forgetting things. Happily, or not, his forgetful moments are presaged by the screen going all fuzzy at the corners and a gradual lack of focus which makes him forget what he’s doing. “Kurt Wallander,” he says, “tell me what happened?” with obvious implications for his future as a detective.

By now, of course, Wallander isn’t really about the crimes, which tend towards generic strangeness. In this, the penultimate episode of the final series, an arsonist was released from prison, with predictably fiery results. But who was wielding the matches?

Was it the convicted firestarter or the angry ex-Olympian with the half-plastic face which gave her the permanently surprised look of a Batman villain? Or was it the angry villagers, with their red hair, Bergman-esque cheekbones and practical knitwear?

You may wish to hazard a guess. But the emotional heart of the story was located in Wallander’s illness, rendered with real pathos by Krister Henriksson, as he melted slowly beneath his Vitalis-soaked quiff.

On his recent retirement from television criticism, the great Clive James observed that Game of Thrones (Sky On Demand) had helped him overcome a lifetime of resistance to any art form containing dragons. Well, I bow to Mr James’s wisdom on most things — the obvious exception being the Cuban dragon Margarita Pracatan — but the fire-breathing lizards, the three-eyed ravens, and the general sense that GoT is an unending riff on the duff aesthetics of the prog rock era married to the hammy classicism of British middlebrow theatre do get in the way a bit.

Season four has concluded on a contemplative note, though not without a fight sequence involving some undead skeletons and a few hocks of satire-proof dialogue. Take this, from the blonde Goth Daenerys, as she dithered prettily around the entrance to some catacombs. “You want to return to a man who owned you like a goat or a chair?” Which is it, love? The goat or the chair?

Meanwhile, in EastEnders (BBC iPlayer), the fantasy Hackney that is Walford has been updated so it resembles Essex in the Eighties, instead of the cheese dreams of Harold Steptoe. Sharon now runs a cocktail bar with a waitress dressed like Boy George. This allows Phil Mitchell his first encounter with a lychee, followed quickly by his first sighting of a metrosexual.

“Would you trust a man in skintight jeans?” growls Phil.

“Ah,” splutters Shirley, phlegmily, “the invasion of the hipsters.”

“Ponces,” replies Phil.

Serial box

The decision to split the final season of Mad Men in two, with the second half due next spring, was maddening. The first half of the finale took ages to get going, but by the midpoint the swirling themes (the tussle between individuality and marketing, creativity and corporatism, sex and sexism) were coming to a head. To ease the pain of absence, seasons 1-6 are now available (Sky On Demand).

Meanwhile, in 24: Live Another Day (Sky On Demand), Margot the implausible terrorist mastermind ordered the senile US President Heller to a secret showdown at a floodlit Wembley stadium. Fortunately, the final of the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy wasn’t under way, or things could have turned really messy But the President did find time to pardon Jack for being a law unto himself.