Dave

Hosts James Acaster and Josh Widdicombe will challenge two teams of comedians to a series of absurd hypothetical scenarios, with even more ridiculous answers.

The comedians will be faced with questions such as 'You have to live in a motorway services for a year, how do you cope?', and, 'You have to take a selfie with Nicolas Cage within 48 hours or you die – how do you do it?'. 

Widdicombe will be question master, with Acaster there to throw the teams curveball rules and decide which team should be awarded for the best hypothetical outcomes. 

If you’ve somehow managed to miss the show, it’s basically the strange thoughts you have in the shower, turned into a competition. ‘How do you make a snow globe?’, ‘From how far away can I blow out a candle’, ‘how high can a hose spray water?’. All the important stuff.

The sixth series has drawn to a close and Tim Vine, Russell Howard, Asim Chaudhry, Alice Levine and Lisa Tarbuck have all hung up their Taskmaster trainers and gone home for a rest. Now it’s the turn of a new bunch of comedians to face Taskmaster Greg Davies and his assistant Alex Horne!

Supernatural comedy Zapped sees the return of James Buckley (The Inbetweeners) as unassuming office worker Brian who is transported to a fantastical land named Munty, where magic is real but restricted by a police state. Here he meets wizard Howell (Paul Kaye) and a whole host of magical beings, the third series picks up from the a cliff-hanger ending, with Brian and Howell in dire straits.

UKTV has announced plans to build on the successes of 2017, which saw record viewing figures across its channels and soaring ratings for Gold’s Murder on the Blackpool Express. The broadcaster intends to increase its total number of commissioned hours from indies by nearly a third, and will push into commissioned drama.

This week's top television includes the finale of comedy series The Detectorists, a documentary exploring a year in the life of deaf teenagers, a new French crime drama from Walter Presents, and a special two-part series of Taskmaster: Champion of Champions.  

The programme, which has been a hit with UKTV audiences and earned nominations for RTS, Bafta and Emmy awards, began life on stage in Edinburgh, explained its creator, Alex Horne, at a sold-out event at the London Transport Museum.

Every month for a year, in the run-up to the 2010 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Horne asked a bunch of fellow comics to complete a daft task. “The first task I sent them was, ‘Deposit some money in my bank account – most money wins.’ Mark Watson put nearly £200 in; no one else got over a pound – and that funded the project.”

Former MMA fighter Michael ‘Venom’ Page opened proceedings, dancing his way around his opponent and mocking his rival’s woozy stumbling by pretending to stagger. The headline fight, which saw Olympian Joe Joyce face off against south London rival Ian Lewison, was similarly memorable as Joyce maintained a strong defense against his aggressive rival before mounting an offensive against his tiring opponent. Dave's inaugural Fight Night proved one thing: big personalities define Haye’s stable of fighters. 

Documentary: Gordon Ramsey on Cocaine

Thursday

ITV, 9pm

Cocaine use is spiraling ot of control in the UK, says Gordon Ramsey, and the celebrity chef is on a mission to de-glamourise the drug. The UK now consumes more cocaine than anywhere else in Europe, he finds. 

This week's TV picks includes new time travel comedy Timewasters, the return of BBC drama Our Girl, a doc exploring the crucial hour in a murder investigation, and celebrity fugitives in Celebrity Hunted.