Aidan Smith's TV week: And Just Like That ... (Sky Showcase), The Change (C4), Not Going Out (BBC1), Wonders of the World I Can't See (C4)

Guys, I think I’ve cracked it: following the original series, two movies and now the second season of Sex and the City’s sequel, it’s probably safe to say that none of this is really aimed at us.

Sarah Jessica Parker in And Just Like That... (Sky)

Remember last time in And Just Like That … (Sky Showcase) when Big suffered death-by-Peloton? What a humiliating way to go. This time, Miranda’s husband Andy is required to don humiliating garb to escort her to the Met Ball, only to be ditched at the last minute for gay pal Anthony. And the new man in Carrie’s bed, but only on Thursdays, may not appear humiliated when knocked back for asking to see her on a random Tuesday, although I reckon inside he’s quietly sobbing.

What do I know? I’m just another guy. Who actually enjoys this stuff. It’s part-masochistic, part-educational. What are women saying about us? Sex and the City exploded just as I joined The Scotsman and for a while I wrote nothing but features about women being more like men, ladette culture, etc.

Twenty-five years later, Sarah Jessica Parker’s Carrie still can’t cook - not even a poached egg. Woops, that’s me “upholding the patriarchy”, as Charlotte’s daughter Rose puts it. Hang on, though, Carrie reckons Mr Thursday Night, Franklyn, will be happy with their relationship being just about sex. She’s ticked off for this because “the world has changed”. To which she counters: “So to sum up: men are dumb … with feelings?”

Bridget Christie in The Change

Carrie remains quite shockable and almost prim for a sex columnist, now podcaster. The gig should have gone to Samatha, although that might have finished off the male species for good. As the latter, Kim Cattrall returns during this run following an alleged cast rift. Not before time. Miranda has started talking like Samatha and it really doesn’t sound right.

Eight years ago, Bridget Christie penned a very funny memoir in which she reflected, possibly not wholly tongue-in-cheek, on the feminist struggle. “All we do is burn bras,” the comedian wrote. “Twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, without eating, sleeping or taking toilet breaks. Feminists steal bras from wherever they can. From lingerie departments, barns and hay bales, the wardrobe department of The Benny Hill Show, the stage floor at a Tom Jones concert, milkmen’s pockets, James Bond’s glove compartment and Carry on Camping star Kenneth Williams’ face.”

She should have her TV show, I reckoned at the time. Hardly a bold or original thought because Christie was already a stand-up success on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. But it’s taken until now - after 12 Edinburghs - for The Change (Channel 4) to emerge. She’s had to wait so long that the menopause has hit. Still, think of all that fertile subject matter.

She plays Joan who’s just turned 50. At her party in the garden she’s afflicted by hot flushes, noisy swallowing and wittering. No matter, her husband’s entertaining everyone with the trick where he catches flying sausages in his mouth.

Lee Mack (right) and Hugh Dennis in Not Going Out

Joan had to bake her own cake. She does everything and logs it in 25 years’ worth of ledgers of the “invisible work” of a housewife and mum. A kitchen cupboard spills its contents on her head and she flips. Hubby says: “You’re leaving me because I didn’t match up the Tupperware?” Joan replies: “Not just that, no. And I’m not leaving you. I’m just going away on my own for a bit.”

She takes off on a motorbike, stopping at a cafe in a forest which seems to only serve eel but has a caravan for rent. How long will she be staying? “Forty-four thousand minutes, maybe?” This is the total amount of time she’s been putting others first; now she’s claiming it back.

Paul Whitehouse’s barfly tries to chat her up. Joan’s default setting is being irritated which has me thumbing through Christie’s book for another good line: “Feminists never have sex and hate men opening doors for them, even into other dimensions.” But our heroine soon lightens up. This relationship might go somewhere, The Change, too, even though its budget is probably less than what Carrie paid for that unused egg poacher.

The BBC, as we know, is having to make cuts but this hasn’t affected the long-running sitcom Not Going Out (BBC1). It’s still a bottle of Pinot Grigio for every member of the studio audience so their critical faculties are nice and blunted to ensure wild hooting every time Lee Mack lets rip with a ribald dad gag.

The show began in 2006 when Tony Blair was Prime Minister, Pluto lost status and bird flu was discovered in Cellardyke, Fife. This is the 13th season which for a suburban-set comedy involving lots of slamming of doors and silly, spiralling misunderstandings is quite something.

The tradition for all of this is of course the theatrical farce. In the series opener I half-expect Brian Rix to emerge, slam the door and drop his trousers. Instead it seems that Lee and Lucy’s friend Anna has been dropping her skirt and having an affair. Lee, a man permanently in search of a mid-life challenge, turns detective to try and confirm the suspicions. The usual suburban chaos ensues.

Still, there are some not bad lines. As her goofball of a husband is about to embark on his mission, Lucy says: “That enough of a back-story for you, Daniel Day-Lewis?” Lucy is played by Sally Bretton who came to attention as the surly intern in The Office unwilling to bow at the elevated heels of David Brent. That seems a long time ago now. Indeed, the continued existence of Not Going Out makes it seem like The Office never happened.

There’s lots of comedy around this week, not all of it hitting the mark, and maybe the last thing you think you need is a comedian on a freebie holiday striving to be droll and original about the local customs. Not just one comedian, but two.

But Wonders of the World I Can’t See (Channel 4) isn’t your bog-standard funster travelogue. Chris McCausland is blind so for these excursions has invited along a friend to describe the sights for him. First up: Harry Hill and the Acropolis.

McCausland admits: “When it comes to sightseeing, I can’t be a***d.” He doesn’t like flying, he reveals on the plane to Athens, or the heat. His guide, then, is going to have his work cut out. “Imagine a shoebox,” says Hill as they stand at the ancient citadel, “but instead of the side you’ve got columns … and you’ve lost the lid.” McCausland is unimpressed. HIll again: “I’m not sure my description ticked the box.” Or the shoebox, Harry.

If you think that joke is rubbish you should hear the ones these clowns get away with. McCausland remains pretty underwhelmed throughout. He’s a riot on Have I Got News For You. Everyone says exactly what they think on that show but because he’s slagging off the politicians without being able to see Boris’s hair or Raab’s throbbing vein or Truss’s zombie stare, somehow he seems even more audacious. There, blindness may almost be regarded as a blessing. Here, denied things really worth seeing, he can be excused his grumpiness.