The TV shows to watch this week: From Sir David Attenborough to the Rugby World Cup Final

For those who enjoy studying beastly behaviour close up and in HD, Asia is the place to be this week, says Sean O’Grady. And after the rugby in Japan there’s the Chinese monkeys to enjoy

In China, mysterious blue-faced monkeys walk upright through some of the least-explored forests on Earth (BBC)

OK guys, you’re on. If anyone has a hope of upstaging Sir David Attenborough on his own show, it’s a cartload of Chinese blue-faced monkeys. Of course they’re not to be confused with the blue-arsed fly, which is a much less endangered species, and far less cute. It was, apparently, discovered in around 1970 by the Duke of Edinburgh, who first spotted and swotted one.

The monkeys are the principal of many attractions in the second episode of Sir David’s latest landmark natural history series, Seven Worlds, One Planet. This time the theme is an exploration of each of the Earth’s seven (generally recognised) continental land masses, its inhabitants, and how they are being driven to extinction by the ubiquitous presence of mankind.

Last week Antarctica got the treatment, penguins included, and this week we’ll hop up to Asia. According to Attenborough, and who can doubt him, it is the most varied and extreme continent, stretching as it does from the Arctic Circle to the equator. Walruses gather in numbers in the frozen north and brown bears roam remote Russian volcanoes. This is also the domain of the scene-stealing, yeti-like monkeys who hang around in the mountain forests of China waiting for BBC camerapersons to turn up. Asia is the largest of all continents but it seems there’s not enough space for wildlife. The deep jungles provide sanctuary for the last few Sumatran rhino. A sad, sad tale (not tail. Obvs).

Jive talking: Dan and Luke meet for the first time on the dance floor (Channel 4)

Dancing is an extremely expressive art form. Well, apart from dad dancing, I suppose. That famous sexually charged scene with John Travolta and Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction should serve as the master class in the flirtatious, seductive capacity of dance to convey subtle meaning without words. On the other hand, can you imagine going dancing with a date, but not actually speaking and just letting your arms, legs and tummy do the talking?

Channel 4, never afraid of risk has come up with this as the latest way to play the dating game. They’ve done naked, they’ve done dining, they’ve done cyber; now, here, in Flirty Dancing, we find two couple who agree to go on a “blind” but also “mute” date. I think we can all imagine what can go wrong. Even if you can dance.

Six appeal: the cast of witty comedy ‘Motherland’ (BBC)

Motherland has to have its, for me, near-obligatory weekly mention once more. We live in a golden age of TV comedy, though there’s not that much of it about this week. The exception at the moment is the wisecracking, witty and wildly imaginative scripts produced by Sharon Horgan, Helen Linehan, the gloriously named Barunka O’Shaughnessy, and Holly Walsh. They are perfectly complemented by the acting mothers’ union of Anna Maxwell Martin, Diane Morgan, Paul Ready (token male), Lucy Punch and Tanya Moodie, each demonstrating the many, many ways in which incompetence can overtake parenthood. The painfully middle-class surroundings and story lines are all knowingly sent up, almost with a sense of self-hatred at times. Well, that’s comedy for you.

Street life: Lennie James narrates the third series of London’s real-life police drama (BBC)

You have to be in the right mind, and preferably live outside Greater London, to “enjoy” (by which I mean endure) The Met: Policing London. They say that you’re never more than six feet away from a rat when you live in our great metropolis (it used to be even less on Fleet Street), and it is of course perfectly true, in all senses. This week sees someone brutally beaten upon a bus, indeed murdered, and the way CCTV can and cannot help apprehend suspects. Elsewhere there are some rather more heartwarming scenes of the capital’s hard-pressed copper being distracted by a colourful but ultimately futile protest against the state visit of President Trump earlier in the year (yes, it does seem an eternity ago).

A more calming window on life behind the scenes is opened up in Inside the Supermarket, though I wonder how many of the staff are happy about these tough new contracts that are being introduced across the sector. “Bogoff” might well be their response.

Then there’s Brexit, non-stop, but you may find some relief in the Sky News Brexit-Free “pop up” news channel, albeit only on for five hours an evening. Apart from that, it’ll be your last chance to see the rugger. If you’ve been following it, and even if you’ve not, you’ll no doubt know all about the England-South Africa final. It airs early doors on Saturday, so you’ll have all day to celebrate.

Seven Worlds, One Planet (BBC1, Sunday 6.15pm); Flirty Dancing (Channel 4, Friday 8pm); Motherland (BBC2, Monday 10pm); The Met: Policing London (BBC1, Thursday 9pm); Inside the Supermarket (BBC1, Thursday 8pm); Sky News Brexit-Free (Sky channel 523, Monday to Friday, 5pm to 10pm); Rugby World Cup (ITV, Saturday 8am)