At 9pm Kris Marshall celebrated the fact he survived his whole first series of Death in Paradise (BBC One) without becoming one of the victims.

Monday evening saw one half of TV’s recent success story launch their very own show, attempting to brighten up the start of a fresh week with some scones, jam, received pronunciation and some good old-fashioned can-do optimism.

Despite all of Saturday’s bombastic noise and attention-grabbing visuals, the weekend’s most intense battle was to be fought on Sunday as the broadcasters rolled out their ratings juggernauts.

Performing much better was the bite-sized slice of Mockney ruckus at 7:30pm as the day’s biggest audience tuned in to see the newly-returned Stacey Slater and some bloke from Busted shout at each other. A lot.

Wednesday evening brought viewers the second to last ever episode of contemporary family sitcom Outnumbered (well, apart from the numerous specials we’ll no doubt be subjected to over many Christmases) at 9pm on BBC One.

Thankfully, there were only fifteen minutes of top notch banter and analytics from rosy-cheeked Adrian Chiles and his angry little friend Roy Keane before the 7:45pm kick-off.

After a one-off episode in 2012, BBC One invited viewers back to the brutal and intense (no, not really) Pound Shop Wars (8pm), a new documentary series that continues to follow a family-run bargain store in sunny Wakefield.

Just one day after being narrowly beaten by rival soap Emmerdale, Tuesday night saw EastEnders rise from the ashes of defeat, brush itself off and pull the day’s biggest audience into its vortex of entertaining misery.

The Big Benefits Row featured intellectual luminaries such as Matthew Wright and the ever-lovely Kate Hopkins, just to prove to the nation that Channel 5 can ‘do’ debate.

5.4 million (down from the opening episode’s 7.4 million ) viewers watched as one of the Muskehounds had to face up to his past, netting a 22% share and a fittingly fun end to the weekend.