There may yet be a way for cancelled celebrities to come back, without resorting to eating badger gizzards on reality TV

Idea for a TV show. Cancelled celebrities compete against each other for the ultimate prize: public forgiveness. Hosted by a coterie of bitchy medieval priests, contestants run through a series of challenges: prayer, pilgrimage, fasting, prostrations, public flogging, tearful confessions, sackcloth and ashes, a spell in the stocks and walking naked through the streets to cries of “shame, shame”. Points to be allocated by the public according to how authentically humiliated and remorseful each contestant seems to be. The stakes couldn’t be higher. Redemption awaits – and only one sinner can triumph.

Not only would it be a ratings hit, banished celebrities would be falling over themselves to take part. We know this because recently they have taken to requesting their own baroque public punishments in the hope that they can worm their way back into public life. But, unlike the penalties once dished out by the church, it rarely works.

A catastrophe is indeed looming in letting Graham Hancock return with his oddball theories, now with Keanu Reeves in tow

Diary note: it may seem a while off, but the end of the world is still scheduled for 2030, precise date TBC. After once suggesting that nameless devastation could be upon us in 2012 , the evergreen eschatologist Graham Hancock subsequently updated his advice to a comet, now six years off . Or thereabouts. MailOnline , which has been exhuming an ancient Hancock text, reminds readers of his “ dire warning for our age ”.

What is certain, anyway, is that a great and horrifying catastrophe will occur as soon as 16 October. This is the day Netflix will launch something astounding, almost beyond belief, something sceptics said could never happen: series 2 of Hancock’s Ancient Apocalypse . And stranger still: this terrible event stars, along with Hancock, the Hollywood actor Keanu Reeves.

She thought acting was ‘silly’, despite having A-list sisters. Her interests lay in dance, accountancy, agriculture, construction. Here she explains how she conquered her anxiety and embraced being a Hollywood star

The actor Elizabeth Olsen and I are in a London hotel, staring down at her dinner. She lifts the lid from one plate: a bowl of plain black beans. She lifts another: a bowl of similarly spare couscous. You wouldn’t know it, but Olsen is something of a foodie. She takes a set of knives around the world when filming, makes her own ricotta, knows what brand of caviar is best, and records the name of every restaurant she visits. She’s been engaged for years in an LA “croissant crawl” to find the best French pastry in the city, though she takes the hunt international every chance she gets. This past week she’s eaten a huge amount of red meat, she tells me, and developed high cholesterol as a result. Hence the simple grain and pulse dishes before her. Carefully she returns the lids. Then she says, “I am probably not going to eat while we talk.”

In person, Olsen, who is 35, manages the curious combination of being at once unnerving and disarming. Those wide eyes – so expressive and searching on screen – would be unsettling if it weren’t for her easy wit. It’s the eyes that Hollywood has latched on to: they have been deployed to reveal the trauma of an ex-cult member (her indie breakout Martha Marcy May Marlene ), a wife in a loveless marriage driven to murder ( Love & Death ), a grieving widow ( Sorry For Your Loss ). As Wanda Maximoff , appearing in the Marvel films that have dominated her last decade, her eyes have been used to portray a virtual assault course of loss.

Frequently absurd and heavy on le fromage, this French soap set in rival fashion houses owes a lot to the Roys – and turns out to be very good mindless TV indeed

If the pitch that got La Maison made didn’t mention Succession and Emily in Paris then I’ll eat my couture fascinator. This rich, occasionally sickly French soap, about the trials and tribulations of a fashion house called Ledu, is over the top, melodramatic and frequently absurd. It is heavy on le fromage and light on subtlety. Yet, despite its daft plot twists and self-important mood, it turns out to be very good mindless TV, as elegantly trashy as it is irresistibly moreish.

Vincent Ledu (Lambert Wilson) is the artistic director of a legendary fashion house which grew from humble beginnings as a small family atelier to become an international powerhouse. It is part of the French establishment, and Vincent cannot move for the honours that are bestowed upon him. That is, until he does a John Galliano and is filmed at a party in the midst of a racist rant about a wealthy private client. When the footage is leaked and goes viral, his position at the head of the family business is untenable. It has become a meme across the planet, Vincent is told. “What is a meme?” he asks, clearly on behalf of the show, which does not seem to know either.

The ruthless villain takes no prisoners in this gripping eight-part drama. Plus, Monty Don on essential autumn garden jobs. Here’s what to watch this evening

9pm, Sky Atlantic
Another journey to Gotham, this time in the company of the Penguin – one of the Batman universe’s most compelling villains and played here by a prosthetics-laden Colin Farrell. It’s a moody and sinister affair – after the death of a mob boss, the Penguin attempts to infiltrate his family. Farrell’s Penguin is ruthless but with a certain submerged warmth, too, as evidenced by his decision to take stammering street hood Victor (the excellent Rhenzy Feliz) under his wing. Phil Harrison

The humour is basic, the laugh track extremely dated and the dialogue creaky. But Kelsey Grammer and co’s fantastic performances lift it until it just about gets away with it all

What’s with all the screen veterans and the zeitgeisty comedy lately? February blessed us with the ludicrously brilliant final season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, a vehicle for that notorious contrarian Larry David (77 years old). August delivered a glorious fourth outing for Only Murders in the Building, which stars septuagenarian pals Steve Martin (79) and Martin Short (74). Last October, meanwhile, saw the arrival of the much-anticipated Frasier revival, a sequel to the era-defining 90s sitcom starring a now-69-year-old Kelsey Grammer.

All three shows deal in nostalgia to some extent: the last episode of Curb riffed archly on the controversial 1998 finale of Seinfeld (co-created by David), while the old-school comic chops of Martin and Short means Only Murders inevitably stirs up memories of farces past. Yet both programmes also feel distinctly modern: Only Murders is a genre-bending thriller about true-crime podcasters that knows exactly how to tap into weird meme-y humour, while Curb pioneered a meta-naturalism that contemporary comedy continues to heed.

Actor who played dastardly Don Brennan in ITV soap is remembered by family as ‘restless, adventurous and funny’

Geoff Hinsliff, the former Coronation Street star, has died aged 87 after a short illness.

Hinsliff, who also had minor roles in the films O Lucky Man and I, Claudius and played a wireless operator in Richard Attenborough’s epic A Bridge Too Far, won the role of Don Brennan on the soap after previously appearing in one episode a decade earlier, in 1977, as a minor character named Eric Baile.

Television presenter and writer who came up with the idea of a BBC natural history unit and led cruises to polar regions

The BBC Natural History Unit is known worldwide for blockbuster television series such as Planet Earth. The original idea for a “wildlife unit” based in Bristol came from the naturalist and TV presenter Tony Soper, who has died aged 95. But he turned down the chance to run it, as he was “more interested in making programmes than overseeing them”.

He went on to have a distinguished career as a wildlife TV presenter: his easygoing personality, craggy features and distinctive Devon burr made him a firm favourite with viewers. On screen from the early 1960s to the late 80s, he was a major influence on several generations of young naturalists. Along with figures such as Peter Scott and Bill Oddie , he was instrumental in bringing British wildlife to a wider audience.

The Oscar-winning actress goes back to her roots in Mind Your Own. Plus: five of the best comic book podcasts

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All journalists know that what they produce matters, but sometimes it can be easy to forget just how much.

The man who fell to earth , an excellent episode of the Guardian’s Today in Focuspodcast, tells the story of how Esther Addley reported on an airplane stowaway whose dead body was found in a west London car park – only to be contacted by the deceased’s brother 23 years later. The reason: his family had kept her article as a family treasure for decades, prompting him to learn enough English to be able to read the account of his much older sibling’s life – then travel to the UK on his trail. “It is genuinely one of the most powerful and emotional things anyone has ever said to me about my work,” says Addley. “It brings home the responsibility of every story we do.”