Watch out, there's an eco-warrior about! The Woman Who Stops Traffic (Channel 4) introduced us to Kris Murrin, a lady who wants to get cars off the road. I try not to take an instant dislike to people but I made an exception in her case. Perhaps my dislike arose from her calling herself "a professional problem-solver" (is that a real job?). Perhaps it was because her firm is called the "?WHAT IF! The Innovation Company" (spelt exactly like that). Perhaps it was just her bossiness and smug self-satisfaction.

The first programme of three started with the dubious assertion that "Britain's love of the motor car is choking our roads, making us fat and polluting the air we breathe". Most of us don't LOVE the motor car (Jeremy Clarkson and Co. excepted) - we simply use it as a virtually essential way of getting about, when public transport is inadequate and many tasks can only be achieved with a car.

Kris Murrin went to Marlow (apparently by car) to try to persuade residents to have a car-free day once a month. She tells them that the town is threatened with gridlock but, strangely, whenever she is interviewed in the town, there is hardly any traffic in the background. She lectures the inhabitants: "You have a fantastic transport system: it's called a pair of legs," seeming to forget the number of people (like myself) whose legs are in imperfect condition. The programme showed her struggling to convince the townsfolk but miraculously achieving her goal of a car-free day.

There seem to be a lot of people like Kris nowadays telling us what to do and exhorting us to "save the planet" by not travelling by car, plane or boat, and by using "organic" products. The marketing for organic food (and other things supposedly good for us) was questioned by Prof Regan's Supermarket Secrets (BBC2), in which Prof Lesley Regan investigated the claims made for such things as so-called superfoods, probiotics, antioxidants and organic farming. She found that superfoods are not super; that probiotics may be harmful as well as beneficial; and that - even after 30 years of experiments - there is no proof that organic foods provide more nutrients, although people may prefer to avoid factory-farmed products. It was a valuable programme in at least questioning some of the claims made by manufacturers, advertisers and others.

Some famous people deserve praise but, when television does the job, it often turns into an embarrassing love-fest of sycophantic glorification. Happy Birthday Brucie! (BBC1) was one such, with celebrities lining up to say how wonderful Bruce Forsyth was. But was he really laudable for using ordinary people to get cheap laughs - and were his endless catchphrases endearing or just tiresome?

At least Forsyth didn't do too much harm, whereas the subject of Portillo on Thatcher: The Lady's Not For Spurning (BBC4) did immeasurable damage to this country. Michael Portillo was a committed supporter and disciple of Thatcher, and her convictions inspired him: "Mrs Thatcher's huge ambition to shake the socialism out of Britain was exhilarating."

Unfortunately she also shook the socialism out of the Labour Party, which became a Thatcherite party to try and emulate her success. This programme was vitiated not only by Portillo's uncritical admiration for Thatcher but also his concentration on his own thwarted ambition to lead the Conservative Party.

Ricky Gervais: New Hero of Comedy (Channel 4) was another welter of praise, although Gervais is hardly "new". It included some interesting insights from Ricky's collaborator Stephen Merchant, who said of the trial show which piloted The Office: "Nowadays . . . it would have found its way on to YouTube." Stephen also suggested that Extras owed something to Morecambe & Wise in its use of celebrities doing something unexpected.

Stephen also said that the original idea with Extras was to have a double act, but make one of them a woman - hence the memorable pairing of Ricky Gervais and Ashley Jensen.