For someone who has the Aladdin Sane album cover framed on my living room wall, and Hunky Dory a regular fixture on my record player, David Bowie – Five Years (Saturday, BBC Two) was a proper treat.
Getting away with reinvention, over and over again, takes courage and inspiration, and this well-constructed 90-minute programme charted Bowie's crucial five year journey from edgy glam-rocker to global superstar, taking some weird and wonderful routes.
Timed to coincide with the sell-out Bowie memorabilia exhibition at the V&A museum in London, it reminded me just what a bold, dashing and entertaining music maker he is.
He has always acted the part even when he went out on a limb without a record deal to make Let's Dance with Chic's Nile Rodgers (soon to be appearing live at the Eden Sessions).
This documentary – heaving with cool video clips and interviews with Bowie collaborators like Brian Eno and Robert Fripp – had the added bonus of confirming my daughter's appreciation of the Bowie genius, and the transformation of his teeth. I'm still not quite sure about the new album, though...
Last night came another musical triumph in the form of Otis Redding: Soul Ambassador (BBC Four), an artist who rose above the bigotry of Georgia in the early 1960s to make an early mark with classics like (Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay. This became the first posthumous number one record on the Billboard Hot 100 after Otis's death in a plane crash in 1967 and the age of just 26.
I've never seen much live footage of him performing before; I'd challenge anyone to witness his impassioned Try a Little Tenderness and remain unmoved.
Otherwise it's been a rather ropey week, viewing-wise. Sadly I had to abandon The Fall (Monday, BBC Two) at the first hurdle – it's just too creepy for me. Why are writers so obsessed with serial killers?
There's not much other drama about – probably because it's school's half term week and we're all supposed to be beside the seaside.
But there was one eye-opening offering on the documentary front which was as worrying as suggested by its strange title – Human Swarm (Channel 4).
Now I know why the Met Office in Exeter is such a vital international business resource. Here's me thinking that they are simply telling us whether we're going to need an overcoat, an umbrella or some sunscreen over the weekend. Little did I realise the huge commercial impact of the weather forecasts they provide.
Jimmy Doherty left his farm behind to explain that one of the most powerful influences on each of us is the air temperature. Even small changes can affect us both physically and psychologically – without us even being aware of it – and make us behave like pack animals rather than the individuals we think we are.
The sun coming out makes us all rush to buy beefburgers for the barbecue, swimsuits and garden furniture. Weather predictions from the Met Office – as well as the personal data provided by the searches we make on Google and the messages we post into the ether on Twitter and Facebook – can alert the shops to stock up on the things we want to buy. It's all down to our biology, apparently. If it's cold we want to eat porridge, book holidays in the Med and fire up the central heating – raising fuel demands and carbon emissions dramatically. When the temperature reached 18C for the first time this year, there was a huge increase in searches for the word "pub" and tanning salons.
Jimmy and the programme makers identified this as an indication swarm behaviour. For me it flagged up how closely Big Brother is watching us. Scary stuff, indeed.