Every year, I think: that’s it, that’s definitely it. I’m not going to get into The X Factor this time. Because it’s not criticism any more, it’s just more background cacophony for the saccharine-and-bile freak show that’s become a competition between judges, with the desperate, weird kids as dice. And then there’s the easy-listening compilation of the music and the horrible falsettos and the out-of-control vibrato and the embarrassing warbling American accents they all sing in. I’m not going to write about any of that any more, because any attention just encourages them.

But then I watched last Sunday and, oh giddy good grief, the blubbing. This time, I can’t resist mentioning the tears, the relentless, snotty, dribbling, witless self-pity of it. Everybody sobs all the time. They gurn with incontinent faces. Some of them can’t even get through a naff karaoke power ballad without coming over all lumpy and wrung out. And each of them has a back story of mawkish, Dickensian calamity — dead mums, dads, kids, wives, kittens — which they refer to like pitiful limericks at the beginning and end of their acts, begging for a sympathy vote. It’s all howls and hugs, a study in solipsism. My pain is the world’s pain. My tears entitle me to success. I am owed a Christmas single because I’ve been unhappy. The emotion is such a formless whiteout, so operatically disproportionate, that, at first, it makes you smile shyly and then giggle and finally howl with helpless laughter. It’s the funniest programme on television, and I laugh till I cry.

Simon Schama is back on the box. He is one of the most watchable and likeable creators of historical TV because he understands that the point of the past is to glean some insight or understanding of the present, and perhaps a pointer to the future. He has a limpid and effervescent intellect that makes engaging connections and lively, argumentative assumptions. Because he’s essentially an enthusiast, he can lose grip of a subject by being too enthralled with an opinion on it, as he did with his boggy series on art.

This time, he’s offering a magisterial opus on the USA, The American Future — A History, and it couldn’t be a better time to be in the right place. The automatic European loathing and despising of the States has reached a ridiculous and dispiriting rock bottom, which no longer tells us anything about America but quite a lot about the precious snobbery and dead cynicism of many European intellectuals. It’s time to buy American stock again, and Schama is the man to give us confidence in the product. He is a fan, though not an unquestioning or unconditional one. This first programme took a squarely European and environmental view on water use in America, principally the damming of the Colorado River and the irrigation of the West. It was interesting and nicely shot, but it was a strange place to start the whole story of America and, rather than sounding like a fluent essay, it came across as a sparky collection of bright ideas and bullet points scribbled on napkins. It resembled nothing so much as a first draft that had got filmed.

The pieces to camera, which should be the backbone of any first-person essay, were too short, too extempore, mere clichéd aphorisms. In particular, the programme needed an introduction, some scene-setting. Why was Schama here? Why were we here? He seems to assume we already know all that, but, with the next breath, he’ll imply that he thinks we were all born the day after yesterday. This is mostly the director’s fault. The foundation of this series should have been better engineered. The script needed more work; not just polishing, but considering and tempering. There were tons of ideas, just not enough thought. There’s much to be said for impromptu TV, but it should all be said off camera. Still, I will be watching next week. Even in a hurry, Schama is worth listening to.

And Schama’s America looks like a work of unsurpassed genius compared to Paul Merton’s India. I thought Merton’s China was a low point in comic xenophobia, but apparently someone else thought it worth repeating and, in Paul Merton in India, sent him to the next-most populous country full of funny little people who eat weird stuff. Perhaps he’s compiling The Beano Guide to Life on Earth.

The first thing you notice about Merton abroad is his mouth. He has, possibly as a joke to break the ice in train carriages, had a perfect replica of Stonehenge inserted into his mouth instead of teeth. There even seem to be bits of druid stuck between them. As so much of his wit and febrile humour comes from not eating and spitting foreign food, we get to see a lot more of his slobbery henge than is really necessary or, indeed, nice. The second thing you notice is that he’s wearing a panama hat. There is a traveller’s law that states: never, ever go on a journey anywhere with a man wearing a panama hat. It is a character prop and a terrible warning. He will turn into a bore and a mocking bumpkin, the sort of chap who says, “It wouldn’t go down well in Sutton Bassett, I can tell you”, loudly, in other people’s temples. And he’ll start prefacing nouns with “your”, as in “your Pathan” or “your average camel”.

Your Merton didn’t disappoint. I mean, he did disappoint, but he didn’t surprise. The disappointment was of the predictable sort. The show was a litany of behind-the-fingers sniggering and ironic mockery of good-natured, polite and hospitable Indians in their own homes. We were shown fakirs who did tricks with their penises. Well, that was worth the ticket alone. What’s not to laugh at? But, then again, I thought, not quite as silly a trick as Five has perpetrated with this knobhead.

Steve Coogan immerses himself in his characters. It’s not just a stick-on moustache and a funny accent for him. Coogan needs a back story, motivation, underpants. His new creation, Bob Crosby in Sunshine, is a compulsive gambler and binman. He’s supposed to be charmingly sympathetic. The show is co-written by Craig Cash, who was Caroline Aherne’s partner in The Royle Family. The cast are all excellent, and you can see why they wanted to make it and why the production has been given glossy values. Everything about Sunshine should be bright and beautiful, so it’s really very odd that none of it is. Coogan’s character is fuzzy and particularly unbelievable, as both a gambler and a binman. He’s also deeply unsympathetic, annoying, stupid, weak, daft and selfish. A voiceover says he could charm the nuts off a squirrel. I’m pleased we were told that, because nothing he says or does implies he could charm a snake with a flugelhorn.

It’s not at all clear if this is made as a comedy and just isn’t funny, or as a drama that’s pawned the plot. It looks mostly like those social-engineering, mind-how-you-go storylines they used to insert into Brookside for your own good, with a finale that was a straight nick from The Sting. I really don’t know what we’re supposed to make of this. I couldn’t find anything that was endearing or provoking or memorable. I can’t even be bothered to rustle up the ante for a gambling pun to see it off with.

The X Factor (ITV1, Sunday)

The American Future — A History (BBC2, Friday)

Paul Merton in India (Five, Wednesday)

Sunshine (BBC1, Tuesday)

Editor's choice

• The 100 Best Films of 2008
• Hitler and the Downfall mash-ups
• Britney Spears: The Circus