THERE are lots of things which bother me about the new drama Trust Me (BBC1, Tuesday) but I’m trying to ignore them and, as the title suggests, trust the story. Maybe it’ll all become clear as we progress? Maybe we’ll realise why Cath is working for an NHS Trust in Edinburgh even though Scotland has no such thing? (We have Health Boards, not Trusts.) That’s a minor quibble, yes, but given that the drama was written by a doctor such errors shouldn’t occur and they dent the story’s sense of reality. But wait, did I mention “reality”? What does “reality” have to do with this totally daft drama?

Cath Hardacre (Jodie Whittaker) is a hard-working nurse in Sheffield. She is portrayed as someone noble and diligent, and as a heroine who saves patients’ lives when the bumbling junior doctors mess things up. In fact she’s so brave that she uncovers evidence of medical negligence and takes it to the authorities who turn hostile and react by throwing accusations of bullying at her. She soon finds herself suspended. Hurt, angry and resentful she decides to leave Sheffield and pose as a doctor, getting a new job in an Edinburgh hospital using her friend’s name, CV and GMC registration. (This friend has helpfully given up medicine to go and be a sheep farmer in New Zealand.) So here’s the first flaw: our noble nurse decides to react against medical negligence by inflicting yet more medical negligence. So she’s a liar, a fraud and a chancer, yet we’re supposed to sympathise with her as a warrior against injustice who is also a single mother with a poorly old father.

A bolder drama would have pitched her as an arrogant woman, smarting at being punished by her Sheffield bosses, and who decides to show ‘em all she can do a doctor’s job – but no. She’s timid and nervous and wobbles when she has to stick a scalpel into a patient.

So why is she doing this? It’s never clear what her motivation is: does she want revenge on the medical establishment? Is she proving her worth in an NHS where nurses are seen as second-best? Does she simply want a higher salary and more prestige?

Other flaws arise to mar the story. She sets up a new life under a fake identity simply by photocopying her pal’s documents. How did she open a bank account? How is she paying tax and NI? How did she get a lease on her new flat? These things require proper ID, not just a fancy CV and a flash of a white coat.

I’m finding it hard to trust this drama when it’s stranded a thousand miles from reality, but a drama doesn’t need to be realistic to be entertaining. Just look at this week’s insane episode of Top of the Lake (BBC2, Thursday). I’ve stopped questioning this drama, and I’ve stopped scrutinising it. Its flaws are screamingly obvious (the appalling dialogue, the ridiculous characters, the furious feminist agenda which makes all the men into horny Disney villains) so I’m now just watching it for pure, giddy entertainment, and the final scenes of this week’s episode gave me exactly what I wanted.

When a man in an electric wheelchair zooms across to Robin and starts strangling her with his belt, and she retaliates by setting fire to the room, and they end up brawling on the floor amidst the flames, fighting with belts and sticks, I gave up. This is daft. Admit it!

TV drama is going through a “golden age” just now, and I think this has led to channels throwing their doors open to Hollywood writers and actors, saying “come one, come all!”, hoping they can grab themselves another House of Cards or Breaking Bad. In their haste to piggyback on the “golden age”, has anyone stopped to say this drama is plain daft? Entertaining, yes, but utterly ludicrous? Is this a case of The Aussie Emperor’s New Clothes?

So was there anything good on this week? Yes, as long as you don’t want realistic drama. Citizen Jane: Battle for the City (BBC4, Wednesday) must have simultaneously heartened and depressed residents of Glasgow. It was about a campaigning journalist, Jane Jacobs, who worked tirelessly to prevent the self-important men in suits from destroying the old neighbourhoods of New York City. She fought against the arrogance of city planners who think they know best, and who decreed that old districts should be demolished to make room for their soulless, modern schemes.

How post-war Glasgow needed a fierce Jane Jacobs of her own! Think of the old Gorbals, Cowcaddens and Anderston areas – all gone and replaced with grey motorways and even greyer tower blocks.