• ‘I WAS working at Kings College in medical education….” So begins one alcoholic’s sad story. Another weeps, having just watched his father, a Member of Parliament in South Africa, die of cancer. A bilingual French woman with a beautiful accent, who’s addicted to strong cider, says her sudden rectal bleeding is annoying. “I used to be rich but now I’m poor,” someone else says.

So what was happening here? Sons of parliamentarians? Rich, bilingual, educated people? They can’t be alcoholics, surely. They were too civilised. There were no glimpses of trashed flats in a high-rise building, the blinds pulled shut and the doors dented and scarred. These people didn’t wear tracksuits and puffy trainers and they didn’t have Scottish accents. Because that’s the typical view of the “alkie”. He’s aggressive and unwashed and therefore he doesn’t deserve sympathy. He’ll just waste your money on drink, you know. He’s never worked. He might even mug you. That’s the image we’re fed and which is reinforced by lazy sections of the media who’re striving for your clicks and will delight in a story about some ned from Wishaw with a Staffy and a clinking carrier bag.

That’s the cliche of the alcoholic and most of us will feel no connection to such a caricature but Louis Theroux forced us to feel empathy for alcoholics by showing us sufferers in his documentary: Louis Theroux: Drinking to Oblivion (BBC2, Sunday).

You might criticise him for not choosing “representative” alcoholics. How many of them, for example, are the well-spoken sons of foreign MPs? How many are bilingual? I’d wager not many, but the sight of a polite, coherent, clever man sobbing and destroyed by drink might have prompted a spark of recognition in viewers who usually feel clean and virtuous when faced with a council estate “jakey”. What has he to do with me, they might ask before turning away.

But Louis gave us some educated, privileged people who might have once considered themselves safe from life as an alcoholic but circumstance claimed them, regardless. These nice, decent people were alcoholics and were suffering terribly: their livers were shutting down, they were leaving bloody handprints on the curtains, and their stomachs bulged with fluids. This can happen to us “decent” folk? It’s not just something for the underclass and the unemployed, far away in their schemes.

Louis did us all a favour by choosing eloquent people. Had he chosen people who conform to the stereotype of an alcoholic, most of us would have watched it as we do a David Attenborough documentary. But instead we were horrified, shocked and reminded you need a bit of luck, or that could well be us. Whether you’re born privileged or into the underclass, there is such a thing as circumstance and it can be vicious, stripping everything away from you despite your best intentions. And if cruel circumstance occurs, all you can hope for is that people will be kind. As Louis was, holding one of the patients as he cried into his shoulder, “I thought I was recovering, Louis.”

This Holyrood election campaign has been boring. Maybe tedium was inevitable with the election coming so soon after the referendum and a tumultuous General Election. How could there not be a sense of anti-climax?

But it’s a dull campaign when you have to rely on David Coburn for laughs. Sensible people might say: “Why look for laughs? It’s not supposed to be funny.” I agree but there’s no harm in a campaign being perked up with by a gaffe, a slip or a photo call ruined by amorous pigs. At least these silly moments snare our attention and remind the wider population an election is approaching. That can only be a good thing, especially for Gary: Tank Commander who’d no idea it was happening: “Why did ah ne ken aboot this? How is it bein’ hidden fae me?”

And so in Gary: Tank Commander’s Election Special (BBC2, Monday) he resolved to sit down with the leaders of the Holyrood parties, plus Coburn, to question them on the issues, such as: “Old people get a free bus pass so how come they’re so moany?”

Gary was brilliantly funny, of course, but I cringed in watching the politicians try to match his tone. “Free green Fruit Pastilles for everyone!” chuckled Ruth Davidson and Nicola Sturgeon played along with the idea of having giant flumes in Bathgate. It was painful to watch and, for once, I had sympathy with Willie Rennie who looked awkward, as though he’d been forced, against his better judgement, to participate. Perhaps they were all compelled to do it, as Twitter would viciously attack any leader who refused, saying they were churlish and self-important. Think you’re too good for Gary, eh?

This short programme tried to make our politicians appear accessible and down to earth, but actually it was degrading and did nothing to help us uncover truths about their honesty and intentions. We might have learned how game they are, but this is perhaps dangerous. These people should not be our friends. We should scrutinise them, and be cynical and careful around them. They’re not our pals. They don’t want selfies, they want votes. So don’t be distracted by the pally act.

This programme served no purpose except to remind us all about Gary: Tank Commander. How bold it would’ve been if he’d interviewed people parodying and mimicking “Nicola”, “Kez” and wee Willie Winkie. Then it might have blossomed into satire: something every healthy democracy needs.

Scott and Bailey (STV, Wednesday) continues to stand apart from the slew of police dramas because of the close and sparky friendship between its two female leads but I can’t help wondering how wasteful it all is. Imagine this powerful female friendship transferred somewhere other than a police station? What about the women of Greenham Common, for example? I’d be overjoyed to see a serious drama about the protesters attacking the fence with bolt cutters and dancing on the missile silos, risking arrest, abuse and eviction. It’d be a dramatic goldmine but we’ll keep getting police dramas, for some reason…