Catch up TV: Veep, Silicon Valley and Monty Python Live

As the uncle of Alan Partridge and the father of Malcolm Tucker, Armando Iannucci is a master of the absurdly plausible. Or perhaps, since comedy is a matter of fluctuating emphasis, the plausibly absurd. In Veep (Sky On Demand), which has returned for a third series, there was a good example of this comic flux. It occurred during an awkward moment at a funeral, when one of vice-president Selina Meyer’s aides had to manufacture a reason to rescue her boss from a toxic conversation. “Ma’am,” he interjected, “the Prime Minister of … uh … Scotland … is on the line right now. It sounds important.” Topical, but still absurd.

Veep has rebooted slightly, moving out of the West Wing and onto the campaign trail, as Selina (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) runs for the Presidency. The first episode was a scene-setter, with everyone jockeying for position — apart from Jonah, the President’s man, who has accidentally rebranded himself as a “gossiptainment” blogger. Jonah is Veep’s most crudely drawn character, with no redeeming qualities — but everything else runs like the Doomsday clock.

On Sky Atlantic, as on HBO in the US, Veep screens as part of a comedy hour with Silicon Valley (Sky On Demand), Mike Judge’s satire of the tech world. The geek community is divided on whether it’s well-observed, with some suggesting that real geeks are way stranger than the regulation weirdos who populate Judge’s show. The drama centres on programmer Richard Hendricks (Thomas Middleditch) who works for the fictional internet giant Hooli, a cult built around New Age fool Gavin Belson, who employs a guru to listen to his mumblings and knows nothing at all.

Hendricks has developed a music copyright service, which — after much comedic use of phrases such as “lossless compression” — becomes hot property, forcing him to choose between selling out or developing the idea himself. There are some good jokes about the divisions between coders and programmers, an off-camera reference to quinoa, and a geek in a T-shirt that reads “I know HTML — how to meet ladies”. It looks pretty good.

Ray Donovan (Sky On Demand) has returned for a second series. For those who missed the first, it arrives with a very long “previously on...” plus a handy summary from Ray’s wife Abby to her therapist. Ray is a “sexual anorexic” and fixer, which means he messes stuff up in a criminal manner while trying to be a family man. But as Abby says: “It was a very bad year. His father came out of prison and made Ray crazy, and they fought all year. But he’s gone, right Ray?” Actually he isn’t. Ray’s dad (Jon Voight) is in Mexico, taking advice from a hallucination of a dolphin.

Serial box

So that was 24: Live Another Day (Sky On Demand). Jack Bauer is (geographical spoiler) gone from London, and the world is momentarily free from crazed terrorists engaging in time-sensitive atrocities with oddly apolitical motives. The finale involved Chloe wandering the streets like a stoned goth who had hoped for Bauhaus and got The Mission. The President remembered he was senile — handily, as there was much he wanted to forget. By the end, with Scotty the engineer running facial recognition software and Jack battling hostile aliens while getting emotional about lost women, it all felt a bit Star Trek.

In The Honourable Woman (BBC iPlayer) Nessa Stein’s bodyguard went into a deserted stone factory in the middle of the night, looking for a bookkeeper. Not his smartest move.

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Monty Python Live (Mostly): One Down, Five To Go

Sunday, 7.30pm, Gold

The financially motivated reunion of the five surviving Pythons for a romp through their greatest comedic moments was a box office success. Having trailed the event by placing a giant parrot on the banks of the Thames, Gold broadcasts the final show from the 02.

Rich Hall’s California Stars

BBC1, 7.30pm

The sardonic comedian has made several fine documentaries about his homeland. In the latest, he heads West to explore the myths and realities of California. He starts with a question: “How can a place with so much breathtaking beauty spawn an addled twit like Miley Cyrus?”

Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony

Wednesday, 8pm, BBC1

The caramel kilts to be worn by Team Scotland have prompted much derision (and a Downfall video parody), and plans to demolish the famous Red Road flats have been abandoned. But 3,000 volunteers will attempt to rival Danny Boyle’s London 2012 spectacular.