YOU can tell it’s autumn, all the signs are there: the rustling of starched petticoats in the lanes, braces of britches striding purposefully across fields and a profusion of facial wiggery.

Yes, before you’ve had time to work out once more how the auto timer on the central heating works and roll your eyes at the amount of Hallowe'en stuff already in the shops, the BBC costume drama has stepped daintily back onto our screens.

It’s one of the surest signs that we are officially in the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness and that, at last, we can all stop trying to cook outside while not wearing socks.

Along with the slow cookers and the extra quilts, out comes the latest corseted, bonneted and beribboned offering from the Beeb and, as always, it’s one from its stable of sure-fire, audience-pleasing classics, namely Jane Austen’s Emma (BBC1, Sunday, 9pm). You can almost hear the initial planning meeting about what this season’s big costume caper ought to be: “Guys, guys, listen, I’ve got a brilliant idea. Why don’t we plunder the local library and find a really obscure but still brilliant work that’s never been adapted for TV before?”

“Hmm, could do I suppose.

“On the other hand, we could just do one from the list again.”

“Fair enough. Pint?”

Then in the second meeting someone merely rummages around in the Dickens/ Austen/Bronte hat and selects “the one”.

Finally it’s a quick ring round all the agents who have proper actors on their books and, before you can say “Well, bless my bustle and firtle my fettle, if it isn’t young master Aubrey” the die is cast.

But I’m not complaining. It’s still a treat, because if there is one thing we do well it is period drama – think the serialised adaptation of Bleak House, Oliver Twist with Robert Lindsay as Fagan – and this was no exception.

The cast, a heady blend of pale, wistful things pursued by dashing fellows and a gaggle of older, wiser types, as heavy on character as they were on jowls, wouldn’t look out of place in the front-row at the Baftas.

The acting was impeccable, the costumes ferociously authentic and the photography a master-class in that fuzzy, golden light that looks so good on a rainy Sunday night.

But the true star of the show was the scenery, a seemingly endless backdrop of stunning locations that served to remind us how beautiful this country is and why, despite our draughty B&Bs and boil-in-a-sock pub grub, tourists flock to this green and pleasant land.

And it’s somehow heartening watching the action knowing that the settings still exist today and, aside from the odd plastic garden seat, ugly pylon and dodgy bit of double glazing, they remain largely unchanged; here in Dorset you can easily wander through the sort of charming squares and sleepy village streets that people like Emma would feel perfectly at home in.

From the sublime to the slime, Jeremy Vile, I mean Kyle, is at it again.

Just when you thought that his gleefully announcing the DNA paternity test results of various unwashed unfortunates on air was the lowest form of TV entertainment, he’s managed to dig deeper into his personal supply of despairing humanity in the name of ratings.

His Wednesday show (The Jeremy Kyle Show, ITV1, weekdays, 9.15am) this week was so crass, so nastily exploitative, that for a moment I hoped it was a spoof... it wasn’t.

The main subject was murder, specifically murdered children, and on the stage of shame Kyle had assembled a collection of bereft, grieving parents, hankies squashed into faces raw from crying, hands clenched in utter despair.

And the most loathsome man on telly cheerfully prodded them and poked them like some ringmaster, encouraging them to perform (that is cry) for his gathered audience of tattooed potatoes squashed into crop tops and leggings.

“Tell us your story,” oozed Kyle, wearing his faux-giving-a-toss mask.

And so they did.

A sobbing woman whose daughter was brutally killed blubbed out all the gory details as the camera zoomed in first on her, then on Kyle’s immensely slappable face before finally sweeping over the vacuous faces in the audience as they pretended they weren’t enjoying it all.

Next a broken man sobbed as he described the frustration he felt at being unable to avenge the gang killing of his son.

It was truly grim.

Until, that is, Kyle looked him straight in the eye and said: “As long as I’m sitting on these stairs, I will get you help.”

Well, that made everyone feel so much better.

Then he really raised the feel-good factor by introducing a man whose brother had been stabbed to death but who had managed to “move on”.

He’d been brought along to inspire these other sad saps to seek “closure”.

“Tell us your story,” smarmed Kyle to the bereaved guy before adding “briefly”.

What a guy.