In a world of cable, deregulation and Love Island, it takes a lot to startle Johnny TV Previewer. Over the average year, all manner of phenomena can come flying out of the telly: Les Dennis having a nervous breakdown; Rebecca Loos milking a pig; Richard Blackwood being given a painful enema, only to be told that backwash from his sclerotic digestive system — brandished in a bucket to the camera — is “nothing special”. And indeed, to the battle-hardened TV critic, none of these was anything particularly special. Throughout each and every one, I saw nothing to make me break my stride draining a comforting bowl of avgolemono soup.

But the arrival of The Beginner’s Guide to Islam, featuring Peaches Geldof, did, I must admit, provide a moment of pause. The spoon went back into the bowl, and rested a while. Peaches Geldof on Islam? Is this, in all conscience, a wise move? I’m all for freedom of speech — much more importantly, freedom of car-crash television — but at a point where this country is still under a security alert caused by a group of fairly emotional individuals, all with a downer on capitalism, secularity and the Great Satan, Peaches Geldof on Islam could be considered something of a . . . needle.

I mean, the sight of a petulant, peroxided Chelsea girl — erstwhile DJ with an outfit called the Trash Pussies — in a deeply religiously significant mountain retreat, saying “This is basically a small loony-bin”, would, to many troubled minds, be the exact encapsulation of the problem. Her big question to a trainee imam — “Don’t you wish there were some hot Fatimas here (at the seminary) so you could have a girlfriend?" could easily be seen as a call to arms. The moment where she dons the traditional hijab and pouts “This is hot,” pretty much defines the span of philosophical territory we will be covering for the duration of the impending Third World War.

Still, if the war is to mean anything, it must be covered in the pages of Heat, and this programme is pretty much the only way that will ever happen. This was clearly the thinking behind the commissioning — why else, would the Beginner’s Guide series also contain the equally unlikely The Bloke From the Magoons on Scientology and Paul Nicholls from Just Good Friends on Hinduism? To this presumed end, the Sloane Rangerish Geldof spends her half-term in Morocco — a country with a population 98 per cent Muslim — in a kind of Muhammad boot-camp. She drags up in the gear, takes to the mountain retreat to contemplate Allah (producer: “What are you thinking of, Peaches?” Peaches: “Shopping”) and watches a sheep being sacrificed for Eid (“I’m going to try and remember the happy sheep I briefly knew.”) It’s a bit like the first half of Private Benjamin, but with prayer.

Perhaps fortuitously in a week in which Bob Geldof's daughter throws cheesecake poses on a sign that reads “No non-Muslims allowed”, while screeching “Is this forbidden? IS THIS FORBIDDEN?”, the comedian Stewart Lee considers the nature of blasphemy in Five’s Don’t Get Me Started, subtitled What’s So Wrong With Blasphemy? As co-writer of the invigoratingly lucid Jerry Springer — The Opera, Lee has had more call than most to consider the meaning of blasphemy — he, along with Jerry Springer’s creator Richard Thomas, was actually taken to court and charged on three counts of it.

“Although,” as Lee notes, with slow, precise satisfaction, “the court threw the charges out, on the grounds that it’s not 1508.”

What’s So Wrong With Blasphemy? provides the always-satisfying experience of watching a sequence of very intelligent people being calm, logical and wry about a previously vexed subject. At one point, Lee nails the problem with religious extremism.

“It’s like it’s a competition to see who’s the most upset,” he says — his thoughtful, oddly moving face looking like the half-way point between Marilyn Monroe and Morrissey.

Finally, for those who felt that they might have a little more ability to reel left in them after Peaches Geldof’s programme, Channel 4 has thoughtfully provided Intervention. Sensitively subtitled We’re Coming to Get You, Intervention does exactly what the creeping unease in your stomach thinks it does — stages and televises family interventions with addicts. For those who have not yet come across interventions, the “ interventionist specialist” Tracey Towner lures an unwitting addict to a secret location, and then surprises them with a room stuffed with friends and family. The gathered loved ones then take it in turns to read out letters detailing what a s***heel and a loser the addict is, concluding each reading with, “And if you do not leave right away to attended rehab, I can never see you again”.

It’s a bit like Surprise Surprise, hosted by Betty Ford.

In the debut episode of the series, crack-and-smack addicts Richard and Anna get press-ganged into rehab over the course of a very emotional hour. Meanwhile, Towner tries to launch her three putative catchphrases: “We do not choose the day we quit — sometimes it gets chosen for us.” “You don’t need a last hit — it will never be as good as the first and you know it,” and “Do you accept the treatment?” Personally, I think she should replace the last with the pertinent, catchier and quite literal “Deal, or no deal?”

• The Beginner’s Guide to Islam, Tues, C4, 11pm; Don’t Get Me Started, Tues, Five, 7.15pm; Intervention: We’re Coming to Get You, Thur, C4, 9pm