The Simpsons

7Mate, 7.30pm

Any Simpsons episode starring Marge is something to look forward to; doubly so when it wraps its Marge-love in a piss-take of the cult TV show Portlandia. The tenuous excuse (is there any other kind in the Simpsons' world?) finds Marge taking up competitive lumberjacking after realising her family and greater Springfield see her as boring.

You Can’t Ask That, season 5.Credit:ABC

Heading off to a month-long retreat in Portland with her training buddy Paula opens the gateway for a barrage of jokes about America's hippest city (as irascible comic book guy says, "Here, I'm quirky rather than objectionable") and setting up a forlorn Homer for some cringe-worthy assumptions about lesbians' need for donor sperm.

Another reason for fans to take note: the episode introduces actress Grey Griffin as the voice of annoying twins Sherri and Terri and Martin Price following the death of Russi Taylor.

Doctor Doctor

Nine, 9pm

It's a country medical drama but no A Country Practice thanks to the casual profanity and non-judgmental depiction of medicos' casual drug use (actually, for anyone who has long suspected Frank Gilroy and Shirley hit the ganja of an evening maybe it really is like ACP).

Likeably louche, Doctor Doctor is notable for its insouciant approach to modern life whether that's a gram of coke destined to get new medical intern Tara (Kate Jenkinson) in trouble over random workplace drug-testing or the practical realities of online dating.

While the fictional town of Whyhope (geddit?) is written as a medicos' Van Diemen's Land where wrongdoers are sent for probation, it's not by any means a backwater. Census data was unavailable, but the town's population is big enough to support a thriving pole-dancing exercise studio, as discovered by church-going straighty-one-eighty Hayley (Chloe Bayliss), and the entrepreneurial mayor is planning to open a topless bar. Clutch the pearls. Rodger Corser's Dr Hugh, meanwhile, is falling for bad girl Tara, resulting in a major URST alert as the season reaches its penultimate episode.

You Can't Ask That: Firefighters

ABC, 9pm

Not sure if firefighters really fit the bill as "misunderstood, marginalised Australians" but this reliably excellent show has our blessing to broaden its ambit considering it was evidently filmed in the aftermath of the horror summer just gone.

A band of predictably salt-of-the-earth firefighters answer everything from the experience of being face to face with a wall of flames (terrifying, says one and all) to why they couldn't answer every call for help (resources; please direct that one to the PM's office).

ScoMo's "leadership" through the bushfire crisis makes a cameo as another thread to be pulled from the fraying carpet of national confidence as we face more hellish fire seasons.

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