A thriller with a big mystery: how does boozy Zoe stay on her feet?

YOU don’t have to be a detective to investigate crime on telly. Anyone with the slightest connection to the police can do it. Emilia Fox, as pathologist Nikki Alexander, has been catching killers for years on Silent Witness. Two separate Family Liaison Officers have solved brutal cases lately — Morven Christie in The Bay, and Sally Lindsay on Intruder.

Now it’s the turn of Neighbourhood Watch. Noel Clarke stars as a curtain-twitcher, keeping an eye on the street after a schoolteacher goes missing, in Viewpoint (ITV).

Noel’s character, DC Martin Young, isn’t actually from the local Neighbourhood Watch, mind you. He isn’t half as professional as that. DC Martin works for the ‘police surveillance unit’ and he turned up on the doorstep of single mum Zoe’s flat, demanding to take over her daughter’s bedroom.

He set up telescopes and video recorders to spy on the vanished teacher’s boyfriend across the street. Then he nipped out to pick up his son, with strict instructions to Zoe (Alexandra Roach) not to touch any of the gear.

Ten minutes later, nosey parker Zoe was leading the investigation herself. It’s hard to know what’s more worrying — the idea that police can commandeer family homes to monitor anyone who reports a missing person, or that other neighbourhood watchers are so easily roped in. I preferred the scheme when it just involved keeping an eye open for loiterers, with a coffee morning and bourbon biscuits every other Tuesday.

The show has a brilliant supporting cast. Coronation Street’s Catherine Tyldesley is the teacher’s next- door neighbour, dripping with money, who catches DC Martin’s eye — he spends more time with his night- sight trained on her than on the suspect, Greg (Fehinti Balogun).

Phil Davis is DC Martin’s boss, and Ian Puleston-Davies is a former detective turned peeping Tom.

Much of Viewpoint is simply inexplicable. Why does DC Martin start poking around Zoe’s flat, finding joints in the ashtray and a gin bottle under the sofa before he’s even unpacked his bag?

Why doesn’t he tell Zoe’s estranged husband that he’s a policeman, instead of letting the bloke assume he is her new boyfriend?

And since Zoe carries a brimming glass of red wine around her flat all day, taking slurps like she’s washing down aspirin, how is she able to stay upright?

Don’t expect answers, though Viewpoint airs every night this week. And you’ll have to bring your own bourbons.

The neighbourhood watchers were in full view as Jessie (Rose Matafeo) staggered out of her new boyfriend’s swanky home, in the new romantic sitcom Starstruck ( BBC1). Though Jessie had only just worked this out, her fella (Nikesh Patel) was a Hollywood actor — and the watchers were paparazzi.

This is Notting Hill, with the genders reversed, and anyone who enjoyed Hugh Grant as a bumbling innocent in love with a superstar will find Matafeo just as charming, and twice as believably vulnerable. ‘This morning I had sex with him again,’ she gasps to her best friend, Kate, ‘and I was barely drunk!’ ‘Oh,’ giggles Kate, ‘so sweet.’ Sitting in bed with the man she calls ‘Famous Tom’, Jessie can’t hide how impressed she is with his success. ‘What about that,’ she says, pointing at a painting, ‘how much did that cost?’

But when she realises he’s already in a serious relationship, she walks out.

Though it is sometimes too ready to stoop for cheap laughs, Starstruck will leave you yearning to know if Tom and Jessie get back together.

And you won’t have to wait: all episodes are now on iPlayer.