With a title as contentious as The Doctor’s Daughter, one can’t help but feel cheated within the first three minutes of this episode of Doctor Who when the cute pouty girl we’ve seen trailed endlessly this week isn’t actually the Doctor’s daughter, but a knock off bit of DNA created at the top of the episode.

Still, at least the meat of this episode isn’t undersold from that point onwards, because the next 45 minutes are actually pretty good as the Doctor, Donna and guest-companion Martha land on a colony planet in the far future. The colony was supposed to be a place where humans and the alien Hath could forge a new culture together. Sadly, things went Pete Tong fairly quickly and soon the humans and Hath were at war, a war that has been raging for generations in the underground corridors and chambers of this nightmare world. Soldiers are genetically created on both sides from whoever is near to hand, in this case the Doctor, and the gang are soon involved in the search for the Source, the mystical relic that the gun-toting General Cobb (Nigel Terry) thinks will help the humans win the war.

After last week’s run-around with the Sontarans, we still get plenty of running around, but there’s a different feel to this episode than we’ve had in previous weeks. The tone is darker, and there’s also a sense that things have settled down a bit - Donna is no longer the new girl, and we’ve hit that mid-season running speed that makes everything that bit more satisfying.

Have I Got News For You (Friday 9pm, BBC1)

Bill Bailey is tonight’s guest host, with BBC political editor Nick Robinson joining the regulars for what will likely be some incredibly witty banter about the week’s events.

Benidorm (Friday 9pm, ITV1)

Not a show that I’ve particularly warmed to, but it’s had some guest stars of note that had me tuning in a couple of times. Tonight’s episode of humorous Brits abroad features Margi Clarke, ahead of her reappearance in Corrie as Jackie Dobbs, playing Gavin’s mother. Is this the renaissance of Margi Clarke’s career?

Peep Show (Friday 10.30pm, C4)

After yesterday’s rant on how TV doesn’t deserve an audience any more, I take it all back at the prospect of a new episode of Peep Show. I can’t praise this show enough - it never takes the audience for granted and has characters that are unashamedly misogynistic yet remain strangely likeable. Tonight, Jez knocks off some music and passes it off as his own, Mark returns to work, and Sophie gets over her wedding woes - by turning to drugs. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.

Doctor Who (Saturday 6.45pm, BBC1)

So the Doctor has a daughter, has he? Well, he does according to the title of tonight’s adventure with Droo and his companion’s Donna and Martha. The team land right in the middle of a war between humans and the sinister and scary Hath, and fighting the good fight is a cute blonde with combat pants and a cheeky pout. Yes, this is the Doctor’s daughter, apparently. And rather wonderfully, she’s played by the fantastic Georgia Moffett, who is Peter Davison’s daughter, so she really is the Doctor’s daughter!

I’d Do Anything (Saturday 7.30, BBC1)

We’re down to the last six in this nail-biting competition, and things can only get interesting from this point on. I’m not sure all the survivors up to this point have it in them to play Nancy, but the majority are all feisty contenders. For my money, I want Jodie to go the distance - she has exactly the right amount of sassy sexiness and charm to be nigh on perfect, but I fear I might be outnumbered on that one. And please John, stop shouting so much, it isn’t dignified.

Pushing Daisies (Saturday 9pm, ITV1)

Five episodes in (or is that 6?) and it might be worth checking out the fortunes of this quirky US drama. Might be, because there’s something I find remarkably unpalatable about Pushing Daisies. Nothing gels for me, from Anna Friel’s sugary sweet Chuck, to the flimsy premise that really doesn’t stretch beyond a handful of episodes. The best series can overcome those constraints, but Pushing Daises seems to have problems in deciding what it ultimately wants to be. Is it enjoyable? Yes. Frustrating? Most definitely.

Gladiators (Sunday 6pm, Sky One)

Ian Wright brings his jestering skills to a revival of 90s phenomenon Gladiators. For some reason, this is getting several of my colleagues excited. Me? I couldn’t care less, to be honest, although I am looking forward to Wright’s serious and high-brow post-match discussion with Richard Dawkins and Marcel Proust.

Midsomer Murders (Sunday 8.05pm, ITV1)

You know things are getting desperate when Midsomer Murders is one of your top TV recommendations of the weekend. It’s the usual meandering malarkey with Barnaby and Jones who this week are investigating the murder of a former colleague of Barnaby’s. Edward Petherbridge makes an all too rare TV appearance as a Lord who himself served time for murder in the past.

So ITV has received a record fine from Ofcom in the aftermath of the regulator’s investigation of a series of phone-in scandals across various shows broadcast by the network, two of which are hosted by Ant and Dec. The fine amounts to £5.675 million, which, considering some of the amounts supposedly involved in the scandals, I find somewhat wanting.

You can peruse Ofcom’s findings here, and in ITV’s response, executive chairman, Michael Grade, said:

“For anyone who cares about British broadcasting the Ofcom findings and the Deloitte review make for sorry reading.”

Well, yes, it does Michael, it does. Let’s make no bones about this, and I believe I have raised this point previously: fraud has been committed here. Not some grey area, uncertain, possibly, maybe kind of fraud, but yer actual, fleece the public out of their hard earned fraud. Last time I checked, that was a criminal offence, so why haven’t the boys in blue been round and had a word? Well, I’m waiting?

So Davina McCall has finally decided to quit Big Brother following the end of the next series, if reports doing the rounds are to be believed. While nothing official has been issued on this subject from McCall, Endemol or Channel 4, I can’t say I’m surprised and am amazed it has taken the Big Brother veteran this long to call it a day.

I find myself rubbing my hands together in glee at the prospect of Davina leaving the Big Brother house for the final time -could this be the final nail in a reality coffin that has taken some hammering in the last couple of years? I do hope so - if ever there was a show that’s well past it’s sell by date, Big Brother is it. The race row of Celebrity Big Brother aside, slipping ratings, tedious housemates and a pervading sense of been there, done that has made the prospect of yet another summer of hell on Channel 4 as welcome as a new series of Rock Rivals.

Ready, Steady, Cook Tuesday 4.30pm, BBC2)

Denise Van Outen and John Barrowman bring a bag of shopping for Ainsley’s chefs to have a crack at making into something edible. Is there anything that John Barrowman won’t appear on?

Waking the Dead (Tuesday 9pm, BBC1)

Part two of the usual entertaining nonsense courtesy of Superintendent Boyd and his team of cold case sleuths. These days, you could probably mix and match episodes of Waking the Dead and you’d still be able to make a plot that’s probably more comprehensible. As always with the second part of a WTD tale, time is usually running out for the team to prevent another murder connected to a more recent murder connected to a murder from two decades ago. Is this long-running BBC big hitter starting to run out of steam? Perhaps, and for the next series I’m wondering what can be done to inject some more energy into proceedings…

Battlestar Galactica (Tuesday 9pm, Sky One)

Unless you’re watching the other shows we’ve recommended, there’s only place to be on Tuesday nights at 9. Battlestar Galactica: still great, still bonkers, still loving it!

Deadliest Catch (Tuesday 9pm, Discovery)

Documentaries might just fall outside the remit of TV Today, but Deadliest Catch could easily be a TV drama. This fly on the wall account of the crab fisherman working the treacherous Bering Sea has been running long enough now that the men crewing the trawlers have become like favourite soap characters. It might be the same thing week in week out - they cast out the traps and then haul them back in, but there’s always a thrill when your favoured captain is suddenly “on the crab!”. A very entertaining and addictive show.

Child of Our Time (Wednesday 8pm, BBC1)

The annual update on the lives of the group of children Sir Robert Winston has been following since their birth back in 2000. There’s nothing startling on display in how the children are growing up, but it’s interesting nonetheless.

The British Soap Awards (Wednesday 8pm, ITV1)

With EastEnders back on decent form after a couple of years in the wilderness, and teen soap Hollyoaks running some good, hard-hitting storylines of late, there could be some surprises along the way in tonight’s annual celebration of all things soap (of course, we know the results already, but for the sake of suspense, I won’t tell if you don’t). Certainly Coronation Street seems to be out in the wilderness on some nominations this year, which is a surprise, but you know what they say, there’s nowt so queer as soap. Or something. Phillip Schofield and Fern Britton are on hosting duties.

The Apprentice (Wednesday 9pm, BBC1)

This series just gets better and better, but I do have that uncomfortable feeling watching The Apprentice that much of its success is based on displays of human cruelty. Last week’s attack on Sara was fascinating to watch, but also gut-wrenching for the pack mentality it illustrated. But good on Raef for stepping up to the plate and showing he’s more than just a chinless wonder by gamely defending Sara. This week sees the pack of entertaining human tedium heading to Marakesh to bargain their little hearts out in the market and bring some wonga for Sir A.

Heroes (Thursday 9pm, BBC2)

Oh yawn, this sometimes-entertaining American drama really has lost me in this second series as it meanders through too many plotlines concerning too many characters. The first season of Heroes had a top-heavy cast as it was - can somebody entertain the virtue of introducing yet more super-powered types? Less showing, more doing please!

The Invisibles (Thursday 9pm, BBC1)

Maurice and Syd are blackmailed by a copper from their past into doing a job for him or he’ll turn them in. From the trailers, I was expecting The Invisibles to be slick, funny piece of character led TV. Instead it’s just a fairly ordinary piece of work that ends up being a bit dull. Shame, as the cast are great but the scripts just don’t sparkle as much as they should.

Midnight Man (Thursday 9pm, ITV1)

A promising if clichéd drama starring James Nesbitt as down at heel journalist Max Raban. A phobia means he can’t go out during the hours of daylight, so he’s reduced to trawling through rubbish bins in the dead of the night to find his stories and pay the bills. Looking into the death of two Iranian cousins, Max is on the verge of uncovering a conspiracy that implicates top-level politicians and Rupert Graves’ dodgy businessman Daniel Cosgrave. Midnight Man is fairly run of the mill stuff, but Nesbitt has that ability to raise mundane fare out of the doldrums, and an appearance from the legendary Alan “It’s Jim Robinson!” Dale is also good value.

As various Doctor Who forums go into a paranoid meltdown as the ratings for this weekend’s episode fell to 5.9 million, the rest of us get on with enjoying what was another fast and fun episode. So what if the ratings have slipped a little - it was still the second most watched TV programme of the day with an audience share of well over 30 per cent. Most dramas would kill for figures like that, and let’s face it, Doctor Who is not going to pull 14 million viewers every week - and it was a Bank Holiday, so let’s not count the Doctor out just yet, shall we?

Last week, we left the Doctor in a painfully atmospheric wide shot as the Sontarans got down to business with their plan to gas the planet - for reasons that we don’t yet know. Granddad Wilf was trapped in his car, choking to death, with the Doctor unable to free him because it was “deadlocked”, the cure all solution to the sonic screwdriver. As one, the audience screamed “Smash the window!”, and obligingly, Donna’s mum did. I can’t tell if this was genius or just silly. It was the obvious thing to do, but Doctor Who rarely stoops to the obvious.

Apologies again for the delay in this week’s review — the bank holiday and dodgy internet connections conspired against me this week.

As with previous weeks, the BBC’s YouTube videos are now available in a handy compilation player, which will automatically play all the main performances from Saturday and Sunday’s shows in their correct order.

This week, all the girls were coached for their performances by Andrew Lloyd Webber himself. And for all his mugging and ham-fisted attempts at humour on the judging panel, here it showed him excelling at his day job — getting the best out of the seven remaining Nancies. As a result, we ended up with seven strong (although not flawless) performances, and a cracking show to boot.

Have I Got News For You (Friday 9pm, BBC1)

Brian Blessed sits in on hosting duties this week. So that’ll be a quiet, subdued affair then. If he doesn’t shout “Gordon’s alive?” then there will be trouble.

Derren Brown: Trick or Treat (Friday 10pm, C4)

I wasn’t wholly convinced by the apparent random chance element of this Derren Brown vehicle, where his victims endure a good or bad experience based on the picking of a card. Brown is too good at sleight of hand to let the outcome of a TV show hinge on a 50-50 chance - these things all have to be planned way in advance, of course (and see this post from last year for an example of how he ‘forces’ the choice - Ed). Still, it’s very, very entertaining and sometimes rather alarming to see how events unfold, especially when a “trick” is being played. Tonight’s episode features a treat and gives Brown the opportunity to employ some of his deft brain training exercises.

Peep Show (Friday 10.30pm, C4)

There was something quite machinegun-like about the last series of That Mitchell and Webb Look. Fire enough rounds off and some of them will hit the mark. Thankfully there’s no random shooting with the fifth series of Peep Show, possibly down to the fact that this isn’t really the boys’ baby. They turn up, say the lines and concentrate on not bumping into the furniture. And they do it very, very well indeed. But the real plaudits for Peep Show really belong to writers Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, whose dialogue and characterisation is arrow straight every single time. Sparkling, quotable dialogue, excruciating situations and two great actors make Peep Show a marriage of brilliance between scripters and performers.

Friday Night with Jonathan Ross (Friday 10.35pm, BBC1)

Robert Downey Jr and Gwyneth Paltrow join Wossy to big up this weekend’s blockbuster film release, Iron Man.

Doctor Who (Saturday 6.20pm, BBC1)

In the second of a zippy two-part adventure, the Sontarans are choking the Earth through the ATMOS system (is it possible to have a system system?), and even with two companions on hand and the military might of UNIT behind him, the Doctor seems powerless to stop it. Of course, with a cheeky grin and some fast thinking, we know he’ll win through in the end. The Poison Sky is as fast and furious as last week’s slice of adventure, and the Sontarans make for fun if not entirely threatening monsters.

The Comedy Map of Britain (Saturday 10.40pm, BBC2)

This is a somewhat personally timely edition of the likeable ramble through TV history: as I head north to Yorkshire for the Bank Holiday, so too does The Comedy Map of Britain. I’m especially interested in the section covering Leigh Francis’s return to Leeds to seek out the tutor who was the real-life inspiration for Avid Merrion… Good Lord, Avid was based on somebody in the real world? Now that’s just scary. Wonder how he feels about that?

Boy A (Saturday 11.20pm, C4)

Following a quite correct nod for Andrew Garfield as best actor at the Baftas, Channel 4 plays a timely repeat of this stunning drama following the return of a young killer to society after his time in prison. It’s beautiful, heart-breaking and thought-provoking in one big hit of emotion and drama and deserved very plaudit it received first time out.

Raiders of the Lost Ark (Sunday 8.05pm, BBC1)

Oh go on then. It would be rude not to really.

Flood (Sunday 8.05pm, ITV1)

I thought cheesy disaster fare like this was destroyed in the late 70s, but it seems the genre is alive and well and living on ITV this Bank Holiday weekend. Robert Carlyle plays troubled marine engineer Rob Morrison, summoned to check out a fault on the Thames Barrier (which in a quirk of bad plotting just happens to be looked after by his ex-wife). In the face of a sudden storm front, the barrier is overwhelmed and London could soon be under some major CGI water, which at least will make the scenery easier to chew for the heavyweight cast. Pretty much everybody here is better than this tosh (enjoyable tosh though it may be) like this, so one can only assume that David Suchet needed an extension doing on the house or something. Concludes tomorrow night.

Family Guy (Sunday 10pm, BBC3)

The new series of this frequently funny and daft alternative to The Simpsons opens with the hour-long Star Wars skit, Blue Harvest. The show has always had an obsession with Star Wars in amongst the other silly TV references, and this special puts the Griffin family right in the middle of a loose retelling of George Lucas’s famous trilogy. It’s fun for a while to see Peter replace Han Solo, Stuey replace Darth Vader, and so on, but the beauty of Family Guy is the quickfire wit. Stretched to an hour, that wit seems watered down somewhat, but it’s still a great watch for fans nonetheless.

Apologies as I know this story is nearly a week old now, but I’ve just stumbled across this latest salvo from Ian Wright against his former employers the BBC. And you know how much I loved this one when it first broke a couple of weeks back. Seemingly now a new pet favourite of that bastion of quality The Sun, former self-appointed jester Ian Wright has decided that not only is the BBC’s sports coverage rubbish, but the BBC as a whole is well… rubbish.

Oh dear, oh dear. Has Wright’s stormy departure from the Beeb not quite had the reaction he was expecting. Rather than being hailed as some kind of conquering hero of the masses, striking a blow against the suits and tie brigade of intelligent football coverage, it seems Wrighty might be the one out of touch. Had he perhaps not considered the level of affection that still exists for Match of the Day, but also that football fans might actually still want intelligent coverage of football. It certainly beats ITVs somewhat wishy-washy coverage, often presided over by a decidedly uncomfortable and out of place Steve Rider.

If you or anyone in your family has felt inspired by this series of I’d Do Anything (or Any Dream Will Do, Grease is the Word or How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?), then you need to buy this week’s print issue of The Stage where we take a long, hard look at the world of training for musical theatre.

With the BBC currently in its third year of searching for a West End star, Matthew Hemley looks at the conflicts the BBC’s “fast track” approach throws up.

Mary Hammond, head of musical theatre at the Royal Academy of Music, has seen her fair share of ex-pupils trying their luck on such shows and acknowledges that it is one way someone can achieve their goal of taking a leading role in the West End. However, she refuses to allow her students to take part in shows when they are in the middle of their course, saying their attention should be focused on their studies.

Even when they have graduated, she would rather see her former pupils working their way up the ladder on a touring show or a repertory theatre company, where novices can perfect their craft away from the glare of the public eye. Being in the public eye week after week on something like I’d Do Anything, has the power to break a career as much as it has the power to make one.

[…] With this in mind, Hammond now makes it an element of her course to talk to students about the shows and the advantages and disadvantages of taking part. “As part of my training, I talk through the whole thing and how you deal with it,” she says. “I will bring in past contestants to talk to them - people who enjoyed their experiences and people who were destroyed by it and whose careers have not been helped by it. I want to make sure they know the score.”

The full text of Matthew’s article is now online, and is just one of the features in our musical theatre training supplement. For a rundown of what else you can find in the issue, check out our In The Paper blog.

She may have been tasked with a dubiously impossible mission - to have ITV Productions supplying 75% of programming for ITV1 - but the loss of Dawn Airey as director of global content after a scant eight months heralds yet another worrying thump of a nail into the ITV coffin. Even odder is that Airey’s new job will be taking her back to Five, a company she quit five years ago for pastures new, pastures which clearly have not been all that lush.

The real question on my mind is: just what happened in the eight months that Airey served for ITV and Michael Grade? She was clearly perceived as something of a big name signing and key to Grade’s vision of ITV’s glorious future in the independent sector. But in this case, was Airey not up to scratch in her role, or was it ITV that didn’t perform to her expectations? But coming after an abortive tenure at defunct start-up Iostar, has Airey’s reputation as a reasonable channel boss lost its shine, and how will she cope back at Five?

The BBC’s new media team has just released their latest toy: the Doctor Who trailer maker. Using a variety of video and audio clips from the series, you can now put together your own 30-second trailer using a web-based video editing interface.

The style of the interface should be familiar to anyone who’s worked with programs like Windows Movie Maker or Apple’s iMovie before. While everything’s been simplified to make it as easy to use as possible — options to trim clips and sett audio levels, for example, aren’t as precise as you’ll get in a desktop application — it’s still easy to grasp the concept quite quickly.

To get an overview of what the tool is capable of, here are a few examples that TV Today has knocked up:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/trailermaker/view/7frbj2
http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/trailermaker/view/7frbyu
http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/trailermaker/view/7frbcj

Why not have a go, and add a link to your efforts in the comments?

As Richard and Judy prepare to heave their sofa from Channel 4 over to cable mainstay UK TV (and no doubt a massively reduced number of viewers to buy all those Book Club tomes), Sir Terry of Wogan is possibly being groomed to gamely step into the fray.

The veteran broadcaster it seems has been recording a trial of a new general knowledge game show that could be a contender to occupy the 5pm Monday to Friday slot on C4 once Mr and Mrs Finnegan-Madely get the removal men in. There’s also the notion that a format could be found for ever popular Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond to pilot in the same slot.

But, but, but… My bottom lip is wobbling alarmingly at the notion of Sir Terry popping up on the airwaves of a channel that isn’t the BBC. It just isn’t right, I tell you. Wogan is as much a part of the fabric of the BBC as the ravens are at the Tower of London. I have horrible visions of Television Centre crumbling to the ground as soon as he steps out of the building and jumps into a cab over to Channel 4.

Good news for fans of quality drama. ITV1 has confirmed that a one-off film sequel to The Naked Civil Servant is to go ahead, with John Hurt reprising his Bafta-winning turn as gay writer Quentin Crisp.

The original film, produced by the late Verity Lambert and recently shown on BBC4 as part of a tribute night to her, followed Crisp’s life up until he departed the UK for a new life in New York — where he revelled in being known as one of the ‘stately homos of England’.

The new film, An Englishman in New York, takes up where the previous film left off, with Crisp part of the New York scene. From the press release:

New Yorkers immediately embrace Quentin and his witty waspish ways, and before long he is being wined and dined by celebrities in every corner of Manhattan.

A shining light of the chattering classes, Quentin befriends Patrick, a young artist who opens his eyes to the possibility that intimate human relationships - something Quentin has spent his life running away from - can work. But, as is so often the case with the maverick gay writer, Quentin cannot help but shock and, at a public event, he quips that the burgeoning AIDS crisis is “a fad”. Quentin is suddenly dropped from high society.

Then, out of the blue, he is re-discovered by English pop star Sting and immortalised in Sting’s famous song “An Englishman in New York”. Could this be the start of Quentin’s revival?

The new film is written by Brian Fillis (who wrote BBC4 biogs Fear of Fanny and Curse of Steptoe) and will be directed by Richard Laxton (Hancock and Joan). It is being produced by Amanda Jenks at Leopardrama for ITV1.

Filming starts in August in London and New York, so it won’t be on screens until Autumn 2008 at the very earliest.

Writers Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong and actors David Mitchell and Robert Webb are on stage at Bafta, two nights after Peep Show won the Bafta Award for Best Sitcom. Together, the four are a well-oiled machine, easily answering questions from a largely fan-based audience and laughing at each other’s jokes. But, there does seem to be some confusion. For the second time David and Robert have been compared to their characters and both are at pains to point out that while they look and sound like Mark and Jeremy, they are in fact not them.

‘I hope I’m not quite as stupid, dishonourable, deluded, selfish, feckless and thick as Jeremy,’ protests Robert.

‘You’ve got to love your characters, haven’t you?’ grins David.