July 2006 Archives

After a decidedly lacklustre weekend of televisual treats (although How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? could be this week’s New Favourite Thing), things start off well early this week…

Trawlermen (Monday 7pm BBC1) is set to be an addictive look at the lives of the trawlermen of Peterhead, who work the treacherous swell of the North Sea to bring home those ever dwindling stocks of fish. As human interest goes, this is as good as it gets, with action and heartbreak along the way in this examination of one the country’s most dangerous jobs, stripped Monday to Friday throughout this week.

Saxondale (Monday 10pm, BBC2) has been a very hit and miss affair. As you’d expect from Steve Coogan, there are moments of genius, but far too often the enterprise falls flat. A shame, as in Tommy Saxondale there is perhaps Coogan’s most finely observed character ever, and after this closing episode, I’m strangely left hoping for more from this boorish curiosity.

Finally on Monday, I can heartily suggest you dip into a double bill of episodes from the excellent Big Love (Monday 10pm, Five). I haven’t found this HBO series about a polygamous family headed by Bill Paxton’s put upon husband required viewing, but of the episodes I’ve seen it’s fantastically acted and tautly written with real emotion. The final two episodes air next Monday, so this may be a chance to dive in head on.

Sorted (Tuesday 9pm, BBC1) is proving to be highly enjoyable drama with some fun characters to push things along nicely (and Tracy-Ann Oberman gets more divine every time she graces my screen). This week we’re focusing on serious Catholic, Dex, who proposes to Amy over a romantic dinner – but is she as into the idea as he is?

And is it bad form to recommend CSI: Miami (Tuesday 9pm, Five)? I thought so…

Despite my better judgement, much like Saxondale, I’ve found myself warming to the charms of Jane Hall (Wednesday 9pm, ITV1). It’s not big, it’s only slightly clever, but it’s incredibly enjoyable fluff. I haven’t enjoyed something about bus drivers this much since a Sunday afternoon repeat of Holiday on the Buses (and if anybody disagrees on said film’s status as a sublime comedy classic, we’ll be having words). Sarah Smart just oozes watchable charm as the winsome Jane, and in this episode there’s an unlikely bus hijacking and hostage situation with our heroine at the centre…

Thursday is a joy of watchable gems, and although it’s a poor relation of The Apprentice, I’ll be in the front row for the new series of Dragon’s Den (Thursday 8pm, BBC2). More dafties stream through the door to attempt to drum up some folding stuff from the po-faced panel to develop their frankly crazy inventions. A water free egg boiler, anyone?

9pm on Thursday has created something of a dilemma at home for me – do we watch Bad Girls (ITV1) or throw our hat in with The Hotel Inspector (Five). Both brilliant in their own right, the only solution is to combine both shows into one glorious whole. The Prison Inspector could really have legs, and I’m heading to the Dragon’s Den right now to get some development money. Simon Shaps, just you wait for my call…

Time Trumpet with Armando Ianucci (Thursday 10pm, BBC2) is already in my diary as a regular appointment. The Thick of It is, of course, brilliant, but this is getting Ianucci back to the sort of comedy he does best, and the closest he’s stepped to The Day Today in years. Here we have recollections of 2007 related from the perspective of 2037 by aged celebrities – David Beckham on the wrong side of 50, a confused and grey Tony Blair, and an overweight Paula Radcliffe, among others. You need to be on the right wavelength to appreciate Ianucci when he’s like this, but this is Grade A material nontheless.

Not so much a recommendation, more of a Public Health Warning. My Hero (Friday 8.30pm, BBC1) should be avoided at all costs. Keep your children away from it. Keep your mother away from it. Even move the family pets to a safe distance. My Hero starring Ardal O’Hanlon was bearable (just) by the consummate O’Hanlon’s presence. My Hero starring James Dreyfuss has not one redeeming quality. Not one, single, solitary thing to recommend it. Compared to this, I’m starting to see some charm in Love Island. I think I need a lie down.

There are some very rum goings-on at ITV at the moment. On top of drama costs being slashed, ITV1’s big new Saturday night variety extravaganza, It’s Now or Never, was last week cancelled after just one showing, with the second and final episode replaced by a repeat of It’ll Be Alright on the Night. And not just any edition — it was the one compiled to offer part of ITV’s 50th anniversary celebrations, which only served to highlight the poor quality of the current network offerings compared to their predecessors.

Now, I was one of the (admittedly small) number of people watching It’s Now or Never last week, and I have to say it was an enjoyable show. Or rather, it was an enjoyable half-hour show unbearably stretched out to twice that length. A faster-paced, 30 minute show would maybe have gone down better. If an hour was required, then two people’s stories could have been covered in the same programme.

It’s worth noting that ITV’s move compensates for just one hour of broadcast television. Moving so suddenly may have helped them recoup a small number of Saturday night viewers, but at the same time it highlights just how jittery Network Centre is at the moment, despite Simon Shaps’ apparent confidence. At a time where ITV chief executive Charles Allen says that he’s ‘considering his position’ (and investors, while not quite throwing him out of the door, are at least holding it open for him), it’s hard to see how running a repeat of a show which the new regime had previously put to sleep is going to brink back the confidence that ITV needs — both within itself, and from its advertisers and investors.

Apologies for the strangely fractured weekend editions of Square Eyes this week, but I’m trying to embrace the head-swaying immediacy of the Blogosphere in that, as soon as this information is posted, you only have to wait a couple of hours to enjoy the fruits that I bring forth. Either that, of I’m just in shock to realise that The Archers isn’t real because Brian Aldridge just turned up on Just a Minute a mere 45 minutes after he was heard to be phoning Siobhan from behind Tom Archer’s burger van. Ahem…

Today is dominated by the final ever edition of Top of the Pops (Sunday 7pm, BBC2) and despite the long-overdue timing of the axe man arriving at TV Centre, this is still a black armband day. The Final Countdown, as it has been subtitled, will clearly be a limp tribute to a once great show, but should be essential viewing for many. The great shame is that nobody at the BBC thought it might be appropriate to shunt this last edition back to BBC1, to finish it’s run at the heart of prime time.

And what tonics are there to pull the nation out of mourning later in the evening? To be honest, not a great deal, although the stunningly compelling Tribe (Sunday 9pm, BBC2) has been as joy in the Sunday evening schedules. Bruce Parry bids farewell to Ethiopia as he spends time with the peoples of the Dassanech tribe on the shores of Lake Turkana. Anyone for a spot of late night crocodile hunting? Bruce, obviously.

And bearing in mind the musical departure of earlier in the evening, another recent exit from the cultural world is examined in a repeat of an Arena outing, Little Platform, Big Stage (Sunday 10pm, BBC4). It’s several months since the Routemaster bus vanished from the streets of London, and these fond recollections from five conductors who worked on the beautiful machines is a timely reminder of what the capital has lost. Certainly, my regular 159 route to Marble Arch has never been the same since. Although I can’t say the same about Jimmy Savile…

It’s a bit of a mixed bag across the schedules this weekend,and if the weather keeps up, who wants to be inside glued to the box anyway? Unless you’re like me and love camp nonsense with Graham Norton and dinosaurs (although not at the same time, but that would be cool).

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? (Saturday 6.50pm, BBC1) sees the Beeb trying to wring every penny of value out of the top dollar price they paid for Graham Norton by getting him to front this frankly camp as Christmas search for a new Maria to go into a brand new production of The Sound of Music in the West End. And personally, I’m bang on for this. In the midst of Love Island and Big Brother, it’s good to see a bit of reality nonsense with some sparkle about it. For the hundreds of young hopefuls putting themselves through hell to get down to the last handful in this eight-part run, this is the biggest thing they will ever do, and could make the beginnings of a dazzling new career. The first episode focuses on the early audition stages, which on past experience always proves to be the most fun. Among the judges is John Barrowman, who continues his campaign to get just about everywhere on TV (and look, I didn’t mention Doctor Who once…)

If nuns, Nazis and snow are not your thing, Prehistoric Park (Saturday 6.50pm, ITV1) is a fun bit of fluff with some CGI dinosaurs that the kids will love, but adults might be a bit smirksome at. The McGuffin of the very beautiful looking series is that real-life wildlife type bod, Nigel Marven is blasted back 10,000 years in time to have a looksee at the dinosaurs and bring them back to the present to populate um… Prehistoric Park. The problem is, it’s all a bit too cutesy and nothing that Walking with Dinosaurs didn’t do a few years ago, and a little bit better. But, I’m always decrying ITV’s seeming inability to do something different and imaginative, and Prehistoric Park is deifnitely a stride in the right direction.

Sean “Corrie’s Martin Platt) Wilson’s guest turn in Casualty (Saturday 8.35pm, BBC1) might not appeal, so you can do a lot worse than checking out the second episode of The Story of Light Entertainment (Saturday 9.25, BBC2). Last week’s 90 minute marathon focusing on the rise and fall of TV double acts may not have contained much that was new, but it’s good to have this material documented under one roof. And that continues this week as the work of the all rounder is looked at. Everybody from Cilla to Brucey gets a look in here, and the nostalgia freaks among us will leave this show witha nice warm glow of contentment.

And come back tomorrow, when Square Eyes will give you the treats to come for your essential viewing on Sunday (don’t worry, it’ll be Where the Heart Is free… unless we can’t find anything else worth watching, that is.

It seems quite fitting that, after yesterday’s discussion on the recording of the final edition of Top of the Pops, seeing a TV institution ride off into the digital sunset, that we are now preparing to open the book on a returning telly classic, Jackanory.

This is a very welcome piece of news. Despite the fact the Potter child has got more kids reading, I’m still of the quite Draconian opinion that kids don’t read half as much as they should do, and anything that exposes the little blighters to a bit of literature can only be a good thing. I’ll get off my Victorian soapbox at the end of this piece…

And the indentity of the first reader is also very welcome. Heavyweight thesp Sir Ben Kingsley is set to read the magical tale The Magician of Samarkand, which will appeal to the legions of Harry Potter acolytes, which on reflection, seems a bit of a safe choice to start off with. Following Kingsley, John Sessions will lend his talents to a reading of Muddle Earth, a skit on the world of Tolkein’s The Lord of the Rings,which seems an utterly baffling choice following the wizardy themed nature of the prevoious tale. Why not just do The Hobbit and have done with it? If the producers of Jackanory aren’t careful, the little ones will think that magic is all there is in the world of reading.

Still, I’d rather have a world with a new spin on Jackanory than without it, and I’m looking forward to seeing the execution of new techniques to aid the narrative and keep the audience switched on. I also want somebody fabulous to come along and read that staple of many a memorable classic Jackanory - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. TV Today’s recommendation? Matt Lucas…

Not a particularly original headline, but it fits to coincide with today’s recording of the final ever Top of the Pops. Fearne Cotton jets back from the Fiji-based Love Island (and if she has any sense she’ll stay) to cosy up with Sir Jimmy Saville who returns 42 years after helming the very first episode in 1964.

But to be honest, I’m a little underwhelmed by the whole thing. It’s not really been given the huge fanfare such an institution deserves as it heads off to the TV retirement home in the sky. Why aren’t we having an evening of programme’s devoted to Top of the Pops, rather than just an hour-long collection of archive footage and recollections? There is so much material there for the plundering, not to mention the cultural importance of a show that runs like a seam through the public concsiousness, despite its less than stellar reputation in recent years.

Even yours truly, not the biggest music fan in the world, has fond memories of watching TotP, holding my Liverpool scarf high over my head and singing along every time Queen appeared to sing We Are the Champions, along with my brother and dad. A rare moment of being united round a television set.

Dave Lee Travis, who also contributes to the final show, has been typically ebullient on the subject of TotP’s demise:

“If you look at your average kid who might be interested in Top of the Pops, they’ll have their iPod in one hand, a mobile phone in the other, they’ll be playing a computer with their feet and have a Wi-Fi aerial sticking on the top of their head.”

he has been quoted. And he’s not wrong. Did TotP simply grow old in the natural order of things, or did it just not try hard enough in keeping up with its target audience?

It lost its immediacy, and in this age of digital broadband downloading, that was crucial. Time was, the first time you saw a band peddling its wares on the TotP stage was the first time you’d heard the tune. Now, radio stations play tracks to death months before they’re available to buy. Who needs to tune in to TotP to see Rogue Traders when their latest record stepped into the arena of tedious ubiquity weeks ago? It’s no wonder the singles market is in such dire shape.

And so a telly legend passes into memory, and it saddens me that it won’t be leaving the cultural hole in my heart that it would have done 20 years ago.

But please, a request. Let’s not make Lily Allen the final ever number one that Top of the Pops has the honour of playing. The show deserves that at the very least…

Warning: Potential spoilers for Season 3 of Lost. Although it’s really just speculation at this point…

If you’re watching US drama Lost in the UK on either Channel 4 or E4, you may remember Desmond, the oddball character who was found living in the hatch at the start of Season 2. The character does, apparently, make a reappearance near the end of the season, and his actions apparently have quite an effect on the islanders (I’m trying not to find out too much about that aspect — as a fan myself, it’d be nice to have some surprises come the season finale).

In a number of places, though, I’ve been noticing speculation on whether Desmond, played by Brit actor Henry Ian Cusick, would be returning for the third season. It seems to be that producers have been saying that viewers would find out what the consequences of Desmond’s actions were, but were remaining tight-lipped about Cusick’s role.

Now, it seems, we have a clue. And it may be — just may be — that The Stage has got some extra information ahead of other sources. I missed it initially, because the nugget of information was hidden in a story about change of personnel at a children’s theatre:

Polka Theatre artistic director Annie Wood has announced her resignation after four years at the children’s venue in South West London.

Wood is moving to Hawaii, where her actor husband Henry Ian Cusick is appearing in the US TV series Lost as island inhabitant Desmond.

So — if Wood, who’s done a sterling job at the Polka, is making the commitment to move to the other side of the world, does that not imply that Desmond will have a greatly increased role come Lost’s Season 3?

Mind you, if you were offered the choice of Wimbledon or Hawaii, which would you choose?

aka BBC autumn treats (part 3)

It’s been a long hot summer and it’s 95 degrees in the shade (or so Girls Aloud once memorably sang). And it seems that waiting for announcements of exciting autumn schedules are like buses – you wait for one with the expectant hope of Patrick Kielty awaiting his next contract through the heatwave of the World Cup, Love Island and Big Brother, then loads come along at once.

Yesterday, BBC Three announced the highlights of its upcoming autumn schedule yesterday, the first new season under incoming controller Julian Bellamy. Through the pages of TV Today, I’ve been very enthusiastic about the output of BBC Three – the marvellous Drop Dead Gorgeous being a particular highpoint for the channel’s drama output that goes head to head with anything being put out by the premier terrestrials (and in the case of ITV1, that isn’t hard).

The centrepiece of the press release is Torchwood, the most ambitious run of drama commissioned by BBC Three outside of the much-praised Casanova (ironically being brought to life by much of the same team – Russell T Davies and exec producer Julie Gardner). A science-fiction crime thriller running over 13 weeks and focusing on the investigations of the top secret Torchwood (which just might have formed the backbone of the final two episodes of a popular family drama series that we’re not allowed to mention anymore (pssst, it’s Doctor Who, but keep that to yourself).

Its hard to say how Torchwood will fare – the success of the parent show is based around wide audience appeal – and Torchwood is definitely aiming for a post watershed audience. I’m glad I’m not the parent who’ll be explaining why they can’t stop up to see the return of Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman), last seen in that series we don’t talk about, and filling in time in a lead role here until joining up with the third series of that series which must not be named. It will be different in tone, and that might just be to its benefit, but until some preview tapes have been seen, the jury is well and truly out. Julian Bellamy is using Torchwood as something of a State of the Union address (sorry, going a bit West Wing crazy), stating:

“Torchwood is just the kind of cutting edge, ambitious drama of real scale that we’re seeking on BBC Three…”

One drama that has defined BBC Three and deserved a much wider audience than it gained on the terrestrials (BBC2 on a Saturday night? I think not!) is Bodies. The truly magnificent drama is rounded off with a feature-length finale, and there is no doubt in my mind that it will be as bleak, visceral and brutal as what came before. But pity Max Beesley. after the heights of Bodies, he’s back filming the second series of Hotel Babylon (shush, I actually like that too…).

As before, BBC Three has a tradition of siring new comedy (having previously plucked Little Britain from Radio 4 to become to become an era defining show), and the autumn line up continues this…

Pulling sounds like another 20-something, ever so knowing comedy in the Grownups mould, seeing Donna dumping her fiancé Karl just days before the wedding. How will Karl cope with seeing Donna getting on with her life, leaving him behind? It sounds painfully BBC Three to be truly worthwhile, but maybe the channel knows its audience better than I do…

Little Miss Jocelyn is a sketch based show starring Three Non-Blondes’ Jocelyn Lee Esien. I failed to catch the Three Non-Blondes boat, remaining stoically poker faced at its charms, so this is one I can probably live without.

I’m With Stupid has controversial written all over it, starring Mark Benton and Paul Henshall in a comedy that tackles disability in a “funny and truthful way”. Benton always brings a unique touch to anything he appears, and his presence here brings a sheen a reassurance to something that would otherwise leave me feeling very nervous.

Dogtown is the working title of a comedy set in the coastal town of Horton-Le-Hole, the name of which almost had me splitting my sides in mirth. Note I said: almost. James Gaddas and Geraldine McNulty star.

And on learning that Tittybangbang is returning for a second series, I immediately penned a very strong letter to my MP. What bright spark thought this feeble excuse for a sketch show was worthy of another commission? Take my advice, rather than watching Tittybangbang, head down to the shops, buy yourself an economy pack of cocktail sticks and then go out and film your own home movie version of Hellraiser. Believe me, that will be half an hour of your life you’ll want back more than the 30 minutes spent watching Tittybangbang. Somebody please tell me that the superior Man Stroke Woman is getting another run. Please.

Finally, much like BBC1, Three has commissioned a series of one-off comedy pilots, all designed for a pre-watershed slot. Bash stars Susan Earl, And Martin is written by Mark Watson, and Lab Rats is written by the excellent Chris Addison and produced by Armando Iannucci, a name that will always bring a note of good pedigree.

All in all, this seems like a confident package that displays a good understanding of the channel’s core audience. Torchwood is going to receive most attention, but hopefully there are a couple of gems that might have legs somewhere along the way. But keep me away from Tittybangbang, I won’t be responsible for my actions!

The first season BBC Wales/Kudos production Life on Mars was a hit with critics and viewers alike when it was broadcast. Although here in the UK we’ve still got a bit of time to wait before the second, even freakier, series, those lucky Americans get to enjoy the first series in all its glory on cable channel BBC America from tonight. So, here at TV Today, we thought we’d take a look at what those Americans are making of a very British show.

San Francisco Chronicle:

“Life On Mars” — Get it on the DVR immediately or at least be home for it — is a brilliant, clever and studied take on retro police work, set in Manchester, England, circa 1973… So many disparate elements collide here that you can’t quite figure out what’s the most engaging. There’s the premise itself — wonderful and full of possibility, playing out over eight episodes — and [John] Simm’s superb turn as the befuddled, angry, worried and vexed Detective Sam Tyler (not to mention Philip Glenister as his ethically challenged, punch-happy superior, Gene Hunt).

Ultimately, what works best is the entire thing. The whole of it is seductive, mostly because it’s the anti-“CSI” and Sam, schooled on hair fibers and perfectly maintained crime scenes and ultra-fast lab work, is suddenly in a world where computers are no help and he has to revert to old-school wits.

IGN.com gives it 10/10:

The show is a well-crafted mix of genres — part cop drama, part comedy, part Twilight Zone-esque thriller — that deserves to be placed in a category of its own. On the merits of this first episode alone, Life on Mars proves itself to be worthwhile viewing and should be checked out by any fan of good TV.

Los Angeles Times:

On one level, “Life on Mars” can be seen as a witty response to the modern police procedural, with its emphasis on cutting-edge forensic science and impossibly good-looking rainbow casts. Here the detectives are all rumpled white men with bad facial hair and bad teeth, working in a dark, messy, smoky room lorded over by genially thuggish DCI Hunt (the mighty Philip Glenister), for whom “evidence” means whatever he can plant on a suspect and the phrase “excessive force” an oxymoron. (Though all in the service of good.) Tyler, who comes from more enlightened times, literally bumps heads with him…

We want them to get along, and when they sync up — as when they jump over a desk in tandem on their way to crack a case, as though they lived in an old episode of “Starsky & Hutch” — it’s almost stupidly exciting.

LA Weekly:

If you’ve seen the great miniseries thriller State of Play, you know that I’m going to tell you that star John Simm is trustily excellent as Sam: emotionally on target as a lost soul and charmingly smart as a by-the-book sleuth. And he’s well-matched with Glenister, who has an engaging snarl and a wonderfully light touch playing the humor of an old dog — remember, he’s also experiencing his own measure of head scratching, thanks to his often puzzled-looking, future-obsessed new investigator. Everyone’s take on Mars is relative.

In the end, Life on Mars makes us realize we’ve all been crime-show accident victims in a collective trance for far too long — and it’s time to wake up.

Kansas City Star:

If the show were just “Tops of the Pops” salted with Diet Coke and Playstation jokes, it would be a mere confection. (That reminds me to mention that David “Ally McBeal Boston Legal” Kelley owns the U.S. rights to “Life on Mars.”)

This BBC version is more. It’s an ambitious and ever-shifting examination of the lack of foresight in a culture addicted to rapid change.

Finally, dailynews.com looks to the whole series rather than just the first episode:

As the series progresses, a few episodes play a little too much as regular crime melodramas, with clumsy plotting or clues too easily tipped to viewers. But the season finale returns to the brilliance of the first episodes, as Sam discovers what accounted for the disappearance of his father when he was a young child.

Glenister is the show’s breakout star as Hunt, whose arrogant swagger, poorly bottled rage and cranky wit have reportedly transformed him into a hero among current British policemen.

UK TV History.

A gem hidden away on Freeview that saved my lazy Sunday afternoon from being a complete wash-out of hangover pain. An entire day devoted to episodes of Michael Palin’s Sahara with some background Sunday paper reading (well it was Food Monthly Sunday in The Observer). Bliss.

A very good reason to salute our multi-channel age (because there seem to be so few)!

A little later than intended, I thought I’d better get my impressions of last week’s UGTV’06 panel out before I forgot them altogether. It was an enjoyable evening, if slightly frustrating. But more of that later.

In an event that was all about marrying user-generated content with old-style linear television, it’s only right that much attention was focussed on Trouble Homegrown, Flextech’s UGC offshoot of youth channel Trouble. As I mentioned before, the site works well and, by spending a significant amount of development money on systems that are compatible with every video codec in common usage, have ensured that the process of taking footage from mobile phones is as seamless to the user as possible. There are also no per-user bandwidth or storage restrictions.

Trouble’s Deputy Head of Interactive Gavin Newman claimed that, in its first few months of operation, the site was deliberately directionless. I don’t necessarily think that’s true, at least not in the way he implied. While there may have been no explicit guidebook telling users what kind of video content they should upload, the publicity material that showed people how to find the site would at least have given broad hints. From then on, certainly, it’s the users themselves that reinforce the direction the channel will take. But Homegrown is far from a user free-for-all in terms of content: its channel-driven themed contests, such as the Bump’n’Grind auditions stream, will only work if they feel compatible with the rest of the site’s ethos. If users were to take the site in another direction such that Trouble’s own content was out of place, all Flextech’s money would have been wasted — so it’s in the parent company’s interest to ensure that the site grows in a particular direction, no matter how much flexibility they build into their systems.

Not that such a guiding hand is a bad thing at all. In fact, I’d probably go as far as to say it’s almost a prerequisite. As video-based internet sites develop, it’s going to become ever more essential to have an eye on the type of niche audience you’re after. And because most of your content is generated by hands other than your own, it’s the site design — not just the look and feel, but the vocabulary and tone of the language you use — that will ensure you’re attracting the audience you want to appeal to.

It’s Monday, and that means another trawl through the schedules to find the morsels of TV goodness that will make our mouths water.

Come Dine With Me (Monday 4.30pm, C4) is the kind of show that makes me pine for those long lost days of studentdom and the blissful laziness of being a freelance hack. Back then, the most taxing issue of the day was pondering if it was still acceptable to fancy Carol Vorderman (and indeed, that very subject still vexes me today). In this week long celebrity extravaganza, a selection of actors, presenters and writers will turn up at their compratiots’ houses throughout the week to be served a three course dinner by that day’s designated host. Tonight, Rowland Rivron serves up some Coq au Riesling, and throughout the week, Linda Robson, Anneke Rice, Toby Jones and domestic legend Aggie off of How Clean is Your House? will return the favour. There are many kitchen disasters along the way, and it’s fun to see what happens when the judging takes place.

TV Today favourite Still Game (Monday 9pm, BBC2) takes a bow on its fifth series tonight, and with the hit and miss Saxondale heaving its way to one more episode next week, Jack and Victor will be sorely missed. It’s gratifying to see that in an age where an industry is hailing the death of the traditional sitcom, it’s refreshing to see a product that seems to have no problem in being funny in a very straight down the line way. And when a spin-off from a cult BBC Scotland sketch show (the sublime Chewin’the Fat) can better the Steve Coogan juggernaught in the ratings by a reasonable margin, it has to be doing something right.

Islamic Art at the V&A (Tuesday 7.15pm, Five) maintains the ailing Five’s growing reputation as a haven for art and culture and gives the channel a highbrow sheen that leaves ITV1 looking positively thuggish in its outlook. This tidy little piece provides a preview of what is being touted as the finest collection of Islamic art that will grace the new Jameel gallery at London’s always-impressive Victoria and Albert museum. If Five isn’t careful, we’ll soon be having Brian Swell presenting “When Painters Go Bad!”.

Much of Shiny Shiny Bright New Hole in My Heart (Wednesday 9pm, BBC2) was improvised by a cast including Sally Hawkins and Daniela Nardini and that can leave this thought-provoking drama with a disjointed feel. That being said, this tale of a personal shopper’s descent into shopping addiction hell as she apes the lifestyle of a wealthy client will hit a nerve in its bleakness, made all the more striking against the tawdry backdrop of Manchester’s Trafford Centre (a truly goliath-like shopping mecca that, on personal experience, should put you off shopping for life).

Another recommendation for Five with The Hotel Inspector (Thursday 9pm, Five). These Kitchen Nightmare inspired shows are essentially the telly equivalent of eating a pot noodle (dirty and nutritionally questionable, but somehow you can’t help yourself). Here, award-winning hotelier Ruth Watson turns up at ramshackle hotels and B&Bs and sets about getting them up to scratch. What I like about this is that Ruth looks so prim and proper and speaks with such gentleness, that when halfway through a show the F-word is launched from her mouth, even the audience sits up to attention. Guiltily compelling.

The TV Today hanky will be out on Friday as we prepare to say farewell to one of the greatest drama series to grace the world’s screens. The West Wing (Friday 9.30pm, More4) finishes its run with a double-hander of the final two episodes, seeing incumbent pres Matt Santos getting his feet under the Oval Office desk, while Jed Bartlett rides off into the sunset. I have laughed and cried through all seven series of this remarkable body of work, and have never subscribed to the view that things went downhill following the departure of showrunner Aaron Sorkin during season four. It might have become more sentimental towards the end, but The West Wing was never less than outstanding, and it’s like shall rarely be seen again. I’m tempted to long for the occasional TV movie to see where things can go, but the romantic in me prefers to preserve it as a perfect snowflake of fantastic TV.

aka BBC1 Autumn treats (part 2)

Yesterday, I cast my eye over the upcoming bundle of drama being unleashed by Auntie over the next few months on BBC1, and deemed it to be very promising indeed. Today, prepare to have your funny bone tickled by a new selection of comedy… Or not, as the case may be.

First up we have a couple of returns, not least of all an hour-long Christmas special for The Royle Family. Caroline Ahearne’s fantastically realised classic has been away long enough to have new things to say, but at the same time it will have to earn its keep and be bang on the money to be truly successful. Ricky Tomlinson is one of my TV heroes, so it should be good to have Jim Royle back on his rightful TV throne… So to speak.

Less welcome is The Green Green Grass. After a promising start, this Only Fools… spin off petered out into a fairly pedestrian affair. John Sullivan can dash out top-drawer comedy at the drop of a hat, but something about this just didn’t quite gel. Sit-com royalty Paula (Man About the House) Wilcox joins John Challis and Sue Holderness as Marlene’s flighty sister, Pertunia. I’m hoping The Green Green Grass has the legs to develop into a solid comedy during this second run.

In what could be an exercise to nurture possible new series, five one off comedy-dramas will crop up across the season…

Aftersun. Sarah Parish and Peter Capaldi as a married couple on holiday who find they have nothing to talk about. The acting pedigree is good (Parish seems to work tirelessly and Capaldi is hot thanks to The Thick of It), so as long as the couple don’t realise at the end that they really do love each other, this sounds promising.

Former Peter Kay foil Dave Spikey pens Magnolia, starring The Office’s Ralph Ineson as an ex con gone straight,now running a firm of painter and decorators. As the business struggles, will he do a job for his former gangster employees? Spikey is said to be the brains behind the success of Phoenix Nights (his absence from Max and Paddy was telling), although that being said, Dead Man Weds wasn’t great. Definitely one to watch…

In Angel Cake, Sarah Lancashire plays a bun maker whose life changes when a batch of her cakes comes out of the oven bearing a great resemblance to the Virgin Mary. Like the Jane Horrocks drama outing The Amazing Mrs Pritchard, this could be dreadful or the best thing ever.

The Good Housekeeping Guide fills me with foreboding, mainly due to the presence of Alan Davies. I loved Jonathan Creek, but outside the confines of this BBC classic, I find Davies utterly baffling. Here, as a single dad forced into extreme methods of making money, I’m not hopeful for my opinion to change much. Sorry.

Thankfully, to round off the five, somebody has remembered that Lenny Henry is a decent actor, and much better than those tedious sketch shows the BBC insist on crowbarring him into. In Berry’s Way (co-penned by Henry with Kim Fuller), Henry plays Berry Cottrell, a divorced father with a wayward son and ailing dry cleaning business. Enrolling on an Open University course, he sets to prove he can better himself with the assistance his lecturer Charles (the always brilliant Ron Cook). This one could go far…

Elsewhere in the schedules there is the re-teaming of Alexander Armstrong and Ben Miller as a double act in The Armstrong and Miller Show, performing sketch based comedy for the first time in five years. The graduation to BBC1 reflects how the pair have grown career wise in their separate endeavours, so a compare and contrast with their earlier material for Channel 4 might be in order.

Jennifer Saunders pens the ensemble comedy Jam and Jerusalem, starring Sue Johnston, Pauline McLynn and The Wild Wessome minor actors called Joanna Lumley and Dawn French. Never heard of them. Set around a doctor’s surgery in a West Country village, I’m hoping this will be better than The Wild West and the last series of Ab Fab.

Finally, Lee Mack stars in flat share comedy Not Going Out, written by Mack and Andrew Collins, in which flatmates Lee and Megan’s relationship goes from easy friendship into unknown territory. Sleeper hit of the year? Time will tell.

How exciting! The BBC has announced the upcoming treats that form the corporation’s Autumn schedule, so it’s time to rub hands together with glee and dive in for a looksee… Come on in, the water’s lovely… Today: drama.

Robin Hood. Not to put any pressure on those Lincoln Green clad shoulders, but to tout this as the next Doctor Who is going to give the Merry Men a lot to live up to. However, I do applaud the efforts to find more outlets for family viewing, and Jonas Armstrong does look very fetching. And with Keith Allen as the Sheriff of Nottingham, expect your outlawing shenanigans to be served up with generously thick slices of prime ham. But wot? No Friar Tuck. It’s outrageous!

Spooks. The return of a hardy perennial, and one that generally entertains nine times out of ten. Hard to believe that the MI-5 (not 9 to 5) series is on it’s fifth outing, so I’ll be looking closely at new approaches to keep this fresh. The cliffhanger to the last series was utterly bonkers (and I’m annoyed the press release reveals that Adam survives the assassination) and the addition of Hermione Norris to the cast can only be a good thing. One question: is there any scenery left for Peter Firth to chew on?

The State Within. Now this sounds like the business! 24 meets The West Wing, following 17 days in the life of British Ambassador to the US, Mark Brydon (played by the always excellent Jason Isaacs, emerging as a top-flight leading man). This should be slicker than Jonathan Ross’s bouffant, and with the legendary Sharon Gless on hand as the US Defense Secretary, this has hit written all over it.

The Amazing Mrs Pritchard. Jane Horrocks as a supermarket manager who gives it all up for politics and rises to Prime Minister. On paper it sounds frightful, but the pedigree of Sally Wainwright on writing duties gives a sliver of hope for a At Home with the Braithwaites style mix of great character drama and bizarre comedy.

Jane Eyre. A nicely lavish BBC costume drama ticks several boxes before it’s even in the can, but the spectre of the hit-and-miss Toby Stephens as Rochester has me furrowing my brow in consternation.

Recovery. When I first read about this, I automatically assumed it would be one of those two-part ITV dramas that start well, but then utterly disappoint. Recovery stars David Tennant as a man waking from a coma and his wife (Sarah Parish) finds him to be a different man. Sounds like Tennant’s current high-profile day job, but the two engaging leads have proven chemistry from the underrated Blackpool, which bodes well here, as does the Tony Marchant scribing pedigree.

London. A one-off drama that sees random people crossing paths in a London B&B. The cast includes Colin Firth, Anne-Marie Duff, Robert Carlyle and David Oyelowo. My gut instinct on this one is leaving me decidedly cold. It sounds more gimmick than substance, but the cast is what could be called tasty (although, sorry to say, I find the talents of Anne-Marie Duff utterly mystifying).

The Innocence Project. Lloyd Owen, proving there is life after Monarch of the Glen, headlines in this pre-watershed drama following a group of law students who tackle cases nobody else wants. The Innocence Project could have echoes of 70s US drama The Paper Chase about it, and might just connect with a younger audience who want something more than Hollyoaks in their lives.

Finally, there’s the 20th Anniversary of Casualty. 20 years! And Charlie’s hair has kept its curl all that time. To celebrate this TV landmark, we’ll see Charlie reunited with Duffy (hurrah!) in Africa, and there’ll be a bus crash at the hospital. It wouldn’t be Casualty without a bus crash, would it?

On paper, it looks like Auntie has amassed an impressively wide-range of new and some returning drama for the months ahead. But of course, that’s on paper – as we know, the execution is usually another matter altogether, On paper, turned upside down and examined in pitch darkness, Love Island probably looked like a good idea on once.

Tomorrow, I’ll give the Beeb’s upcoming comedy offerings the once over with the TV Today tickling stick…

I had a very informative time at last night’s UGTV’06, and made lots of notes — all of which I’ll convert into a blog posting in due course. Unfortunately, our preparations for the Edinburgh festival have to take immediate priority on that front.

Rest assured, though, I will write about the evening sooner rather than later…

It as with sadness that TV Today read of the death of voice legend Peter Hawkins after a long illness. The public at large may not have known the name Peter Hawkins, but they will certainly have known the iconic voices he created during his 45 year career. School playgrounds have resonated with the shouts of Zippy, The Flowerpot Men and the Daleks, the voice for which Hawkins originally essayed in the monsters’ original Doctor Who appearance in 1963.

Something that Hawkins’s work on those early episodes of Doctor Who shows that the best voice artists, whatever the gig, should approach the work as a bona fide acting job.The early Daleks were menacing, raucous, scheming, frightened emotional creatures, not the staccato, monotonous bores they became in later years. Ironically, Hawkins would provide the original voice of Rainbow’s Zippy, only to be succeeded by Roy Skelton, who eventually became the most prolific Dalek voice artist in later episodes.).

But enough of that creaky old sci-fi series… What about Captain Pugwash? Here Hawkins was at the top of his game. Pugwash, Jake, Tom the Cabin Boy, Master erm… Mate. All distinctive characters, rich in texture. And through Pugwash, Hawkins for years was associated with one of the biggest urban myths in television history - that of the supposed sexual connotations in which certain characters names could be viewed. As the Guardian found to its cost in1991, this had no basis whatsoever in truth. After a piece alledging this most urban of myths to be true appeared in the newspaper on 13th September 1991, Pugwash creator John Ryan followed through a successful court action and, the Guardian later printed this statement:

“In the Young Guardian of September 13 [1991] we stated that the Captain Pugwash cartoon series featured characters called Seaman Staines and Master Bates, and for that reason the series had never been repeated by the BBC. We accept that it is untrue that there ever were any such characters. Furthermore, the series continues to be shown on television and on video. We apologize to Mr. Ryan, the creator, writer and artist of the Captain Pugwash films and books. We have agreed to pay him damages and his legal costs.”

So the next time a mate down the pub pulls this one out of the childrens television discussion round the table hat, you’ll know better. However dull that might be.

So to Peter Hawkins, a respectful TV Today salute to the memory of a TV great. We will never hear talent like yours again…

Thanks to Rob Buckley for pointing out the latest career move of a British comedy talent. Peter Serafinowicz, co-creator of science spoof Look Around You, will be appearing in a new American sitcom, Our Thirties.

Serafinowicz plays a British guy who moved to the US to pick up girls - in the UK, he’s nothing special; in the US, he’s that exotic foreigner with the accent. Trouble is, he’s falling in love with a bartender who doesn’t want to know him - mainly because he’s forgotten about their one-night-stand 11 years previously.

Rob’s review, based on an initial screener (the show hasn’t aired yet in the US, and — for the time being, at least — hasn’t been picked up by any UK networks), is pretty scathing of the cast, bar Serafinowicz himself. “If they can somehow make this the Peter Serafinowicz show,” he writes, “instead of an even-hander between seven not desperately interesting, not terribly convincing characters, it’ll do well.”

As he points out, the last British actor to try and break into US sitcom land was Coupling’s Sarah Alexander, whose role in Teachers lasted three episodes until the show was cancelled. Then again, taking Channel 4’s comedy drama as source material and turning it into a studio-bound sitcom was, some would say, bound to failure anyway.

Famously, of course, Coupling itself tried and failed to make the transition Stateside — another inevitable failure, as Stephen Moffatt’s intelligent scripts that often play with the conventions of television fell flat at the hands of a miscast troupe and audience expectations that this series would be “the next Friends”.

And yet, a couple of years on, America has shown that it can do a Coupling-style show, and sell it back to the UK. How I Met Your Mother is currently showing on Sunday evenings on BBC2, with BBC Three a week ahead on Monday evenings. Once you get past the show’s contrived situation (a father in the year 2030 telling his children how he met, er, their mother), you end up with a fun comedy that is a cut above most in the genre. Like Stephen Moffatt’s masterpiece, HIMYM is also showing that it’s not afraid to deviate from conventional sitcom structure. For example, Sunday’s episode, The Pineapple Incident, sees lead character Ted wake up after an alcohol-fuelled night that he has no memory of. Over the course of the episode, as his friends take turns in filling him in on what he get up to, we see differing reconstructions of the night in flashback. The gradual build-up of alternative stories doesn’t quite match some of Moffatt’s genius plotting for Coupling, but it’s pleasant enough for a Sunday evening show.

Is it okay to buy a HDTV?

asks the Guardian’s Leo Hickman in his Ethical Living column today. And curse him if he doesn’t pose a question that’s been playing on my mind recently. Not just about the surge in demand for bigger, flatter and more power-guzzling televisions in the march towards the great analogue switch off (apparently, 400,000 flatscreen TVs were offloaded to the footie mad public in the run up to the World Cup, all so the disappointment could be seen in crystal definition). I feel a twinge of guilt every time I fire up the telly (a 28inch Panasonic flatscreen job) and I start consuming power in ever greater quantities.

How much power does the TV industry consume even before that my favourite shows are fired down a cable to me? All those lights, all those cameras, all those catering vans, all those cars to get the actors to location. Heating bills for studios and trailers. Post production houses, editing suites… The list goes on.

And now we are purchasing these huge behemoths of TV sets in ever greater numbers - Panasonic recently announed plans to sell a 105 inch plasma screen HDTV in the US from 2007. That, frankly, is ludicrous. And the effect these monsters must be having on the environment has to be immense, boosting the world’s power needs at a time when, so we are told, it needs to be going down. And I am well aware of the part I play towards that demand.

It’s painful to face the truth- the industry I adore, the programmes I voraciously consume, come with a cost beyond having to endure Patrick Kielty’s chirpy chatter on Love Island.

But what can be done? Watch less TV for starters, and considering how much TV Today shouts “J’Accuse!” on a frequent basis over the lack of anything half decent to watch, that shouldn’t be too much of a sacrifice. Does switching power off at the mains at night rather than leaving everything on stand by help things? In my naive little mind, I like to think so. If nothing else, it makes me feel better.

The real answer is for our electronics manufacturers to apply themselves towards producing energy efficient televisions, but that sounds too much like rocket science or, erm… common sense.

For a list of the best digital TVs in terms of energy efficiency, visit the Energy Saving Trust’s website.

After last night’s departure of Shelley Unwin, one of the most satisfyingly real characters to grace The Street in years, Coronation Street (Monday 7.30/8.30pm ITV1) turns its attentions to another storyline that’s been slow-burning for a few months now – the birth of Claire and Ashley’s baby after a troubled period for the couple. Last week, I advised the powers that be at EastEnders to be looking toward Claire and Ashley as the type of characters they needed to lend an emotional heart to the BBC soap. Tonight’s brace of episodes is no exception, as Ashley is forced to turn arch nemesis, Dr Matt Ramsden, for help when Claire goes into labour… Will dad and dad finally put the past behind them? I wouldn’t bet on it.

The Beeb fires off another salvo as drama returns to the schedules with a vengeance. Sorted (Tuesday, 9pm, BBC1) looks at the lives of six Manchester posties, featuring, amongst others Neil Dudgeon, Hugo Speer and Will Mellor. It feels like a gentler version of Clocking Off and The Street, with each episode focusing on one of the lads. Tonight, Harry (Dudgeon) is emotionally shattered when his wife is in a car accident, at the same time as he nearly gives in to temptation with another woman. At some point, letters might get posted, but let’s keep it real, eh?

Rob Brydon’s Annually Retentive (Tuesday 10.30, BBC3) is a curious beast. It’s part tedious panel game show, part Larry Sanders riff, with the premise hung around Brydon’s host being an unpleasant arse. That Brydon hasn’t chosen to create a new character is quite a brave move, as you have to wonder how much of the audience might believe the faux backstage material of the actor being nasty about that night’s guests and showbiz in general. I’m not sure how far this go (certainly it seems to be a one series trick), but Brydon is always worth watching and can usually turn a sow’s ear into TV silk with some deft needlework, and this is no exception.

Pauline Quirke flexes her acting muscles in The Thieving Headmistress (Wednesday 9pm, BBC2), a one-off dramatisation of the true story of how headmistress Colleen McCabe frittered away £250,000 of funds from the school she was in charge of. Quirke is fantastic, and the piece serves as a lesson in not getting away with it. Still, ten grand a month to pour into a credit card is an alluring thought…

Meanwhile, if you want something a little frothier, Jane Hall (Wednesday 9pm ITV1) hits its second episode, with the charm of Sara Smart’s central performance as the eponymous Jane papering over the cracks of what is otherwise a fairly pedestrian comedy drama.

The Inspector Lynley Mysteries (Thursday 8pm, BBC1) continues to confound my expectations by managing to get recommissioned year after year. It’s nothing special, and Nathaniel Parker is straightjacketed playing the rather dull, silver spoon in his gob detective. The fun is always had by Sharon Small’s DS Havers. In this feature-length case, while Lynley goes off the rails a bit, Havers is teamed with DI Fiona Knight, a heavily pregnant, plain speaking superior, played by Liza Tarbuck. As they investigate the body of a woman found in a lake, you start to wish this was the beginning of a new series, and we could let Lynley disappear into obscurity. We can but hope.

And of course, there’s always Bad Girls (Thursday 9pm, ITV1). For this, we can be truly thankful.

Finally, as EastEnders (Friday 8pm, BBC1) awaits its UN food parcel to be dropped in (we’ve said it once, we’ll say it again – Camille Coduri!), there’s always the second wedding of Billy Mitchell and Honey Edwards to look forward to. The sight of Perry Fenwick running through Albert Square clothed in nothing but a compost bag following his disastrous stag night will erase the memories of last Thursday’s 3.9 million. Won’t it? Still, we can always hope that Peggy will get off with Honey’s dad to help restore some drama to the situation…

A belated Square Eyes weekender this week, and for that we apologise. TV Today is still reeling from the happenings down at EastEnders this week. Still, it looks like there are treats a aplenty on the horizon over the next week, and if the weather doesn’t tempt you out over the weekend, you should find something to keep you happy on the box…

As the world goes superhero mad, something of an improbable documentary goes up, up and away with The Curse of Superman (Saturday 10pm, C4). I’ve heard talk of this supposed curse before, on and off, over the years, and it doesn’t seem to hold much water. The documentary looks at the fates of various personalities involved with the man in the blue tights – from 50s TV Superman George Reeves, who fell into alcoholic depression after hanging the cape up, to the tragic later life of Christopher Reeve. It’s entertaining in a macabre kind of way, but the premise is flimsy, and I doubt Brandon Routh is particularly quaking in his red boots with any of the revelations here.

If you’re missing your yearly fix of frolicking in the mud and remortgaging the house to gain access to a glorified live iPod in the West Country, Glastonbury (Saturday 10.30pm, BBC2) celebrates the genesis of the premier music festival, splicing old and new footage of the drug-hazed fugue that brings new meaning to a weekend in the country. Julian Temple’s 2006 film is endearingly made, if not exactly focused, but then, isn’t that just like the festival itself? I wouldn’t know, to be honest – I prefer the Guardian reader-friendly toe-tapping, fair trade drinking niceness of The Big Chill…

The rest of the weekend provides drama aplenty, and for that we can be thankful, although I feel duty bound to issue a public health warning for the return of Where the Heart Is (Sunday 9pm, ITV1). It’s never been big, it’s never been clever, and twinned with Love Island (Sunday 10pm, ITV1), it’s another excuse to take up bee keeping or Morris dancing…

The Chase (Sunday 8pm, BBC1) is the latest offering from the pen of Kay (Band of Gold) Mellor, and this time she turns her attentions to a family vet practice oop north. The always-watchable Brookside refugee Nichola Stephenson returns home from fancy London for her dad’s (Keith Barron) wedding, and ends up staying to get more involved with the family business. And what’s this? Is it Gaynor Faye popping up in another one of her mother’s series? Surely not! Faye even gets to write a couple of episodes later in the series under her real name of Gaynor Mellor. Well I never. This is slightly better than the usual run of the mill Sunday night comforting drama (usually with ‘heart’ in the title somewhere). Think All Creatures… for the Heat generation, ironically a show that Mellow provided a turn for back in the day when she was a jobbing actress…

Directly following The Chase is Silent Witness (9pm Sunday BBC1). I’m sorry, but what’s the point without Amanda Burton? Still, there are plenty of bodies in this episode, and Emelia Fox does a game job of not trying to be Amanda Burton (irreplaceable, I tell you!).

BBC3 continues to impress with some top-flight drama. Hot on the heels of magnificent Drop Dead Gorgeous comes Sinchronicity (Sunday 10pm, BBC2), a love story set against the glitzy backdrop of the Manchester metropolis. Jemima Rooper and Paul Chequer graduate from Channel 4’s teen drama As If to this more adult slanted drama which has some skewed perspectives on the relationship game. Rooper becomes more likeable in everything she does (she was easily the best thing in the cruelly defunct Sky One Charmed rip-off, Hex) and has the makings of a big TV star about her. And since Jackie Tyler is now stuck in an alternate reality shacked up with a copy of her dead hubby (erm… it’s a Doctor Who thing, sorry), the magnificent Camille Coduri pops up here in a fantastic supporting role. EastEnders take note: hire this woman immediately and save your show in a second.

Finally, if all this drama is a bit too much for you, Bruce Parry returns with a second series of Tribe (Sunday 9pm, BBC2), immersing himself in the culture of tribes around the world. This week he’s in Ethiopia with the Nyangatom, drinking cow’s blood and being made the son of the tribe’s leader for the duration of his stay. I’m hoping he pops up in the Big Brother house this series.

Speaking of which, is that damn thing still on? Either that, or I’m starting to hear some very odd voices in my head.