As the headbutt-tastic World Cup Final fades into memory (I’d like to say it came and went like a Summer cloud, but that would be a lie), it’s nice to lie back and and hear the pleasant sounds of a TV schedule creaking comfortingly back to normal like a house at night.
What’s this? Emmerdale on at 7? Regular episodes of ‘Enders and Corrie. No more Rosemary and Thyme and Judge John Deed repeats. Erm.. the return of Love Island. Oh well, we can’t have everything.
Speaking of Love Island (Monday 9pm,ITV1), it prepares to go commando for a new series, sans Kelly Brook, but retaining the sprightly charms of Irish scamp Patrick Kielty. As Patrick doesn’t go out with Billy Zane, he didn’t have the option of baring his buttocks on a movie poster this summer, so he’s stuck on the island. Bless. The carved wooden bookend form of Ms Brook has been replaced with the altogether more palatable Fearne Cotton, who finally grows up and gets to do some adult telly. And the celebrities? As that particular prefix has been dropped from the title, I shan’t deign that with an answer…
And, if you really can stand it, an hour earlier, Ant and Dec bring their new show to ITV, PokerFace (Monday 8pm, ITV1). And there was me thinking it was looking up after the footie.
Well, it looks like it is with the advent of some new drama. Soundproof (Wednesday 9pm, BBC2) could have been a very rudimentary crime drama, but some deft characterisation and a superb central performance from Susan Lynch raise the bar considerably. When a man falls from a tower block, his flatmate is brought in as the prime suspect and the police must call on the sign language services of Penny to help, as their suspect is deaf. What could have been a mawkish addition to this script is actually what keeps it going and keeps you from noticing who the murderer might be…
With Emmerdale (Thusday ITV1, 7pm) firmly back at a reasonable hour, the every day story of glam country folk steps up a gear (now that there’s more than three people watching again) by having one of its infrequent disaster storylines and blowing up the King family’s show home! Gasp! Who lives? Who dies? Sadly, unlike Big Brother, you don’t get to decide, but, as always with these Emmerdale spectaculars, great larks aplenty in an hour-long episode.
And if Emmerdale whets your whistle for outrageous (but strangely plausible) drama, it’s not much of a dice roll to move down the Monopoly board of the telly to arrive at the return of Bad Girls (Thursday 9pm, ITV1). Amanda Donohoe takes over governership of G Wing, and there’s only one word that can greet this turn of events: hurrah! Expect the usual madness from the inmates, and sleep soundly knowing Thursday is Bad Girls night!
Finally on Friday, Square Eyes has to recommend First Night of the Proms (Friday 7.30pm BBC2). Eight weeks. 90 concerts. And you thought the World Cup was bad…
Bad Girls night AND Sugar Rush night AND Veronica Mars night.
And yet the rest of the week you're clawing for something decent to watch.
If Sugar Rush was on at a remotely decent hour and Veronica Mars was actually any good, you might have a point...