November 2006 Archives

According to Broadcastnow.co.uk (subscription required), independent drama production company, Kudos, is up for a sale with a tasty price tag of £40 million knicker. This has probably been a long-time coming and it’s surprising the hugely successful outfit with a stylish track record hasn’t been snapped up by an uber-indie before now.

Of all the companies out there producing drama, Kudos, more than any other, always hits my viewing spot with its CV of shows, ranging from Spooks and Life on Mars, to Hustle and The Amazing Mrs Pritchard. They are stylish, exciting, well directed, well acted and artfully scripted. My hope is for the sale is that co-managing directors Jane Featherstone and Stephen Garrett aren’t just looking to make a quick buck, but are seeking to ally themselves with a company that can provide greater resources to tackle even more challenging productions.

As for potential buyers, industry talk is pointing to Dutch company Eyeworks, which has interests in many world markets. The organisation’s chief interests are in the reality genre, but in September a press release was issued announcing Eyeworks’ taking a 50 percent stake in US production company 3Ball Productions. While 3Ball is still mainly involved in the reality game, if Kudos is bought by Eyeworks, then this could open up an exciting new outlet for Kudos to move into. Indeed, some episodes of the upcoming fourth series of Hustle have been shot in the US.

TV Today will watch developments here with interest…

All the hoopla surrounding Michael Grade vacating of the BBC Chairman’s desk to take a cab over to ITV is making the task of blogging on this business we call telly rather tricky. Let’s get some perspective people - clearly the biggest story of the week is eluding us all. Haven’t you heard?

Malandra Burrows is out of I’m a Celebrity!

Oh. Hang on.

To give everybody time to process what’s going on over at Broadcasting House, it might be time to cast our eyes across the Atlantic for change of scenery. We have so many cable channels in Blighty now that they all need to pick up shows here, there and everywhere to prop up the schedules. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day to fill the airwaves with original home-grown fare, so schedulers are forced to go shopping across the pond. That’s no bad thing, but inevitably, as the demand for imported fare increases, the US TV schedules might start to look as over fished as stocks of Atlantic cod.

How many shows can ITV2/3/4, Living, Bravo and even Five proclaim to have taken America by storm, and just happens to be arriving in the UK on that very channel? More often than not, most of these shows rarely make a splash in the ratings, and we’re only taking the word of the UK broadcasters as to their popularity credentials.

For some frame of reference as to what is doing the business in a bums-on-seats kind of way, here is the US television top 10 for the w/c 20 November:

1. Desperate Housewives - ABC, Sunday, 9pm: 21.43m
2. CSI: Miami - CBS, Monday, 10pm: 18.54m
3. Grey’s Anatomy - ABC, Thursday, 9pm: 18.51m
4. NFL Post Game - Fox, Sunday, 7:25pm: 17.59m
5. NFL Post Game - Fox, Thursday, 7:21pm: 17.19m
6. CSI - CBS, Thursday, 9pm: 17.17m
7. NCIS - CBS, Tuesday, 8pm: 17m
8. Deal Or No Deal - NBC, Monday, 8pm: 16.97m
9. Criminal Minds - CBS, Wednesday, 9pm: 16.56m
10. Heroes - NBC, Monday, 9pm: 16.03m

Source: Neilsen Media Research

Now, Lost fans, don’t be worrying - the show is on season hiatus, hence its lack of showing in the list. In terms of the UK broadcasters, Five is clearly the winner here, with four of these big hitters among their overseas portfolio - the CSI powerhouse, NCIS and Grey’s Anatomy. Channel 4 might have played shrewdly in dumping Lost and keeping the top-rated Desperate Housewives, and BBC 2 will, on the basis off Heroes’ first showing in the top 10, have high hopes when the break-out hit of the year debuts in the UK in the New Year.

So, there’s nary a Prison Break, Invasion or Supernatural anywhere in sight. It doesn’t stop the shows being good, but it does stop me from believing a throaty announcer telling me just how popular their big new purchase is. Kojak, anybody?

Well, we didn’t see that one coming, did we? Michael Grade has succeeded in forcing the combined mouths of the media to spend the day in a cartoon O of surprise as the news of his defection to ITV begins to sink in. Talk about pulling a blinder, as they say…

But what does it really mean? If truth be told, not a great deal to the BBC. Yes, some people within the corporation might be feeling ever so slightly betrayed, and rightly so – it’s a difficult time for Auntie, but no more so than it has been in the past, and no more so than it will be in the future. Compared to the woes of say, the David Kelly affair, the process of a departing chairman and the selection of a new one should be a walk in the park. The thorny issue of a the licence fee negotiations shouldn’t really enter into the debate – it will be what it will be, whether Grade is in the building or not. Grade’s major work was in ensuring that there was a charter there to renew, everything else is just detail.

Of course, there will be speculation until the hammer falls whether Grade is jumping ship before the government announce that the BBC has effectively lost the battle and is awarded an inflation only (or worse, a lower than inflation) licence fee rise. Until then, that’s all it will be – speculation. Yes, the BBC is still losing a very valued and popular chairman, but Grade is not irreplaceable, and with the changes happening to the role with the advent of the BBC Trust, he would have gone next year anyway… Probably.

And for ITV, the news can only be good. Grade’s appointment as Executive Chairman will hold the circling vultures from the City off long enough to give him time to turn things around. And with Grade taking the Chairman’s position, succeeding the outgoing Sir Peter Burt, there is still the question of the much-talked about chief executive’s position, but Grade himself has told The Guardian:

“The nominations committee of the board will be dealing with that in due course. I don’t anticipate appointing a chief executive inside two years.”

Grade’s appointment to the executive chair does, of course, negate the need to appoint a new Chief Executive for the immediate future. However, it is understood that Grade’s deal with ITV is for around three years, after which a new chief executive will need to be installed. In the meantime, John Cresswell, who has been serving as acting chief exec since Charles Allen’s much publicised departure, will be staying on in the position of Chief Operating Officer.

Whenever a chief executive is appointed, it is expected that Grade’s position will become non-executive at this point. For now, ITV has a powerful figure in the office who understands the business of programme making, something that ITV has forgotten over the last few years. Whether his business acumen is enough to win through in other areas for the company remains to be seen.

It does seem somewhat fitting that in the company’s hour of need, part of the dynasty that contributed to making ITV great in the first place might just be the answer to its prayers…

Multiple news organisations have picked up on the results of an ICM survey for BBC News which looks into how online video is affecting people’s viewing habits. Unfortunately, they tend to go for the big numbers rather than looking at the bigger picture.

Sure, things aren’t helped by the BBC’s own headline, which screams Online video ‘eroding TV viewing’. Well, yes, it may be eroding TV viewing habits, but currently it’s doing so at roughly the same rate as the glaciers did to the Cairngorms — very slowly and selectively.

Looking at the headline figures, and you see (thanks to the BBC’s helpful pie charts, reproduced to the right) that 43% of people who watch online video say that they watch less TV as a direct result. A slender majority say it hasn’t affected their conventional viewing, while a small number — just 3% — say that their online viewing has meant that they watch more TV, not less.

That 43% does look pretty big, and pretty worrying. But hold on — that pie chart comprises only the people who currently watch online video once a week or more frequently. And that comes to just 9% of all respondents to the ICM survey. Which means that just 3.8% of the viewing audience is watching less TV as a direct resulting of watching online video.

That’s a lot less than the headlines would have you believe. And, while that 9% of people who regularly watch online video is going to grow, so will the opportunities for conventional, broadcast television to use the nascent medium for audience building.

In the US, the major networks have online viewing strategies in place, whether via their own sites or selling episodes via stores such as Apple’s iTunes. One of NBC’s biggest hits, their remake of Ricky Gervais’ sitcom The Office was on the brink of cancellation before it was made available on iTunes — after which, audience figures for the on-air exploits of Stave Carrell and company went up.

Right now, support for online viewing in the UK is strictly limited, although all the major terrestrial channels are on the way. Five has a downloadable rental service (although they call the process ‘buying’, you’re only allowed to keep a copy for 14 days, so it’s a rental in all but name). Channel 4 will have its ambitious on-demand service, 4OD available on PCs shortly (a related service is already available in some cable areas). And at some point, the BBC will actually get around to releasing its iPlayer instead of just endlessly talking about it at new media conferences. So far, there hasn’t been a move to start selling episodes via iTunes — which means that Mac junkies such as myself have fewer options than people burdened with running Windows — but that doesn’t mean to say the idea hasn’t been mooted.

Will any of these advances mean that online viewing habits increase conventional, living room-style TV viewing? There’s a good chance they will, if NBC’s experience is anything to go by. But even if they don’t, if they just mean that people start watching more TV shows on a computer screen, is that necessarily a bad thing, if they’re watching the same shows, from the same bradcasters, that they were before?

Jackanory
Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 4:30pm BBC1 (also CBBC)
At last, the quintessential series of my youth returns. Except, where once we would have been satisfied with an actor sitting on a makeshift set, with just a few line drawings to accompany their reading, now we have John Session (and, next week, Ben Kingsley) immersed in 3D CGI worlds as they narrate stories which are then acted out. It’s an odd mix, and doesn’t really excite the audience as to the magic of storytelling in the same way as the original series — if anything, it’s a not-altogether-sucessful mash-up of Jackanory with its spin off show, Jackanory Playhouse. The new special effects mean that it’ll be far from a weekly event, too, which is a shame.

Random Quest
Monday 9.00pm BBC4
As part of BBC4’s ongoing science fiction season, we have this understated new drama, based on a short story by John Wyndham. Samuel West stars as Colin, a research physicist who is knocked unconscious during an experiment and awakes to find himself in a parallel universe. While that plot may have been used by virtually every science-fiction show of recent years, Random Quest predates them all. Still, even with able support from Shaun Parks and Kate Ashfield, it never quite shakes the sense of déjà vu that sci-fi fans may experience.

Tsunami: The Aftermath
Tuesday 9.00pm BBC2
A drama set around the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami was never going to be easy to do — some may question whether such catastrophic loss of life is a suitable subject for entertainment at all. There was also the matter of whether it was right to film in locations that had been directly affected, and the decision to pay local extras far less than Western supporting artists (for more background, read Mark’s post from June this year, and the comments below it).

Rather than taking an antiseptic dramadoc approach, writer Abi Morgan’s script revolves around a number of archetypes, each of whose stories are based upon masses of research. All qualms aside, this is an amazing piece of drama whose effects will stay with you.

EastEnders and Coronation Street
Monday to Friday, BBC1/ITV1
Some big storylines featuring the top soaps’ key actors this week. In Albert Square, Pauline Fowler is in hospital after the fire at number 45, but the big news is that it’s YAIBW week —, yes, it’s Yet Another Ian Beale Wedding. Which, if all his previous ones are anything to go by, mean that tears won’t be far behind.

Up in Weatherfield, Wendi Peters get the chance to step beyond the faux comedy of Cilla Battersby-Brown’s usual persona, when her character gets some shocking health news. And as is usual in the world of soap, she doesn’t confide in her husband, Les, straight away — which, naturally, thrusts him into the arms of best friend Yana.

Best storyline of the week, though, sees the departure of Bradley Walsh from Corrie, as Danny Baldwin reaches breaking point after discovering the betrayal of his wife and son. Walsh’s final scenes are not easy watching, especially if you’re afraid of heights. Who would have believed when a cocky game show host and comedian turned up on the cobbles, that he’d leave such a huge hole when he finally left? One can only hope that, after Friday’s climactic scenes, Danny will be able to return one day…

Picture: Toni Collette as Kathy Graham, Samrit Machielsen as Than and Tim Roth as Nick Fraser in Tsunami: The Aftermath. Photo: Kudos Film and Television

We’re in that mid-season lull at the moment, where there’s very little new or exciting to feel thrilled about in the weekend schedules. If you’re into Strictly Come Dancing and/or The X Factor, your quota of Saturday telly will be used up. However, should you feel in the need for drama…

Robin Hood
Saturday 7.10pm BBC1
It may have got a second series, but the first still has five episodes left. And seriously, it’s a bit of harmless fun for an early Saturday evening — although quite why the series isn’t named after Marian, the far more complex character in the series, one can only guess. Maybe it would confuse people expecting a remake of Tony Robinson’s Maid Marian and Her Merry Men. Which would, quite frankly, not be a bad idea at all.

Casualty
Saturday 8.45pm BBC1
My, but it’s been a while since we recommended this. And, truth be told, it’s not all that this week — if only because there’s no Jacqueline Pearce after her début in last week’s episode. Getting Servalan in as the bureaucrat responsible for shutting down the Holby E.D. was a masterstroke. Still, the threat of closure has managed to reproduce some of the show’s initial political spark that’s been missing for far too long.

Madonna: Confessions Live from London
Sunday 10.00pm Channel 4
Highlights from Madge’s last arena tour, with tracks from her latest album, Confessions on a Dance Floor, as well as hits from her 25-year career.

Torchwood
Sunday 10.00pm BBC3
This week, Tosh (what an unfortunate — if apt — name) gains the ability to read people’s minds. Can you read mine, Tosh? “Buffy… Season 3… ‘Earshot’… watch that instead, it’s much better…”

The South Bank Show (pictured)
Sunday 10.45pm ITV1
An excellent profile of Oscar-winning animator Nick Park and Aadrman Animations studios. Expect some discussion about whether plasticine-based stop-motion animation can survive the onslaught of CGI movies. Also, expect lots of plugging of Aardman’s latest feature film Flushed Away — er, made completely with CGI.

I’m not quite sure how I feel about the news that Robin Hood has secured a second series. On the one hand, the show hasn’t lived up to the, frankly unnecessary, hype (and nor could it), falling flatter than John Barrowman’s appearance on Buzzcocks last night. On the other, it has secured decent(ish) ratings in a very difficult, competitive slot, and it’s heartening to see the Beeb sticking with a show.

With luck, there’ll be some caveats placed on Dominic Minghella and Tiger Aspect, with the bottom line being: make it better!

Here are TV Today’s handy tips from the armchair (the easiest place from which to be a critic) on what needs to change:

1) Robin. Oops, getting your lead character this wrong is a schoolboy error. The fact Jonas Armstrong’s casting was likely to have gone through many levels of vetting does boggle the mind somewhat. Did nobody notice the almost total lack of presence he has in the part? To be fair, it’s not his fault – The Ghost Squad more than adequately proved he’s got the acting chops. The character as written is a lame-arsed idiot, shackled by the ridiculous insistence on no contractions in his dialogue. So, for series two, get the lad down the gym and let him eat some pies to bulk him up, and just lose the hey nonny nonny.

2) Just get over it and let Robin and Marion do the Sherwood Shuffle.

3) Drop the social referencing to modern political situations. It isn’t big, and it isn’t clever. The adults won’t abandon you if they go. They enjoy some silly adventure silliness as much as the kids.

4) More action. This is supposed to be an adventure series, and so far, there ain’t been much of that. Don’t be afraid to ramp it up and get the sword clashing a bit more.

5) Little John. Again, drop the contractions, and give him a bit of character. He’s supposed to be a genial giant whose friendship with Robin is strong and reliable, not a gruff old misery guts who scratches his beard with a mumbled “This I do not like,” every five minutes.

6) Above all, don’t be afraid of the Robin Hood legend. If you’re making Robin Hood, make it. Don’t try to turn it into something it isn’t.

Aside from that, if they get everybody to just concentrate on saying the lines, shooting the arrows and not bumping into the trees, then it will be fine.

The BBC have announced that they have purchased the UK rights to NBC’s Heroes, a complex tale of ordinary people who start developing comic book-like superpowers.

The series features some familiar faces from genre film and TV — Final Destination’s Ali Larter; Masi Oka, who has a recurring role as Franklyn in Scrubs; and Greg Grunberg, who was a regular in Alias, and also popped up in the pilot episode of Lost as, er, the pilot.

The series will air sometime in the New Year on BBC2 — round about the same time that US viewers will get a glimpse of the latest new character, to be played by Christopher Eccleston. Everybody in the US is being particularly tight-lipped about what character he’ll be playing — although UK viewer Rob Buckley has reckoned he’s worked it out (don’t click the link if you don’t want to read a spoiler). [UPDATED with correct link — thanks, Rob!]

For more on Heroes, visit the official NBC site (watching out, again, for spoilers). And there’s a preview trailer below.

Just as Swap Shop gears up for a retrospective anniversary show this Christmas, it seems fitting that early in the New Year, Tiswas will get the same treatment over on ITV.

Chris Tarrant will helm a 90-minute Audience With… style show that will reunite him with the personnel that made the Saturday morning antidote to Noel and friends on t’other side a 70s TV classic. Expected to take part on the show will be co-presenter Sally James, Lenny Henry and the legendary Phantom Flan Flinger.

I know we’ve had this debate before, but I have to admit I was never really a Tiswas kid. I think I was way too much of a goody-goody to truly “get it”, although I must admit to always hoping that Sally James might replace Maggie Philbin on Swap Shop. Now that would have made my Saturday morning complete. I don’t know what it was, in the same way that I preferred the reassuring presence of Peter Purves and Lesley Judd on Blue Peter to the more Bohemian leanings of Magpie. Maybe I developed some highly skewed sense of snobbery at an early age… I think as an adult I’d probably go for Tiswas - it has a delicious sense of fun that appeals to my rapidly approaching middle-age brain.

But what of Spit the Dog? No reptrospective edition of Tiswas would be complete without the presence of Bob Carolgees and his deliciously expectorating canine friend. But, the original Spit was sold at auction in 2004 for a quite staggering £5000, so one would hope that Mr C has a new Spit puppet to bring to the party. It’s either that, or he’ll have to rely on the unique talents of the lesser-known Cough the Cat.

Ah, the days when television was a much simpler place…

To help compile the show, Chris Tarrant has made an appeal to members of the public to come forward with any episodes or clips of Tiswas they have may have recorded at the time. After Central TV succeeded ATV as producers of Tiswas, over 350 episodes of the series were junked from the archives. If you think you can help, contact Chris Tarrant’s production company, CTTV, directly.

Oh ITV, after I said nice things about you yesterday, you just had to spoil it, didn’t you?

Ghost Hunting with Girls Aloud. 12 December, ITV2.

The side of me that likes lowest common denominator television was hoping this was a new fantasy drama featuring the UK’s premier girl band driving around in their tour bus with a large talking dog, solving crimes. Alas, it’s a reality show from the Most Haunted stable, hosted by Yvette Fielding as the girls spend the night in a haunted house looking for ghosts and ghoulies.

Ah well. You win some, you lose some.

On a day when all I want to do is go home, crawl under the duvet with a bucket of hot chocolate and watch The Box of Delights, some Christmas cheer arrived at TV Today towers today in the form of a first look sample DVD of clips from Auntie Beeb’s adaptation of The Wind in the Willows. And it’s lovely.

Matt Lucas as Toad. Mark Gatiss as Rat. Lee Ingleby as Mole. Bob Hoskins as Badger. Adapted by Lee (Billy Elliot) Hall. That’s a damn good pedigree, and from the selection of clips we’ve seen, this should hit the spot nicely. It’s colourful, bouncy and has cosy Christmas Eveness written all over it, especially down to the particularly chilly looking winter sequences. Brrrr!

Most of all, The Wind in the Willows should nicely establish Matt Lucas as a top-notch character actor who is so much more than Little Britain. He comes across in the brief clips here as so exuberant and joyous, that it’s impossible to place him in Andy Pipkin’s ubiquitous wheelchair. Of course, there’s never been much doubt about Lucas’s impressive credentials, either before and during Little Britain. As for the expected Little Britain Christmas special, lads, this is a chance to restore the faith and brilliance of the first two series.

Over the next few weeks, the major channels will start to show a bit more leg of their Christmas schedules, and TV Today will keep you updated with out hot tips for Christmas viewing pleasure.

So the RTS Craft and Design awards, whose nominations we brought you last month, have been announced. And despite being nominated in multiple categories, the craftsmen and women of Doctor Who missed out on any gongs.

All, that is, apart from Neill Gorton — who, with his Chesham-based Millennium FX team, were up for three awards. In the end, he won (with Vanessa White) for his work on The Catherine Tate Christmas Show, and for BBC Three’s Bodies. According to the RTS:

The jury commented that multi-character sketch comedy often presents as big a challenge for the designer as it does for the performers. Tonight’s winner has allowed the same actress to portray a teenage school girl, a grandmother and an ageing gay man together with a wide range of characters in between.

In addition, the team won the special award for Design & Craft Innovation, for which their entire oeuvre was considered — including, of course, his work for the good Doctor:

Doctor Who is a relentless machine, as a show it eats people’s creativity - in the last three years we have pushed this team to their limits and they have never let us down. The Doctor Who producers tell us that they are delighted that this talented, hardworking genius of a team are being recognised tonight.

There’s no doubt in my mind that Gorton and the team deserve their accolade — when I described him in the nominations post as “the hardest working man in make-up”, it was with good cause. Yet it seems that, for the time being at least, the phenomenal work of the production design, costume and make-up teams, led by Ed Thomas, Louise Page and Sheelagh Wells respectively, have yet to receive the awards recognition they deserve. To my mind, even when the TV scripts have not necessarily been as strong as they could be, the episodes never fail to be visually stunning. It can’t be easy to do that on a limited budget, and with a new time period every week.

That’s not to denigrate any of the winners, of course (and you can find the full, deserving list at the RTS website).

“The Board believes that whereas there is obvious appeal to NTL in gaining control of ITV’s substantial and successful business, from ITV’s perspective there is little, if any, strategic logic for ITV to combine with NTL,”

So says the statement from ITV that would seem to bring, for the time being at least, the notion of an NTL merger with the company to a close.

It’s all been very bizarre, though, and ITV are quite right to reject the proposed merger. Whatever the problems currently being experienced by ITV, the company, or at least the channel, is still a national treasure, if a somewhat faded one in the current climate. By that merit alone, ITV should be given the space to sort its issues out and emerge as a major player in broadcasting once again.

As its stands, with the Chief Exec’s chair yet be filled, ITV is still in a vulnerable position, and that’s a situation that needs to change. Soon. The company needs a big brother figure, somebody that will bring stability and reassurance at the top, but also with the power to send a warning to the circling sharks to back off.

With that position still vacant, ITV feels like a little kid playing in the sandpit, victim to the bullying whims of the bigger kids who have the cash to flash, with no one to run to when its nose gets bloodied.

Still, it’s been quite amusing to see a couple of those bigger kids getting into their own scrap, which might have saved ITV this time from being swallowed up. BSkyB’s purchase of 17.9 percent of ITV’s shares has fear written all over it. An ITV/NTL merger could be a serious threat to Rupert Murdoch’s position, and Ofcom is acting correctly in investigating whether Sky’s stake in ITV alters any of the broadcasting licenses the company holds (which makes a nice change). What makes this situation even more interesting is NTL majority shareholder Richard Branson pointing the finger and stamping his feet over Sky pretty much scuppering the NTL merger with ITV. Sometimes life just isn’t fair is it, Richard? This is a bitch fight that could run and run.

All fair play to ITV, though. For once, the company has come out a winner, showing strength in rejecting the bid on the basis that NTL undervalued the company. Quite right too.

Here’s a surprise (not) — 98% of the 450 people involved in the closed trial of HD broadcasts on digital terrestrial (aka Freeview) boxes think that Freeview should carry HD services. In fact, they expect it.

My first thought — okay, my first proper thought, after “what were the other 2% thinking?” — is that they’ll have a long wait. As we’ve said before, there just isn’t the capacity to run HD broadcasts on Freeview at the moment. And, while there may well be additional capacity once the analogue signal is switched off in 2012, there’s still no guarantee that any of that spare spectrum will be available for any form of broadcasting, let alone HD.

Still, this report will add ammunition to any organisations lobbying for at least some of the post-2012 spectrum to be handed back to the broadcasters. And to be honest, it really should. While the Government may have their eyes on a spectrum sale as a lucrative way of raising cash (as with the 3G phone spectrum auction a few years back), the BBC is currently having to foot a substantial bill for part of the switchover process. Financial assistance for the elderly and those on benefits to help with converting from analogue to digital will be coming out of the BBC’s licence fee settlement; a bill mentioned in last week’s Queen Speech will provide the Corporation with access to benefits records so that they can manage the payments more effectively.

And yet, despite this assistance having to come from the licence fee, the Treasury have been briefing that the BBC should expect a below-inflation increase for the next four years, instead of the above-inflation deal that the Corporation has been asking for. If we, the broadcasting audience, has to pay for the switchover through the licence fee, then we ought to at least get the benefits through reuse of the freed spectrum — without having to pay for it all over again.

Well, okay, not their entire back catalogue; just their seemingly endless reruns of Friends. Via TV Squad comes this deconstruction of the sitcom’s entire ten-year run, by Nobody’s Watching:

Square Eyes starts with a public viewing warning today. Tittybangbang 2 (Monday 10.30pm, BBC3). Just say no.

Instead, take a look at Disappearing Britain (Monday 9pm, Five) for a thoroughly engaging three-part documentary series in the same vein as Who Do You Think You Are? and The Lost World of Mitchell and Kenyon. Sarah Lancashire takes a trip to Blackpool to follow in the footsteps of her grandfather who used to holiday in his week off from a job as a mill worker in Oldham. As somebody who regularly holidayed in Blackpool as a child, this brings back fond memories, but is also startling to see how much a way of life has eroded entirely over the course of the 20th century.

The Science Fiction Britannia season continues with a repeat of The Kneale Tapes (Monday 11.35pm, BBC4), a timely tribute to sci-fi legend Nigel Kneale, who died last month. Kneale is most famous for creating Professor Quatermass, seen in various incarnations on TV and played by such luminaries as Andre Morrell and John Mills. His approach to sci-fi was always economical and had a touch of reality about it, and he was quite famously sniffy about the likes of Star Trek and Doctor Who. He once described Who as the kind of idea he’d think up in the bath and then forget about. It’s a shame this is a repeat, and let’s hope that the good professor will return to TV screens one day as a better tribute to a great TV writer.

After last week’s storming opener, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares (Tuesday 9pm, C4) comes back to home shores as Gordon heads off to Lancashire’s The Fenwick Arms. It’s a familiar story, but here the restaurant owner’s are quite happy to ignore much of Gordon’s always sensible, if merciless advice.

As a sharp contrast to Ramsay, TV docusoap pioneer Paul Watson (his experience stretches right back to the influential The Family in 1974) returns with Rain in My Heart (Tuesday 9pm, BBC2). This is heavy stuff, and should in no way be associated what we call Reality TV. The piece follows four subjects undergoing treatment at a hospital in Kent and how years of alcohol abuse has affected and continues to affect them.

If you want to know how Robert Powell became famous, look no further than The Cult of Doomwatch (Tuesday 8.30pm, BBC4), continuing this cute little series. Powell played scientist Toby Wren in the first season of this cult eco-thriller from the creators of the Cybermen, Kit Pedler and Gerry Davies. As you’ll see from the episode that precedes the documentary at 7pm, Doomwatch hasn’t worn particularly well, but it’s fun nonetheless. Powell with a plastic rat attached to his leg in a moment of jeopardy is a highlight…

In Coronation Street (Wednesday 7.30pm, ITV1) illicit lovers Jamie and Frankie Baldwin (she’s his stepmother, eww!) are found out when Danny Baldwin returns home early and finds them doing the Weatherfield tango. Oops! You can tell its nearly Christmas, can’t you?

James May goes off-piste from Top Gear and teams up with Oz Clarke in Oz and James’s Big Wine Adventure (Wednesday 8pm, BBC2). It does what it says on the bottle, as Oz and James head out on a Sideways styled adventure and Clarke attempts to educate his beer-swilling mate in the subtleties of fine wine. Good fun, although I wish somebody would cut May’s hair and de-stripe his wardrobe.

And for sports fans, join me in an exercise of inevitable futility as England embark on getting well and truly thrashed as the battle for The Ashes commences (Tuesday 11pm, Sky Sports 1). Oh well…

Thursday of course means it’s appointment TV in the form of The State Within (9pm, BBC1). Like much of my favourite TV, I have absolutely no idea what’s going on as there are so many storylines whizzing around the dialogue blender, but that should never be an obstacle. It seems the ratings for this excellent thriller have gone off the boil a touch, which is a shame as this very stylish, very sexy series deserves to be seen, and the advent of an already commissioned second season might be on shaky ground.

And then to the Catherine Tate question – has she lost her sparkle, or is the flame-haired comedy goddess as good as she ever was? The perceived wisdom on The Catherine Tate Show (Thursday 9pm, BBC2) is that it has suffered the third series curse, but I disagree. Truth be told, the consistency was never there in the first place, but that’s always the pitfall of character based sketch comedy. You’re never going to have a 100 per cent hit rate. Last week’s episode had me chortling out loud more than previous weeks, and if there’s one area where Ms Tate always scores, it’s in characterisation. With any of her characters, you can never see the join, and that still makes her a joy to watch, even if the comedy has lost its shine.

Jam and Jerusalem (Friday 9.30pm, BBC1). Um… It’s a new Jennifer Saunders comedy. It has Dawn French in it. And Joanna Lumley. And it looks quite good. No, really. However much anybody loves Ab Fab, it was always a difficult relationship, but this looks like Saunders is heading into welcome new territory. Sue Johnston (always fantastic) stars as Sal, a local GP’s nurse who, following the death of her husband, finds herself relying on the support of the Women’s Guild. It’s populated by a cast of eccentrics, led by Maggie Steed’s Eileen. It certainly has great pedigree all round, and might just have the legs to solve your Friday night viewing woes until C4 sees fit to plug Ugly Betty into the schedules.

I’m actually growing quite fond of Robin Hood, now I’m over its failings and realising that this is what we are going to get, certainly for the remainder of this first series. Yes, Jonas Armstrong needs ejecting from Sherwood as soon as humanly possible if it goes to a second series, but on the whole, the show has become quite an entertaining alternative to the light entertainment fare propping up the Saturday night schedules. This week, could things go acorn-shaped for the band of un-merry men as they team up with a rival band of outlaws? What do you think?

There is very much a musical theme creeping in this Saturday evening, starting with How Music Works with Howard Goodall (Saturday 8.25pm, C4). This is a nicely energetic look into how music is capable of giving us all a lift and getting into our psyche’s, all in the company f the genial Howard Goodall, composer of TV theme tunes ranging from Blackadder to Red Dwarf. It’s very clear an concise, and here the knowledgable Mr Goodall looks at how melody gets into our very soul.

Following directly is James Bond’s Greatest Hits (Saturday 9.25pm, C4). Of course, the world is going 007 mad for the billionth time (and quite right too), and this neat little documentary showcases how the famous theme tunes are just as inseperable from the tuxedos, martinis, girls and gadgets. It features interviews with the writers and crooners who have brought the themes to life, but cusiously, doesn’t go into detail on why Chris Cornell’s ditty for Casino Royale is so bloody dreadful. For the record, Live and Let Die is the one to beat…

In light of the recent Rebus adaptations with Ken Stott that walked a middling line of quality, it might be interesting to go back and check out the first TV Inspector Rebus (Saturday 9pm UKTV Drama) in a repeat run of the John Hannah version. The difference between the two incarnations is quite startling. hannah is too slight to play Rebus, but strangely captures the psychologically questionable side of the character in a way that Ken Stott was only just finding as the last run ended. When you realise that Hannah was practically forced to play the character at gunpoint (ITV would only greenlight the series from the actor’s own production company if he agreed to take the part himself) then it’s amazing he did the job as well as he did. Good stuff, if not brilliant.

Planey Earth (Sunday 9pm, BBC1) is as brilliantly breathtaking as the first series, but there has been a sense of deja vu about some of the material shown in the alst couple of weeks - last week’s elephants trudging through the dust had a very familiar ring about it. But when TV this good comes along, it simply has to be revelled in and celebrated. And David Attenborough has a voice that’s as a familiar and soothing as a cup of hot chocolate on a cold winter’s night. Bliss!

As it’s undeniably Bond weekend, The Real Casino Royale (Sunday 9pm, BBC1) should get everybody further in the mood for the new improved secret agent (including his skimpy blue trunks). Andrew Graham-Dixon goes in search of the inspirations that led Ian Fleming to pen that first, fateful James Bond novel. I imagine that’ll be a casino then…

The rest of Sunday sees a battle of the US dramas on the multi-channel battlefield. Lost (Sunday 10pm) makes it much-heralded debut on Sky One, to much gnashing of teeth from the C4 fans who are not yet cabled up. This double-bill of delicious twisty-turny fun reveals that The Others are not as mysterious as we first thought, and they all attend a book club. Which is nice. Previewing a new season of Lost is pointless on the whole, as it will just scream off in all sorts of directions, generally obeying laws that are not bound by this earth. It’s best to just hang on and hope for the best.

If you missed the Lost boat, your second option for some fine US drama this weekend is provided by the really rather excellent Entourage (Sunday 10pm, ITV2), well into the stride of its second season run. As Vince gets his multi-million deal for the Aquaman movie, surely Ari (the magnificent Jeremy Piven) will no doubt ruin it soemwhere along the way. If you’ve lost interest during the early portion of this season, turn around and come back, the boys have pulled it back in timely fashion.

Today sees the fortieth anniversary of one of the BBC’s most well-known TV dramas, Cathy Come Home. Written by Jeremy Sandford and directed by Ken Loach, it is often credited with leading to the creation of homeless charity Shelter — although, as noted on the Guardian’s new TV blog, in reality it coincided with the nascent charity’s launch, and certainly helped foster an unprecedented level of awareness that meant the charity grew in size and stature much more quickly.

In another of our occasional digs through the Television Today archives, we bring you the original review of Cathy Come Home, written by one Michael Billington (who is now theatre critic of the Guardian):

Powerful and sombre piece

BY MICHAEL BILLINGTON

The barrier that separates television drama from documentary has been slowly crumbling for a long time now. After last night’s BBC1 Wednesday play, Cathy Come Home by Jeremy Sandford, it should have more or less caved in completely. The play dealt with the problem of a homeless family, and although the characters were fictitious, everything that happened to them had been observed by the author at first hand. All told, it made a powerful, sombre piece of television but it left me wondering whether this type of factual drama was the best way of getting to the heart of social problems.

The basic story line was fairly simple. Cathy (Carol White) and Reg (Ray Brooks) fell in love, got married and took a flat. As they were earning about £35 a week between them, life held few economic problems. But Cathy became pregnant, Reg had an accident and was forced to live off his sickness benefit and, financially, the pressure was on. The couple tried living with in-laws but that didn’t work; were evicted from a tumbledown flat after the death of the owner; saw the caravan they had bought razed to the ground; and ended up with Cathy in a hostel and Reg in digs. Under the weight of all this, the marriage broke up, the children were taken away by the state and Cathy returned disconsolately home.

Quite obviously, Mr. Sandford feels deeply angry both about the arrangements we make for homeless couples and for the fact they exist at all. “They’re casualties of the Welfare State,” says someone. “They’re pushed around like so much human litter.” On the evidence offered, I take this to be true and I deplore it as much as Mr. Sandford does, but what weakened his attack on the system as a whole was his apparent unwillingness to admit that his central couple were also to blame for their condition. This lack of objectivity is perfectly acceptable in a dramatist but less so in someone framing an indictment of part of the social set-up.

Still, the play did force one to take notice of an urgent human problem and it was also directed by Kenneth Loach with an admirable mixture of technical elan and feeling for the subject. Slum squalor, for instance, was shown for what it really is without being turned into something visually picturesque.

The direction also showed a simple concern for people: there was one particularly haunting shot of the face of an old man dissolving into tears on being told that he was to be sent to a home. At the same time, the desire for realism was carried a bit too far, with the soundtrack often achieving authenticity at the expense of audibility. As for the cast, one can only pay them the high compliment of saying that one accepted them as ordinary, everyday people rather than paid-up Equity members.

Cathy Come Home remains one of the most famous of all the BBC’s political dramas of the 1960s (covered in a recent BBC Four documentary, which I talked about — and repeated the erroneous Shelter claim — in this blog article from August).

And what of today’s political dramas? If we ignore the action-adventure heroics of Spooks or The State Within, we’re pretty much left with clumsy war metaphors in Robin Hood and a storyline in Casualty…

In one of those meaningless surveys conducted by FMCG companies in a brazen (if successful) attempts to get their brands into the media, Caroline Aherne’s The Royle Family have come out top as Britain’s best loved TV family.

The survey, commissioned by Dr Oetker pizza of all people, places the Royles above the Trotters, the Simpsons and the Osbournes. But wait! Before you can say, “Clearly, eating Dr Oetker pizzas deprives you of all concept of televisual history”, also making the Top 25 list include The Carringtons from Dynasty (somewhat bizarrely beaten by Californian neighbours The Colbys), the Cranes (Frasier), Six Feet Under’s Fishers and The Addams Family.

The full list reads:

1. The Royle Family (The Royle Family)
2. The Trotters (Only Fools and Horses)
3. The Simpsons (The Simpsons)
4. The Osbournes (The Osbournes)
5. The Cranes (Frasier)
6. The Addams Family (The Addams Family)
7. The Waltons (The Waltons)
8. The Dingles (Emmerdale)
9. The Mitchells (Eastenders)
10. The Fishers (Six Feet Under)
11. The Boswells (Bread)
12. The Ewings (Dallas)
13. The Battersbys (Coronation Street)
14. The Cunninghams (Happy Days)
15. The Slaters (Eastenders)
16. The Huxtables (The Cosby Show)
17. The Connors (Roseanne)
18. The Cohens (The O.C.)
19. The Kennedys (Neighbours)
20. The Ramseys (Neighbours)
21. The Robinsons (Neighbours)
22. The Colbys (Dynasty/ The Colbys)
23. The Bristows (Alias)
24. The Sullivans (The Sullivans)
25. The Carringtons (Dynasty)

Surely, the most curious — certainly the most dysfunctional — family in the list is the Bristows, from J.J. Abrams’ spy series Alias. There aren’t many families where the daughter finds out that, while she thinks she’s working alongside her dad for a top-secret division of the CIA, they’re actually both working for the enemy — and the mother she thinks is dead is actually a Russian spy. But still, it’s a more interesting life than the bloomin’ Ramseys at No. 20 — especially since they pretty much all left in the first few years of the soap, although cousin Madge did stay on for a bit longer.

I can’t help feeling there are several families missing from the list, though. Who would you like to see on there? The Tylers (Rose, Jackie, Pete and — by extension — Mickey Smith) from Doctor Who? The Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie? The Monsoons from Absolutely Fabulous?

TV Todayers, it’s over to you!

Ant and Dec may be the mainstays of ITV’s light entertainment roster, but it seems that the broadcaster’s reliance on the cheeky Geordies has led it into an incredible ‘aim-at-foot-then-shoot’ fiasco. It seems that plans for a return of latex satire show Spitting Image will have to be shelved because of the celebrity duo’s inclusion in last June’s Best Ever Sptting Image.

According to Broadcast, the rights to the Spitting Image brand have been retained by Roger Law, who with Peter Fluck created the show’s unique look. Unfortunately, while he agreed to June’s retrospective, he did not agree to the creation of the new Ant and Dec puppets who presented it.

Former Spitting Image producer John Lloyd told Broadcast:

When [ITV entertainment chief] Paul Jackson came into the role I said to him we might persuade Roger into the fold if the money was right.

It may well have happened if ITV Productions hadn’t gone ahead with the new puppets, directly against Roger’s wishes. As a result, it has blown away the possibility of a new series. Whoever made that decision should be fired.

A case of “I Made A Celebrity… Now I’m Out Of Here”?

It’s quite a sad day to see the end of the long-standing sponsorship deal between Coronation Street and Cadbury. TV Today has mixed feelings about sponsorship for TV programmes, but sometimes it can work given the right partnership between product and programme. The teaming of the nation’s favourite chocolate with the nation’s favourite soap was a marriage made in heaven, and from a viewer point of view, the idents became part of the Corrie furniture.

This is a real blow to ITV, with the deal worth a reported £10 million a year. The chances of finding that value of deal with a partner that fits in the same, unobtrusive manner are slim. According to the Daily Star, on-line bookmakers Paddy Power is offering odds of 4-1 on Unilever as the favourites to step in and take over the slot. There will be no shortage of takers for what is undeniably a coveted slot, but how appropriate the product is the key to how any deal will work.

The word is that Cadbury has recently developed reservations over some of the recent storylines creeping into Coronation Street. This is also combined with a reported desire to develop the Cadbury product in more upmarket directions and that the Coronation Street audience no longer delivers the required demographic. On this point, I’m tempted to retort: “How very dare you!”

This poses the wider question of just how far has Corrie developed in the 10 years since Cadbury inked the original two year deal. Have storylines with serial killer onslaughts on the Street, teenage pregnancies, gay kisses, almost incest and erm… Bradley Walsh, given the company pause to reconsider their position?

I would like to think the Corrie fathful is the same as it always was, providing a much wider demographic of ages and backgrounds than the majority of other soaps. Having said that, just as soaps have to develop organically to sustain and grow, so too must the needs of successful companies. Perhaps it is a case of a partnership coming to a natural end? Or, was the enforced hiatus on the idents following Cadbury’s summer salmonella scare the straw that broke the chocolate camel’s back?

But this news has put me in mind of a question I was asked back in my days as a Coronation Street tour guide. Shortly after the sponsorship commenced, featuring Aardman Animation’s fantastic chocolate Weatherfield model, I was standing on the exterior Street set. A visitor to the site was looking up at the roofs of the houses, clearly in some confusion. He wandered up to and asked, quite sweetly:

“Excuse me… can you tell me how they get all that chocolate on the houses?”

It’s always bemusing when double acts are nominated for an award as one, and this year’s list of nominees for The British Comedy Awards is no exception.

The category for Best TV Comedy Actor is, if you’ll pardon the expression, a joke. David Mitchell and Robert Webb receive one nomination between them, as if they are one bizarre gestalt being, while Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant receive a nod apiece. Why so? Surely, Gervais and Merchant are as much of a double-act as Mitchell and Webb, possibly more so. Yes, Merchant is more than just Ricky Gervais, but his solo efforts aren’t as high profile or as numerous as some of the solo projects taken on by Mitchell and Webb.

It just seems a silly distinction tainted by a lack of imagination in being unable to separate performers who are well known for sketch-based comedy. The same thing happened with Matt Lucas and David Walliams in previous years, and in both cases, each performer is clearly more than the sum of their partnerships. Mitchell and Webb are a great partnership, and so are Gervais and Merchant, but why not judge them on their individual merits? Same principal for Alan Carr and (SHOUTING MODE ON) JUSTIN LEE COLLINS! (SHOUTING MODE OFF) and Ant and Dec… Actually, that one’s okay, they are in fact the same being.

And while I’m warming to my theme, why can’t Charlotte Church be judged on her merits and just not be nominated for Best Female Comedy Newcomer. She might be a newcomer, but it certainly isn’t to comedy and she’s about as funny as watching your team lose on penalties. That nod will, I safely predict, be given to the divinely fabulous Miranda Hart. She was great in the lukewarm Hyperdrive, but her cameo in the first episode of Lead Balloon was sublime. Speaking of which, where on earth is Lead Balloon? Next year, one would hope…

As for the Best International Comedy Programme category I am, frankly, shocked and appalled at the absence of My Name is Earl. The best laugh out loud comedy anywhere in the world right now, and this is an alarming oversight. However, I have just realised what a contradiction I am in the things I favour by the presence of Curb Your Enthusiasm in this list. I hate CYE (cue sharp intakes of breath). I really have never “got it”. Yet, and sharp-eyed readers may start the finger pointing now, as I adore Lead Balloon. Both shows are arguably cut from the same comedy cloth, but I find Larry David’s show impenetrable and its position as a sacred cow in the world of laughter unfathomable (yet I’m partial to a drop of Seinfeld every now and then.)

Well, as they say, there’s no accounting for taste… The British Comedy Awards will be broadcast on ITV1 on 13th December.

Monday 13 November

Spooks (9pm BBC1)

Rub your hands together with glee – it’s a Spooks finale, and this one looks like a doozy. Adam (rapidly turning loony) and Ros are under threat when activists threaten to flood London following the government’s revelations that its environmental policies are a sham. A new series has been commissioned (of course it has, it’s Spooks and it’s the best thing on the box), but we don’t know who gets out alive. Terrific stuff, don’t be away too long.

I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! (9pm ITV1)

Big Brother aside, this is the giant of the reality genre, and still shows no signs of losing its appeal. There’s a mixed bag of the great and the good in there this year, but as long they don’t mess with the format too much, it’ll be a hoot. I’m betting David Gest crashes and burns before the week is out…

Tripping Over (10pm Five)

Look, it’s on Five, but don’t hold that against it, this drama has good pedigree, not least of all because it’s created by Cold Feet/Life Begins supreme Mike Bullen. Three episodes in, and it might be too late to pick up the thread of this globetrotting series, but give it a chance. Please?

Tuesday 14 November

A Child Against All Odds (9pm, BBC1)

Thought provoking new documentary series from Robert Winston that attempts to guide us through the ethical minefield that is fertility treatment. Winston’s avuncular presence can be quite reassuring as this first episode follows three couples with varying dilemmas about treatment, but be prepared for some heavy material along the way.

Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares (9pm C4)

Always worth a look, nobody does this kind of thing better than Gordon Ramsay. Thoroughly entertaining, you’ll find yourself watching through your hands as Gordon heads to the Costa del Sol to take on a stubborn restaurant owner.

Wednesday 15 November

Coronation Street (7.30pm ITV1)

Corrie is rather blissful at the moment as the downward slope to Christmas starts to pick the speed up. The Danny-Frankie-Jamie love triangle is being well played, and tonight, Danny has the notion of whisking Frankie away to get married in Spain. What will Jamie say… or do for that matter? Who would have thought that Bradley Walsh would have become such a part of the Corrie furniture?

Thursday 16 November

The State Within (9pm BBC1)

If this week’s departure of Spooks has left you bereft, don’t despair – help is on hand in the form of Jason Isaacs’ suave British Ambassador to Washington, Sir Mark Brydon. Three episodes in and this is turning into unmissable stuff. Brydon has a new nemesis this week in the form of Colonel Macyntyre, and he finds himself clashing with the FBI when some British mercenaries are arrested.

Strictly Confidential (9pm ITV1)

Suranne Jones, late of Coronation Street, steps out from a Ray Winstone shaped shadow to take centre stage in her own vehicle. And, with Kay Mellor on scripting duties, there are worse shows to take your first leading role in. Jones is Linda, an ex cop turned sex therapist (as you do), who finds herself called in to provide professional services to the police. Of course, there’ll be the usual run of Sex Problem of the Week as the series continues, and naturally, expect Linda to have plenty of issues of her own…

Friday 17 November

Children in Need (7pm BBC1)

As every other channel gives up for the night, the big question about Children in Need is whether Pudsey and Natasha Kaplinsky frequent the same tanning parlour… It’s all the usual fun and games for the BBC’s annual charity telethon, and sometimes you just can’t help yourself from being pulled in. Watch out for what could be the very final appearance of the cast of Bad Girls. But surely, if they raise all this money year after year, surely Pudsey can afford to go private and get his eye fixed…

It may have been noted that, every now and then, we mention Doctor Who here at TV Today, and happily we’ll put our hands up to that, cos we love it. It may also be possible that some members of the roster here (and there’s only three of us, so it won’t take long to work out who) might be partial to a bit of science-fiction, so we’re doing a little happy dance for tonight’s launch of BBC 4’s somewhat epic Science Fiction Britannia season.

As the cold, autumn weather finally arrives and the nights have fully drawn in, the next month will see the digital channel’s schedules thrown open to an examination of the cultural history of science fiction here in Blighty. This will be played out through documentaries, new drama and episodes of some classic TV series that fuel those down the pub conversations about kids TV.

Things materialise tonight with a double bill of classic Doctor Who at 7pm. In Spearhead from Space, the dandified action man that was Jon Pertwee debuted to rave reviews that propelled the still relatively young series (it was only 7) onto the success it would enjoy throughout the 1970s. This is a good choice of story as parallels with the much-written about new series are strong. It was the only original adventure to be shot entirely on film and location thanks to a strike, and also brought the Doctor’s exploits to the audience in colour for the first time. This gives it an atypical sheen beyond the usual flimsiness. It also sees our hero beginning an era of purely Earth-bound adventures as a cost-cutting exercise and to see if the show could work in a new format. Similarly, Russell T Davies has remarked on how few alien planets his Doctor Who will visit due to cost and fear for alienating the audience who don’t care about monsters from the planet Zog. Finally, the story features the Autons, the shop window dummies that Davies took as the villains for the debut story of new Who. Both Spearhead and Rose depict the monsters smashing their way through shop windows at the climax, so it feels fitting that this story has been selected. It neatly shows that old and new Who are not as far removed from each other as the audience might think.

Tonight’s documentary is The Martians and Us (9pm), focusing on the preoccupation with aliens and evolution in various science-fiction works. Peter Capaldi provides some gravitas to readings from various books, and clips from film and TV illustrate the somewhat highbrow discussion displayed throughout.

A show with one of the greatest theme songs ever, Adam Adamant Lives!, starts things off on Tuesday (7pm), and very welcome it is too. Gerald Harper stars as the flamboyant adventurer frozen in 1902, to awake in the utterly alien environment of 1966 where he finds his battle against the enemies of the Empire is far from over. Harper is simply superb, clearly relishing the role that the young Verity Lambert (hot from marshalling the early, and some would say the best, years of Doctor Who) gifted him. Great fun.

Adam Adamant Lives! is also the subject tackled in the first of six The Cult of… documentaries (8.30pm). Cast and crew reminisce on the three years the show was in production, and the sense of nostalgia is nicely palpable. Expect more of your favourite shows to be covered in upcoming episodes.

Following a repeat showing of The Crow Road (Tuesday 9pm, BBC4), Mark Lawson Talks to Iain Banks (Tuesday 10.55pm BBC4) does what it says on the tin. Lawson coaxes the novelist through his dual career as Iain Banks and the sci-fi penning Iain M Banks, and there should be plenty here to keep fans of both strands happy. Further into the season, Lawson will be talking to fantasy author and publishing phenomenon, Terry Pratchett.

In the coming weeks there will be more of the same, with the centrepiece being Random Quest, a new drama based on the short story by John Wyndham. It stars Samuel West as Colin Trafford, a scientist who is knocked unconscious when an experiment goes wrong. He wakes up in a different world with a different wife, but, Life on Mars stylee, he’s been in a coma and this new life was merely a coma-induced fantasy. Unable to accept that, he risks making a fool of himself to prove the reality of his hallucination.

And if there isn’t an episode of Blake’s 7 somewhere along the way, then I’m writing to my MP.

Log onto the BBC4 website and share some of your fondest memories of science-fiction old and new, and see what other treats are coming up as part of the coming season.

For your weekend viewing pleasure, here are this week’s TV-related links from The Stage.

TV Today

• The ITV/NTL conundrum…
• Friday linkfest
• Square Eyes: 11-12 November
• Poliakoff’s double-header
• Fun in the jungle…
• Fridays are ugly at Channel 4
• Des is in, Eamonn’s out!
• C4 takes action against Goldplated’s audience corrosion
• Square Eyes 6-10 November
• If you can’t beat YouTube, you can at least learn from it
• Admin notice: New RSS feeds available

News

• Channel 4 to boost music output
• Simm to play Van Gogh for C4
• BBC appoints entertainment production chief
• Outline strikes first-look deal with BBC Worldwide
• Stars line up for BBC Poliakoff dramas
• Ugly Betty to bolster C4 comedy Fridays
• West End shows dominate Royal Variety line-up
• Challenge Anneka returns after 12-year break
• Green light for BBC fairytale dramas

What do you do if you have a big pile of debt in the region of 6 billion quid? Simple: try to get yourself into even more debt by setting your multi-media cap at buying the country’s premier commercial television network, of course!

Yes, the ITV story grows ever curiouser and curiouser with NTL eyeing the company as a possibility ripe for takeover. Oh, hang on a minute… Let’s have a rephrase there – ripe for “a combination transaction”.

As analysts fall over themselves in trying to figure out just how loaded those words are (and in fact, attempting to decipher just what a combination transaction is in the first place), it doesn’t take a genius to work out that an NTL takeover of ITV would be a Bad Idea.

Aside from the fact that ITV is still clearly a house somewhat lacking in order, on the surface, NTL is also the physician who needs to heal itself before heading out to the media supermarket and putting some more treats in the trolley.

Here’s the deal – NTL has debts totalling somewhere towards the 6 billion mark. The company’s cable TV network has struggled to make much impression, and is said to be heamoraghing a constant stream of customers. Add to this the recent purchase of Virgin Mobile (making Richard Branson the majority shareholder in NTL with about 12 per cent and a merger with Telewest, and the picture from the outside is of a company who should probably settle down and take stock for a bit.

The language used is very interesting, however, with NTL’s statement being very ambiguous all round, especially in relation to combination transactions. The popular money seems to be pointing towards the industry as a whole misinterpreting NTL’s intentions towards ITV and getting excited over… well nothing at all, really. It could be entirely possible that a full takeover of ITV is not NTL’s desire at this stage (or any). Some analysts are even going as far as to predict a business arrangement to strengthen ties between the two companies and thereby keep the spectre of the Competition Commission at bay while enjoying some mutual back scratching. Many are expecting this arrangement to take the form of a tie up between ITV Productions and Flextech, under which umbrella Living TV and Bravo, amongst others, operate.

At a different time, in different circumstances, a full merger between NTL and ITV could make a lot of sense from a production/distribution point of view. It could certainly put both in a position to make a decent stab at finally taking on Sky on a considerably flatter playing field. For the moment it just seems like too many hasty words in very uncertain times for the independent broadcasting sector.

Further developments today have indicated that Richard Branson has thrown his support behind the idea of a full takeover, which can only add fuel to the seriousness of NTL’s intentions.

In light of Branson’s presence in proceedings, spare a moment to consider the fact that come the New Year, NTL will be rebranding itself as Virgin Media. Ask yourself – do you really want to end up watching Coronation Street on Virgin1?

Some television-related bits and pieces from around the web:

• Diana Coupland, best known for her role in 1970s sitcom Bless This House, has died aged 74. [BBC News]
• Ricky Gervais and Jimmy Carr have faces ideal for comedy. Or for wanting to punch their lights out, I can never remember which… [Guardian/PA]
• British Nip/Tuck actress Joely Richardson is leaving the show to care for her sick daughter. [Daily Mail]
• The BBC has launched its first entertainment ‘vodcast’ - a video podcast - for Children in Need reality show, Celebrity Scissorhands [Broadcast]
• Ain’t It Cool News interviews costume designer Louise Page, RTS-nominated for her work on Doctor Who. [via Rob Buckley]
• First Robin Hood, now The Bill: The Ironic Mastertape Thief strikes again! [DigitalSpy]
• Catherine Tate is to appear in ITV1 drama The Bad Mother’s Handbook. Of which, Chapter 1 is presumably “sleep with your daughter’s boyfriend and then go on Jeremy Kyle”. [C21 Media]
• Channel 4 acquisition Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip has been commissioned for a full series, despite falling ratings… [NYTimes.com]
• …while ITV acquisition Six Degrees has been pulled from the US schedules. [TV Envy]

Okay, so after last week’s cri du couer on the virtues of Saturday night light entertainment, I’ve this week got my hands on the weekend’s Square Eyes round-up. And guess what? Im not going to recommend the usual Saturday night LE offerings, anyway.

Well, after last week’s tantrums, I don’t dare. Jan Ravens — oh, please. Yes, you improved, but the rest of the Strictly Come Dancing (5:45pm and 8:30pm, BBC1) celebs were simply better. And Simon Cowell, where do I start? You kicked up a right little tantrum when your young protégé, Ashley, was eliminated from last week’s X Factor (6:35pm and 8:55pm, ITV1). And you know what? He deserved to go. He was quite fairly put in the bottom pair for two weeks in a row, he forgets his words, doesn’t always sing in tune and dresses like somebody’s lovable but ever-so-slightly-eccentric auntie. Oh, and he took the defeat with stoic maturity. Sounds like somebody needs to mentor the ‘mentors’ on that score…

So, for professional singing, and some real backstabbing and politicking, you can do no better on Saturday night than BBC4, and an as-live tranmission of the Royal Opera’s production of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (7:00pm). The Stage’s review of the opera describes at as “an evening of sex and violence in which the tension never sags”, and what better recommendation can there be than that?

On the drama front, while Robin Hood (7:00pm BBC1) continues in its merry way, Afterlife (9:30pm ITV1) comes to the end of its second run with Andrew Lincoln in mortal danger. As Robert lies hospitalised and in a coma, Lesley Sharp’s Alison witnesses the ghost of a euthanising nurse hanging round his bedside… Stephen Volk’s drama lost me a bit in the middle of this series, but it’s shaping up for a belter of a finale.

On to Sunday, and Kipling: a Remembrance Tale (6:35pm BBC1) provides a drama-documentary version of Rudyard Kipling’s life and works. While the drama section uses the wonderful Peter Guinness as Kipling, it’s the sort of programme that you just wish would make up its mind: either do a drama, or a documentary, and do it well, rather than splicing the two genres together and losing the best of each… At much the same time, Tony Robinson hosts Channel 4’s new game show Codex (6:40pm C4), with teams running around the British Museum, solving puzzles and stuff. It was pitched to the channel as “Dan Brown meets The Crystal Maze”, and all I can say is, I hope it’s rather more of the latter than the former (has anybody else noticed how Robert Langdon, ‘hero’ of The Da Vinci Code, is a shoo-in for Dumbest University Professor Ever?).

And yes, on Sunday night there is the conundrum that is Torchwood (10:00pm, BBC3) — the conundrum being how I continue to like the series no matter how downright rubbish its scripts are. Last week’s Cyberwoman, scribed by series head writer Chris Chibnall, was all over the place in terms of both dialogue and characterisation, spoiling a good premise. Let’s hope that this week’s is better — especially as it’s written by Sapphire and Steel creator, PJ Hammond. We are, indeed, not worthy.

Picture: Eva-Maria Westbroek (playing Katerina Ismailov) and John Tomlinson (Boris Ismailov) in Lady Macbeth Of Mtsensk. Photo: Tristram Kenton

There’s nothing like the announcement of a couple of new Stephen Poliakoff dramas to blow out the cobwebs of the autumn TV schedules and make you look forward to the New Year with optimism. There they are, Poliakoff 2006 and Capturing Mary, visible in the autumn darkness like shining beacons. It won’t last, obviously (the Christmas schedules haven’t been announced yet) but I’ll enjoy the feeling while it’s here.

I’m hoping that Poliakoff 2006 (you know you’ve arrived when projects are named for you in an eponymous manner) and Capturing Mary will restore this giant of television back to his former glory. However good Friends and Crocodiles and Gideon’s Daughter were, they felt like a Poliakoff on auto pilot in camparison to Shooting the Past, Perfect Strangers and the graceful The Lost Prince. These, quite rightly, sit high up in my personal canon of favourite TV dramas of all time.

Also pleasing is that, in amongst the stellar casts assembled for both channel-spanning projects, is the inclusion of Michael Gambon. His Bafta bagging turn in Perfect Strangers as the curmudgeonly Raymond is a delight, and his almost cameo in The Lost Prince displays his clear affinity with the unique Poliakoff lexicon. With Rupert Penry-Jones, Maggie Smith, David Walliams and Jane Eyre success story Ruth Wilson making up the impressive numbers, the ensemble has that comforting Poliakoff mix of bright young things and experienced old hands.

As Liz reports over in the news section, Poliakoff 2006 will debut on BBC1, with Capturing Mary bolstering BBC 2’s drama output for next year. As with Friends and Crocodiles and Gideon’s Daughter earlier this year, there will be some cross over of characters and locations. The question will be whether this sharing can be sustained across a two-channel endeavour, and could be a test of where the BBC1 audience ends and the Beeb 2 faithful begin.

As a final note from the news report, it’s still hard to get used to having Lorraine Heggessy referred to as Chief Executive of Talkback Television rather than Controller of BBC1. Is it just me, or does it feel plain wrong?

It’s that time of year again when Ant and Dec head out to the jungle for their annual holiday, kindly paid for by ITV. And as always, they are accompanied by a team of the great and the good, plucked from whichever fetid D-list pool their career has dived into since the last time we saw them.

Actually, that’s highly ungracious – I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! is the least offensive of the reality genre that plagues TV today in that it’s actually quite good. It can be genuinely entertaining, doesn’t outstay its welcome, usually being over and done within a couple of weeks, and has gifted end of year review shows with some great TV moments.

Conversely, you can also argue that the breach birth of the misguided Love Island (nee Celebrity Love Island) is directly down to I’m a Celebrity…, and we all know why that doesn’t work.

And today sees the unveiling of the jungle mates who will be bush tuckering their way through the usual rumbles in the jungle. And as usual, they tick all the usual boxes with the same tedium as the unveiling of each new Star Trek cast.

You will be watching…

Jason Donovan – this year’s Little Jimmy Osmond, the faded pop megastar, hoping for some reinvention after people remember how great he used to be.

Lauren Booth – otherwise known as the Prime Minister’s sister-in-law. With her political connections, she’s doubtless there to fill the Carol Thatcher role, but she might reveal something of her father, ‘Til Death Us Do Part’s Tony Booth.

Matt Willis. Erm… apparently he was in Busted. Enough said really.

Myleene Klass – she’s very easy on the eye, and remains one of the only Hear’Say castaways to go out there and get on with having a career that didn’t involve sleeping with Darren Day. Always comes across as a likeable lass, and could be up there as a favourite.

Jan Leeming – this year’s Jilly Goolden. Will be the sane presence to calm everybody down and the resident shoulder to cry on. Matt Willis will probably hate her.

Toby Anstis. The ex-CBBC presenter and now DJ is no doubt a lovely, but the danger here is for him to border on the dull. Sorry Toby…

Scott Henshall. Hailing from the world of fashion design, he’ll be horrified to walk around the camp in the muted togs favoured by the IAC… production team.

Faith Brown – loud, voluptuous and not backwards in coming forwards. If there are going to be any bust-ups (pun entirely intended) in the camp this year, expect to find Faith in the middle of them…

Phina Oruche. She’s a jobbing actress, with credits on both sides of the Atlantic. Footballers’ Wives is one thing, but her turn in Diagnosis Murder puts her above the gods!

And saving the best until last…

David Gest. Yes, you heard correctly. The not quite former Mr Liza Minelli (it’s a long divorce battle, apparently) admits he hasn’t done the washing up for 25 years, leaving all that to his maid. This is the one that could be genius in its execution, or he’ll be out within two days. Place your bets now…

Initial feelings are that there could be some stars waiting to emerge, but on the whole, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. Time will tell – with I’m a Celebrity…, it always does. The best policy is just to embrace it and go with the flow. Never as obnoxious as Big Brother, usually fun, and with those two young Geordie bucks at the helm, it’s always going to be a laugh.

I remember when the Friday night comedy schedule on Channel 4 was really something rather special, when you’d get never-before-seen episodes of Friends (yes, there was a time when the sitcom you were watching wasn’t a repeat) and Frasier, with maybe a shot of Ellen or Sex and the City and a daring dash of Britcom (say, Spaced, Black Books or The Book Group) to really tantalise the soul.

These days, what do we get? 8 out of 10 Cats (named, presumably, after how many felines it would take to throw at Jimmy Carr until you can find one that will willingly gouge out his eyes from that smug little face. I’m not a fan). And, in the summer months, some meaningless non-entity desperate for fame at any price, interviewing a Big Brother evictee (yes, Davina, I mean you).

As mentioned yesterday, Channel 4 has been suffering on Fridays of late, with gameshow Unanimous uniting the audience in, er, staying away. But now, there’s a sign that quality comedy may be returning to their pre-weekend line-up, with the news that US import Ugly Betty is to form the cornerstone of an evening of comedy from January.

Having seen the pilot in Edinburgh this August, and seeing that Ugly Betty is doing particularly well in its native US, it’s good to see that not only are Channel 4 on to a winner with their latest acquisition, but that they’re going to use its ratings pull to (hopefully) good effect:

Comedy head Andrew Newmand told The Stage that Ugly Betty would sit in a prime time slot and then homegrown programming would be built around it, in the hope that this would feed in larger audiences.

Looking back at some of the comedy shows that Channel 4 have commissioned and shown on Fridays in the past, anything which can revitalise the genre is to be welcomed. Especially if they prove to be more successful than the inexpicably recommissioned Charlotte Church Show…

After giving you the odds on the various presenting nags in the race to secure the lucrative gig of presenting Countdown, scuttlebutt from all corners of the Internet is hinting (well, saying quite firmly) that the race has been won by Des O’Connor.

Is it me, or does it just seem that the production team are just trying to save some money on changing the closing credits and the office stationery? Actually, if, as is thought, O’Connor inks his monicker on the reportedly £500,000 deal later this week, then I can see the legions of Countdown loyalists being quite appeased by the appointment.

There are concerns though. Des Lynam ran away from the show as he was getting tired out by the commute from London to Leeds. O’Connor, once the butt of Morecambe and Wise gags, is 74, has a two-year-old child and will be commuting from his Buckinghamshire pile. I sincerely hope he’s getting his five a day in prepartion for taking on the numbers board.

In other quiz show related news, Eamonn Holmes’s attempts to “break” America, have fallen somewhat flat. (and since when did ex-breakfast TV presenters try to break the US market? Aren’t we supposed to leave that to Robbie Williams and Oasis?). The first episode of the Holmes hosted The Rich List, has been pulled from the Fox Network after just one disappointingly rated episode. The show is based around people making lists as opposed to answering questions. Sounds rivetting.

For Eamonn, it must really hurt that his show has been replaced on Fox by the beautiful people of The OC. Oh well Eamonn, I suppose you could make a list of all the ways you were upset when all the copies of your interactive spelling game DVD had to be recalled because your name had been spelt wrong on the box.

As Liz reported on Friday, Channel 4’s drama series set in the nouveau riche suburbs of Cheshire, Goldplated (pictured), looked likely to miss out on a second series after viewers failed to warm to the first.

Now, Brodcast reports (subscriber-only link) that the channel is taking drastic action before the current series ends it run.

The advanced schedule for week 46 shows that on Wednesday 22 November C4 has pushed back comic drama Goldplated to the low profile slot of 11.15pm.

It was expected to go out at 10pm but will now follow a repeat of More4 documentary Young at Heart, which will air from 9pm to 11.15pm on the night.

The broadcaster has also dumped Saturday night repeats of the series and the first-look screenings on E4 which directly followed the C4 show.

More on Media Guardian, which requires free registration.

It’s an unusual move for Channel 4, which in the past has tended to stick with low-rated programmes in their original slot — commendably sticking with police drama Ghost Squad throughout its run (and, less commendably, doing with the same with the awful Space Cadets).

Now, it seems, schedulers are going to crack down on underperforming shows. As well as the Goldplated reshuffle, Friday night game show Unanimous is to move forward an hour, from the primetime 9pm slot to 8 o’clock, the channel’s weakest performing hour.

Channel 4 isn’t the only one with ratings problems, however. Five’s globetrotting series Tripping Over, which aired its second episode last night, managed to net just 337,000 viewers (a measly 2% share) — beaten by both ITV2 and BBC3.

I’m confused. The BBC is quite rightly very proud of the upcoming This Life reunion, coming to a TV screen near you this Christmas, and the anticipation is, to be honest, nearly killing me. Why then stick on your double-banked, five days a week repeat run of the original (Monday to Friday, BBC2) at 11.20pm? Haven’t they realised that the key audience for this most unique of series are in their mid-thirties now? That means cocoa time at 11, in bed by ten past for a good eight hours. Still, if you can keep your eyes open, this is a great way to get a brand new hit from your 90s addiction. It might be a disappointing experience, like meeting the ex you thought was dead sexy, but after 10 years has gone to seed. But Anna, Milly, Egg, Miles and Warren should still have enough charm to make it worthwhile.

Square Eyes (or should that be Square Ears?) rarely goes off-piste, but the momentous occasion taking place on Tuesday at 7pm has forced our hand somewhat. The Archers (yes, you heard) clocks up 15, 000 episodes on Radio 4, and with listening figures of somewhere around the 5 million mark, is still a major going concern. And this episode will be huge, earth shattering stuff as the rock of Ambridge, the 18 year marriage of David and Ruth Archer, is set to be ripped asunder as Ruth gets down to more than milking in the cow shed with tedious herdsman Sam. What always impresses about The Archers is the slow burn approach to storylines – the missus and me saw this one coming 18 months ago, but, with the luxury of a committed audience, the production team have the courage to play the long game. This approach to storylining would clearly not work for the TV soaps, but I can’t help feel that there is a lot to be learnt from the world’s longest running radio soap. As for David and Ruth, it’s as close to that Ken and Deirdre episode of Corrie as you’ll get. Just what will Linda Snell say?

After highlighting the plight of Five last week in the wake of Dan Chambers’ departure, why not tune into the third instalment of the really not bad Perfect Day (Wednesday 9pm, Five) and give the peaky looking channel a ratings boost for a change? This feature-length drama has the subtitle of The Funeral, and sees the friends gathering to pay their last respects to Pete. It’s never going to set the world on fire, but Claire Goose has emerged, post Casualty, post Waking the Dead, as a watchable presence, and Perfect Day is a rare example of what Five can do if it really tries. Compared to Goldplated (Wednesday, 10pm, C4), it’s genius.

And we say goodbye to the first run of the fabulous Lead Balloon (Wednesday, 10.30pm, BBC4), with Rick taking up exercise after a chat show host thinks he’s put weight on. Derivative? Possibly. Brilliant? Definitely.

Monarch of the Glen may be long gone (I’m holding out for a Christmas special reunion one day), but actors move on, and Lloyd Owen (son of the late, great Glyn) takes the lead in The Innocence Project (Thursday, 8pm, BBC1). Owen is Professor Jon Ford, presiding like a benevolent legal Buddha over a group of sassy, hungry law students who investigate cases where a miscarriage of justice may have happened. It has the feel of classic 70s American drama The Paper Chase with a British flavour, and while fairly harmless, could be quite diverting fun.

On the subject of diverting fun, The State Within (Thursday 9pm, BBC1) was certainly diverting and fun last week, and that should continue as this highly polished part thriller, part political drama continues. Jason Isaacs breezes through proceedings as the British Ambassador to the US with a weary charm, not realising that all his aides are probably about to screw him over. A new obsession to go with Spooks – soon we’ll have the set.

And if like me, you are positively shaken and very stirred by the upcoming cinema of release of Casino Royale next week, David Walliams: My Life with James Bond (Thursday 9pm, ITV1) will be required viewing (insert appropriate inappropriate double-entendre here).

Damian Lewis settles into the presenter’s chair for Have I Got News for You (Friday 9pm, BBC1), which should be interesting, and as a coppertop myself, I heartily approve of a high profile ginger on the box.

And the fact I’m a eying a repeat of Stargate SG-1 on Sky One with more than half an eager eye should be an indication of how poor the rest of the Friday schedule is. (Important note: I don’t actually watch Stargate…)

We’ve mentioned before on TV Today that one of the reasons video sharing website YouTube has been so successful in comparison to content producers’ own offerings is that it’s easy to use. Not only that, but it’s easy to link to, and if have a blog or other form of website you can embed a copy onto your own page in no time.

It’s so easy, in fact, that many fans of US channel Comedy Central’s The Daily Show (which airs here on More4) have littered YouTube with clips from the show, even though pretty much of all it is available from Comedy Central’s own website. Because each clip launches in a popup window, it’s tricky to find links that enable you to direct people to a specific sketch or news report.

Recently, Comedy Central’s owners, Viacom, had a number of Daily Show clips removed from YouTube, although they’ve since back-pedalled slightly. Now, it seems, they’ve realised that it makes sense to offer up similar services to YouTube from their own site — thereby removing one of the main reasons for the copyright-infringing uploads to the Google-owned service. Broadcasting & Cable reports that the video playing platform used by Viacom’s MTV Network channels, including Comedy Central, is to be relaunched later this month with more user-friendly features. (Thanks to LostRemote.com for the link.)

Significantly, most of the big US networks are working hard to get improved versions of their media players working — and most use formats based on Flash, the multimedia plugin for Web browsers that helps ensure that watching video is as painless as possible for the user — and, crucially, doesn’t tie them in to using Microsoft Windows. UK channels would do well to take note…

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Mark may have described it as a “big amorphous blob of light entertainment” in this weekend’s Square Eyes, but I have to admit to loving Strictly Come Dancing — and sneaking an occasional peek at the far inferior X Factor.

The BBC1 ballroom behemoth has had me captivated since the very first series, and each series they manage to find a group of previously-moderately-well-known amateur dancers (if Strictly avoids the ‘C’ word, I don’t see why I can’t) who, week on week, do improve in front of our eyes. Or are Fiona Phillips. And while all four judges each have a tendency to show off, there is always an element of coaching and note-giving present in their critiques.

In contrast, the only way you can possibly watch the X Factor live shows is to turn down the sound when the ‘mentors’ give their verdicts. It doesn’t matter if you can’t hear them, because you know what they’re going to say. Putting yourself through hearing them try to talk over each other and squabble like five-year-olds just isn’t worth the hassle.

This year, the X Factor has come into some stick for the (lack of) quality of its finalists. Even celebrity guest Rod Stewart, in an unguarded moment, has expressed his displeasure to a live radio audience:

“To tell you the truth I thought so many of them were rubbish,” he told Virgin Radio host Christian O’Connell, not realising that his comments were being broadcast. “I was very disappointed with the Scottish contingent, especially the two boys in the kilts [the MacDonald Brothers]. I didn’t want to say it on the programme. The overall quality is nowhere near what it is in the States.”

Suddenly realising his mistake, Rod added: “Are we live on air? I wish I was dead. I’m trying to stay neutral.”

Given the restrictive nature of the contracts all the finalists have to make, maybe it’s just as well that some of the better acts who went to the Boot Camp stage didn’t make it into the studio. A couple of weeks ago, I was at Showcall Showcase, a four-day light entertainment industry event hosted by The Stage (publishers of TV Today). One of the acts on the bill were three soulful sisters, Pure Liberty, who were ultimately rejected by groups mentor Louis Walsh. For me, their ten-minute set was the highlight of those that I saw. In their allotted time, they demonstrated versatility, technical ability and — unheard of at an event which is as much about networking as it is about watching the acts — their a capella performance reduced the whole auditorium to complete silence. Powerful stuff, and the ITV1 show is all the poorer for their absence.

(As a side note: X Factor judge Sharon Osbourne commended one group a few weeks ago for their “lovely acapello”. If she doesn’t even know basic musical terms, why should young professionals and would-be pros take any notice of her?)

Of course, Strictly isn’t without its egos and its divas. Craig Revell-Horwood and Arlene Phillips take it in turns to try and be the Mr/Ms Nasty of the judging panel, although most times they do at least back up their vitriol with justification. But recently, it’s been Brendan Cole who’s been the most obnoxious. In a show which is supposed to highlight the ability of the professional and amateur couples to work as a team, he’s increasingly acting as if the only partner he’s interested in is a mirror.

Both shows rely on viewer votes to determine their verdicts. Not that I’d vote myself, but the appeal of voting to keep someone in so they can improve their dancing, and for no other reason, is far greater than voting to determine which half-baked singer will become Simon Cowell’s latest means of market exploitation.

So that’s why I love Saturday night LE shows, but Strictly Come Dancing above its competition. That, and Vincent Simone looks hot in Spandex.

Photo montage: Strictly Come Dancing images © BBC. X Factor image © ITV.

Writing the Square Eyes weekender has become slightly troublesome in recent weeks, thanks to the big amorphous blob of light entertainment and kiddie drama fare that sits across the BBC and ITV schedules like a… well, a big amorphous blob. Thankfully, BBC2 comes to the rescue this week.

The Culture Show (Saturday 7.15pm, BBC2) devotes an entire edition to Hollywood Midas, Steven Spielberg. You may think that’s a bit random, but stay with us. Mark Kermode, the thinking man’s Paul Morley, interviews the director, going back through his glittering career (yes, he still has one, even after War of the Worlds).

It would be no surprise if the interview covers Spielberg’s forays into television (thank the maker that ER has had a ratings revival this year), as, following an episode of Porridge (Saturday 8.15pm, BBC2), Into the West (Saturday 9pm, BBC2) makes its British debut. Controversial haircuts aside, with 16 Emmy nominations to its name, this 19th century set drama will be nothing short of stunning as it follows the trials of two families – one pioneering Westerners, one Native American. Hopefully it will be more than just Dances with Dinosaurs.

And as it’s Saturday, if you fancy some top-flight film action that sticks with the historical theme of the evening, Master and Commander (Saturday 9pm, C4) should fit the bill. Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany are superb as Patrick O’Brien’s seafaring heroes Captain Jack Aubrey and Dr Stephen Maturin, but the battle sequences are the star here. Beautiful.

Celebrity Scissorhands (Sunday 8.30pm, BBC3). Um… Yes, it’s all for a good cause, but this one has dead horse written all over it. Children in Need will benefit, of course, but seeing the likes of Apprentice winner Michelle Dewberry, Darren Day and Sarah Cawood learn how to cut hair for the next fortnight, ahead of their celebrity cut off on the big night, is not entertainment. It’s… well it’s… I mean… erm… Unless somebody cuts an ear off, this is one for the bin, sadly.

But at least Sunday throws some surprises out to perk things up. The realisation that they still make A Touch of Frost (Sunday 9pm, ITV1) is quite a shock. Hasn’t this been on perpetual repeat since 1996? In this new one-off outing for the enduring TV detective, a stranger’s body is found in a couple’s bed on their return from holiday, and no doubt Jack will get himself a curry. Same old, same old. Still, it’s a national treasure, innit, and just about remains entertaining.

And it wouldn’t be a Square Eyes if we didn’t mention Torchwood as a bit of diverting fun to finish your weekend off with. The ratings drop off between the record breaking opening brace of episodes and last week’s slice was pretty good (yes, the BBC3 first run dropped just under a million on the first outing, which, with a 1.5 million rating is still a top 10 all time figure for BBC3). But, this week will be the clincher to see if the audience will hold, and with a stronger than usual link to the parent show (the title Cyberwoman should be the giveaway), the bet is an even one.

Photo: Matthew Settle as Jacob Wheeler in Into The West. © BBC/TNT Originals

In all our excitement about BBC Television’s 70th birthday yesterday, we forgot that 2 November is also the birthday of a much younger public service broadcaster in the shape of Channel 4. True, the channel is only 24 years old this year, so the big anniversary balloons are going to have to stay in storage for another 364 days. But after we digged around in The Stage’s archives to bring you the paper’s take on the new Ally Pally service, we thought we’d do the same thing and see what Television Today (the paper-within-a-paper that gave this blog its name) said about the new commercial channel. Compare it with yesterday’s article for a glimpse of how the performing arts have changed their attitudes to the telly.

(If you’re on TV Today’s front page, click on ‘Read the full entry’ to read the full article.)

BBC1’s new transatlantic political drama, The State Within, debuted strongly last night, with 5.7 million viewers and a 25% share, according to unofficial overnights. But what did the blogosphere think to the first episode?

katallen: The State Within was everything I wish Torchwood was… lots of plot and an assumption I can remember what happened two minutes ago. (It’s also hitting some fairly strong anti-American notes, thus far).

Me Against The Keyboard: It combines the breathtaking speed of 24 with the double-crossings and intrigue of Spooks with the visual slickness of a Hollywood flick with the behind-the-scenes insider details of The West Wing with the civil liberty/race/human rights/post-9/11 agenda concerns of Children of Men. It’s realistic while not being overloaded.

AnnaWaits: What exactly IS the show? Bits of West Wing here, bits of Spooks there, but it had none of the verbal wit of the former, or the excitement and tension of the latter. Maybe I was expecting too much for a first episode, but when you have such a pretty box, you expect to find something worth looking at inside.

Chris Doidge: What happens when you put the daytime TV soap Doctors on in primetime? Because despite my high hopes for this show, it had more in common with a cheap British soap opera than the glossy American drama it aspired to be. Principally, the direction was abysmal. Camera angles were predictable, static and so blindingly poor that you noticed them. That’s not supposed to happen. There were virtually no tracking shots, and as a viewer I felt like my eye-lids had been stuck together with glue because it was all so uninteresting to watch.

The script was unbelievable. A U.S. air marshal apparently goes up and down the plane telling people to turn off their laptops. Wrong. The governor of Virginia rounds up Muslims. Wrong. Two men start kissing despite showing no interest in each other beforehand. Wrong.

sefkhet: First, the BBC gets major points for having two guys in an established relationship of sorts, bigger points for the fact that they’re two regular people who are apparently successful in their respective jobs and who snark each other professionally worse than Cuddy and House (or Toby Ziegler and Ann Stark, or, for that matter, Angel and Spike) do, and very large points for just throwing it out there without making the whole show all about OMG Look How Progressive We Are. However, the fact that they’re together, especially considering what their respective jobs are, needs to go somewhere, or else it’ll end up feeling like the BBC did it specifically so they could show everyone OMG Look How Progressive We Are.

Check My Inevitables: All it made me think is that I’m sick of watching drama about terrorists, whether they be on a mission from God, or inadvertent pawns in a bid for world domination by power crazed homosexuals. It’s all very exciting and the production values are wonderful, and I’m sure I’ll end up watching next week, but I think I’m getting terrorism fatigue. We need drama that doesn’t mirror the climate of fear we’re all getting so used to these days.

Photo: BBC/Ben Mark Holzberg

Further to Mark pointing out that BBC Television is 70 years old today, I did some rooting around the archives of The Stage and found the original report on the event. It’s an odd piece — part news story for the first couple of paragraphs, then descending into a highly opinionated editorial — but the issues and fears faced by the advent of a new technology carry fearsome echoes seven decades later.

For your delectation, we include the full text of the piece below.

Break out the splishy-splashy (that’s shorthand for any form of celebratory beverage) and charge your glasses to raise a toast on this milestone day in television history.

The BBC Television service is 70 years young today, marking the day in 1936 when the so-called fools on the hill began regular, scheduled television transmissions from Alexandra Palace. Just try to imagine what life must have been like before Countdown…

What’s puzzling is that nobody deems this to be a particularly newsworthy story. Not even the Ally Pally website makes reference to the date, even in passing. This is sad and disappointing.

Is it because TV has become such a mundane part of our humdrum existence that nobody feels the need to celebrate its heritage? It’s the goggle box, familiar, unexciting, and perhaps that’s why the industry is going through such a tough time all round, and audience apathy is on the rise.

Whatever the reason, TV Today for one is happy to raise a glass to those pioneers who persevered and made those very first transmissions possible, when it was probably the stupidest idea that anyone had ever heard. When you sit down tonight to watch EastEnders, just remember how special this most wonderful of mediums was, and, let’s be honest, still is.

Happy Birthday, BBC Television!

Montage includes photo of Alexandra Palace mast, © Paul Hayes

A collection of stuff from around the net:

• Make-up artists must face up to the extra demands of HDTV by retraining, says an industry spokeswoman (The Stage). See also TV Today’s previous opnions on HDTV’s creative implications…
• Speaking of HD, the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing is to become the UK’s first live HD entertainment series (Sky Digi Online)
• A new DVD release of a 1969 Doctor Who story will benefit from a greatly enhanced digital restoration, along with missing episodes recreated by former Danger Mouse animators Cosgrove Hall (The Guardian)
• The American version of The Office was saved from cancellation by its sales on Apple’s iTunes Store (Newsday). Maybe this will encourage UK broadcasters to sell via iTunes and other markets rather than setting up their own, impenetrable, Windows-only stores?
• An ad campaign featuring Camberwick Green character Windy Miller and his naturist uncle has elicited complaints from people who claim to be able to see a little more plasticine than they were expecting (Metro)
• Google will earn more ad revenue in the UK than Channel 4 this year, and may beat ITV within 18 months (PC Pro). Probably because Googles ads are unobtrusive, complement the content they sit alongside, and don’t feature those awful 118 118 men.
• Mark Lawson looks at how DVD box sets are transforming our viewing habits (The Guardian).
• Mark Gatiss on the legacy of Nigel Kneale (The Guardian). See also our piece yesterday.

If you’ve spotted a story that you think we’ll be interested in, email a link to tvtoday@thestage.co.uk.

Image: A pox-laden Anna Maxwell Martin in the BBC’s HDTV Bleak House. Photo: BBC

Nigel Kneale, one of the few true visionaries in television scripwriting, passed away this weekend following a series of small strokes. He was 84.

As well as 1953’s groundbreaking The Quatermass Experiment (limply remade last year on BBC4 with a modern cast (above)) and its sequels, Kneale also adapted George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four in 1954, with Peter Cushing as Winston Smith in a version which was labelled horrific and subversive.

For me, although I love the ghost story The Stone Tape, my personal favourite of all of Kneale’s TV work is Year of the Sex Olympics. The play, starring Leonard Rossiter and Brian Cox, is set in a world where the lower classes are fed non-stop diets of trashy reality TV shows full of sexual titillation to subdue them. And as soon as the public shows signs of tiring of the format, the ante gets upped: in this case, a group of people are sent off to an isolated environment where every minute of their mundane lives is broadcast — unaware that the producers have introduced a psychopath to boost ratings…

Due to its desire to clearly denote a future version of Britain, Year used costumes and dialogue that were deliberately jarring on the eyes and ears. Only the black-and-white prints of the original remain, so we’re thankfully deprived of the outfits in all their glory; unfortunately, the dialogue can at times be painful to listen to. However, it’s still more pleasant than watching the first week of this year’s Big Brother, where Shabaz’s antics made one worry whether the last piece of Kneale’s predictive jigsaw was snapping into place.

The final word should go to Doctor Who writer and actor Mark Gatiss, who summed up Kneale’s work last year in a special BBC4 Timeshift documentary dedicated to the writer:

I think Nigel should have a 5-minute slot on TV where the Epilogue used to be, entitled ‘I Told You So…’

• Year Of The Sex Olympics (Amazon.co.uk)