March 2007 Archives

So here it is — the start of ten weeks that aims to repeat the success of the hunt that found Connie Fisher and created a critically-acclaimed West End star. It’s from the same team, and we’re not allowed to forget it: the series’ heritage is worn on its technicolor sleeve from the very first.

This first show concentrated on the initial auditions to find the 100 ‘boys’ for the London callbacks. As with Maria?, and unlike most other talent shows, there’s no celebrity judge involvement at this stage - just casting director David Grindrod. Imagine that — involving a casting director in a casting process. It says something that this seems like a novelty for shows of this type…

With a brief diversion as Andrew Lloyd Webber visits an amateur youth theatre project in Camden. Just his presence there seems to stimulate the whole group and there’s a great atmosphere. “The name’s Cowell. Simon Cowell,” he japes with them. Upon the second visit, to a gospel choir, it’s clear that far from emulating ITV’s Mister Nasty, he’s really interested in inspiring singers to deliver the best out of themselves.

As the auditions progress, both ALW and Tim Rice pop in to the auditions process, and it seems no time at all until all 100 places have been filled. Again, how different from the Cowell approach. No comedy auditionees, no judges’ spats — just concentrating on glimpsing the talent, and moving on so that we have more time to spend finding the top singers from a pool of good potential. That’s why I love this show.

On to the callback process, and here’s where some of the more conventional TV audition techniques get introduced. Kick off with a couple of great performances - check. Unlikely candidate with backstory videotaped with syrupy backing music - check. And gods, is that a Westlife track as he scrapes through to the next round? We’re in no danger of a cheese deficiency, that’s for sure.

After a slew of successful auditions, we start to see some failures. And with the failures, come the begging and the scary girlfriends. For some it works - James and Brendan get through after initially being turned down, but Tom’s backtalk is not so successful. And as for Sarah, the girlfriend who claims to not be scary? Who’d want to be her partner Brendan?

It’s Irish Nick’s turn for his callback. “I think this is impressive,” says Graham Norton, “but it’s very hard to know”. I can’t help thinking that ITV would put Graham on a judging panel… Nick gets through.

One can’t help but feel sorry for Ian, a self-taught amateur who fails to impress the judges. “You’re right, it is unfair,” consoles Graham. “But every other audition process you go through will be like this”.

And that’s the key, isn’t it? Other talent shows help promulgate the notion that a TV talent show is the be-all and end-all, causing failed auditionees to break down as their artficially built-up dreams are shattered. Here, an unsuccessful audition is rightly dealt with as a disappointment, but not a permanent setback.

And so — North Londoners who can’t sing “Close Every Door” notwithstanding — we eventually end up with the fifty boys who are going through into Joseph school. Except, what’s this? Three failed auditionees ‘decide’ to drop in on ALW at his office? And this impromptu visit just happens to coincide with the presence of a TV crew? And, after auditioning, one of them will be given an extra place at Joseph school? That’s not been planned by the TV producers at all, has it. It’s quite disappointing in its transparency, really. Although that won’t stop me crossing my fingers that amateur Ian makes the grade.

All in all, a promising start to what is already proving to be a riveting series. Next week: Joseph school takes 50 51 down to 20, and a performance in front of members of the public, celebrities and Louis Walsh determines the final 12 for the live finals.

Can’t wait!

And so it’s back. From outer space. Well, the moon at any rate.

The first episode of the new series of Doctor Who introduces medical student Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman) - a level-headed character who, when thrown in to unusual situations, takes a deep breath and gets on with things — but still has time to marvel at what she sees as she goes.

And there’s a lot for her to take in. Her hospital gets transported to the moon (in a comparatively poor transition with a thunderclap that sounds like it comes straight from a stock sound effects LP from the 1970s). It’s invaded by a platoon of Judoon, rhino-like policemen-for-hire looking for a vampiric plasmavore, who herself has two leather bikers to do her dirty work.

Another week, another reality TV show promising to discover another West End star.

Or, in the case of Grease is the Word, two West End stars. Yes, David Ian — Live Nation supremo and Stage 100 perennial — is on the hunt for both a Sandy and a Danny for his new production of Grease.

So, what is the word on Grease is the Word? Well, having seen a press preview, I would say it’s a little bit like How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? — but a lot more like X-Factor.

The panel includes Ian himself, former pop starlet Sinitta, choreographer to the stars Brian Friedman and general troublemaker David Gest.

From what I can tell from the 15-minute clip which us press were shown this week, I would suspect that the series may not play well with certain members of the industry.

It’s big, it’s brash and unlike in Maria, there seems to be little attempt to pretend that the early stages of the show are anything other than a chance to laugh at people who can’t really sing, dance or act and really would have been better advised not to turn up to the audition in the first place.

To be fair to the producers, it makes entertaining TV, but it remains to be seen whether that will appease the dissenting voices who have complained that the Pop idol auditioning format is degrading.

Meanwhile, in another nod to the X Factor, the obligatory squabbling between judges seems to be breaking out, with a rather entertaining show put on by the two Davids (Ian and Gest) for the assembled press as they bandied sly digs at each other.

Gest seems annoying enough that the dislike on Ian’s part could certainly be genuine enough, but whether the whole thing is contrived for entertainment’s sake is anyone’s guess.

Certainly the two of them are singing off very different hymn sheets. Ian was keen to play down the rivalry between his and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s rival show Any Dream Will do, saying:

Like all TV programmes, viewers have got a choice of what to watch and I think it’s great, as a theatre producer, that Saturday night television for a time will be dominated by the theatrical industry on prime time television. If someone had told Andrew Lloyd Webber or I that a year ago we wouldn’t have believed our luck.

Gest was taking a different tack. “I think Grease has great songs,” he declaimed. “I don’t think Joseph has as good songs. Not by far. Everybody knows. Screw it, Grease has great songs.”

The Weakest Link (Friday 8.30pm, BBC1)

Ahead of tomorrow’s premiere of that thing with the Police Box, the Doctor faces his most dangerous foe ever – Anne Robinson. All manner of Who luminaries are on hand for this special edition, including the Doctor himself.

Ugly Betty (Friday 9pm, C4)

It’s quite easy to forget that Ugly Betty is still on, but it remains great, cartoony fun and passes an hour rather well (considering the other shows on offer tonight, Betty is a godsend of quality viewing). Most episodes blur into one, so there’s no point telling you what happens. Just go with the flow…

I Blame the Spice Girls: The Monster Quiz of the Decade (Friday 9pm, Five)

Yes, I blame the Spice Girls too. This quiz looking back over the last ten years is supposed to celebrate 10 years of Five. Is this the best they can do? Shouldn’t we just be having a weekend of back-to-back CSI? Predictably disappointing.

Doctor Who (Saturday 7pm, BBC1)

Oh, it’s back is it? Yawn. Not sure I can be bothered this year… Ah, who am I kidding, I’m still as big a Doctor Who daftie as I ever was. This new series looks slicker and more exciting than ever, with new girl Martha Jones quickly dispelling the spirit of… well, whoever that other girl was. In tonight’s opener, medical student Martha finds the hospital she’s working in is transported to the moon, where the thuggish looking Judoon are causing merry hell. But who on earth is the odd bloke with the sideburns and natty blue suit? Next week: Shakespeare. Verily, bring it on!

View the Series 3 Trailer

Any Dream Will Do (Saturday 7.45pm, BBC1)

Following the modest success of How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria, Graham Norton is back with a chance for the blokes to get in on the West End action as Andrew Lloyd Webber searches for a new Joseph. This looks like a lot of fun (as was Maria), with Bill Kenwright stepping into the producer slot left vacant by David Ian’s defection to ITV with Grease. Norton glides about proceedings effortlessly, perfectly suited to the format, with John Barrowman and Denise Van Outen on hand as judges. Will Doctor Who and Joseph be a dream pairing for BBC1? Time will tell…

View Joseph:Any Dream will Do clips

A Tribute to John Inman (Saturday 8.25, BBC2)

Wendy Richard heads up a tribute for the fondly remembered John Inman, who died earlier this month. Amongst the interviews with friends and colleagues will be a showing of Front Page Story, an episode of Are You Being Served?, the classic sit com that made the actor a star. Mr Lucas is appointed editor of the Grace Brothers staff magazine, where he launches a beauty contest with Miss Brahams as a ringer. Great show, great actor.

Celebrity Wife Swap (Sunday 8pm, C4)

Sadly this isn’t a patch on the sublime Edwina Currie/John McCirrick edition of a while back, but there’s still something that boggles the mind in the pairing of Paul Daniels and Vanessa Feltz. What’s that? Paul Daniels is quiet, withdrawn and sullen? Surely not! It’s not often I sympathise with Vanessa Feltz, but this is one of those rare occasions. Meanwhile “The Lovely” Debbie McGee has gone to stay with Feltz’s young fiancée, Ben Ofoedu. On the evidence of this, you wonder why she’d want to go back to millionaire Paul Daniels (thank you Mrs Merton!)

Persuasion (Sunday 9pm, ITV1)

The trio of Jane Austen adaptations have, on the whole, been great stuff, not least of all this deft take on Persuasion. If any actor was seemingly tailor made to play an Austen fella, it’s Rupert Penry-Jones. How many ladies have dreamt of this dashing figure striding across a field towards them, shirt aflowing? Anne Elliot’s family is forced to move to Bath following daddy blowing their fortune. Renting out their estate to another family brings the figure of Captain Wentworth back into Anne’s life, which is a bit of a shock considering she was once set to marry him. Oops! The rest of the blanks you can probably fill in yourself.

Mark Lawson Talks to Nicholas Craig (Sunday 10pm, BBC4) There’s something about Nicholas Craig, the self-styled Naked Actor, that’s always joyful to watch, but is never quite as clever as Nigel Planer would have you believe. Still, this is good knock about fun, as a poker faced Mark Lawson interviews the former Young One’s alter ego. He’s worked with them all, darling, and now he’s about to star in top US drama, McKendrick. If you can let yourself go and enter into the fun, this is worth a giggle or two.

And after last night’s triumphant return of The Apprentice, it seems that the scientfically proven fact that MILK FROTHS isn’t quantum physics, either. Poor Dr Sophie. She doesn’t help her cause with this quote from her profile on the official website:

“I think I’m one of the few people who are blessed with using both sides of my brain equally. I can understand the technical side of things but also have vision.”

The techinical and vision side of milk clearly a blind spot then? I take it the poor girl didn’t spend much time in the dairy aisle of Sainsburys when she used to work there. But luckily for Sophie, she survived the bullet for stuffing up the coffee flogging task by the virtue of her team leader managing to be even more idiotic than she was.

I liked Andy, he was a sweetheart, but unfortunately he was a little man talking big. Anybody who says:

“We work until we bleed!”

has got to be having a laugh. He was like a Northern take on Drop The Dead Donkey’s Gus Hedges, only with glasses and paunch. had the lad stayed, I’m sure held have been calling his team ‘Business Hounds’ before episode 2 was out of the door.

But the one I’m watching is Jadine. Is she all talk, like Andy, or can she go the distance?

The Apprentice is on BBC1 on Wednesdays at 9pm. Relax everybody. Everything’s all right now. Everything’s fine.

Via Paul Cornell comes news that Doctor Who’s second series has gathered three nominations in the Hugo Awards, which celebrate the best in science fiction and fantasy, in the ‘dramatic presentation (short form)’ (i.e., television) category.

The episodes that have been nominated are:

• School Reunion by Toby Whithouse, which saw former companion Sarah Jane Smith reunited with the Doctor, causing Rose to question whether her time travelling would one day come to an end;
• The Girl in the Fireplace by Steven Moffatt, with the Doctor chasing a cadre of clockwork robots through various time zones in pre-revolutionary France in order to save Madame de Pompadour from having her brain cut out and inserted into the central computer of a stricken spaceship; and
• the season finale double-bill of Army of Ghosts and Doomsday by Russell T Davies, with alternate universe Cybermen taking over the Earth, hordes of Daleks in the skies above Canary Wharf, and leaving Rose and her family stranded in a parallel world with no chance of ever returning.

The episodes are up against an episode of Battlestar Galactica, Downloaded, and one from Stargate SG-1, 200.

Of the three British nominees in this category, I’ll personally be rooting for The Girl in the Fireplace, as I think it’s by far the most imaginative of last series’ episodes. If it does, it’ll be two years on the trot not only for Who, but for Moffatt as a writer: last year, he won for the World War II double-parter, The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances, beating both Paul Cornell’s Father’s Day and Robert Shearman’s Dalek.

The awards will be announced as part of WorldCon 2007, to be held in Japan later this year.

It seems that readers of radiotimes.com are a touch confused about the concept of “character”. In a recent poll, the online portal of the legendary magazine asked readers to vote for the coolest character on TV. The results tallied up like this:

1. Doctor Who (David Tennant)
2. Jack Bauer in 24 (Kiefer Sutherland)
3. The Fonz in Happy Days (Henry Winkler)
4. Mr Darcy in Pride and Prejudice (Colin Firth)
5. Cat in Red Dwarf (Danny John-Jules)
6. DCI Gene Hunt in Life On Mars (Philip Glenister)
7. Dermot O’Leary
8. Columbo (Peter Falk)
9. Dylan in The Magic Roundabout 10.Sawyer in Lost (Josh Holloway)

All fine and dandy, until we get down to number 7 – Dermot O’Leary. Sorry Derm, it seems that you’re not a real person, but are in fact a television character. Sorry mate!

In at number 6 on the poll is TV Today favourite DCI Gene Hunt off of Life on Mars, as played by Philip Glenister. Glenister is rapidly becoming a hero for us here, even more so after his no holds barred interview in the print edition of this week’s edition of the Radio Times:

“There are some very good people in television, but a lot of fools running it. They put fame ahead of talent and think somebody from EastEnders will put bums on seats. Bollocks!”

he told Andrew Duncan. And so say all of us! Do you think there’s any chance Glenister would apply for the job of BBC Chairman? The campaign starts now!

Staying with the Radio Times, Alison Graham is at it again. This week, she says that British drama doesn’t have the ability to be funny, asking us when we last had a laugh at Judge John Deed or Waking the Dead, fawning all over her beloved House yet again. House is fine if you like smug, self-satisfied fare with a central character who might as well have a sign round his neck saying: “You don’t have to be mad to work here, but it helps!”. Actually, I don’t mind House, but Graham completely ignores the likes of Life on Mars, Doctor Who or the lightness of touch of Corrie where there are laughs aplenty. (But when TV Today is fawning all over Doctor Who for the next 13 weeks, it’s totally different – okay?)

Finally, we can move away from the Radio Times. A big tut tut to EastEnders’ Mohammed George (Gus) and Corrie’s Bruce Jones (Les) who have both received suspensions from their respective soaps for less than exemplary behaviour. I won’t go into the details of their misdemeanours, but I have to question whether the seemingly constant round of suspensions of soap actors actually does any good. I feel that the audience don’t really give a stuff what soap actors get up to on their time off, whether getting jiggy on the internet or getting beered up and shouting at somebody. It’s the red tops who seem to get all lathered up about it. Enough!

We also have a belated “Say it ain’t so!” to cry out over the appalling news that Moira Stuart has been left without a regular news reading slot on the Beeb since her recent dropping from Sunday AM. If anybody in the News department at Auntie is reading this, sort it out, or there will be trouble (and I’ll send Scott round to have a word).

And how about Postman Pat, who is set to storm the US after the character’s owners, Entertainment Rights, struck a deal to air the adventures of Pat across the pond? As long as he doesn’t have to endure a name change to Mailman Pat and the kids don’t have a problem with such po-faced fare from Blighty, he’ll be grand. Hope he can get Jess through customs, though…

It won six BAFTAS, put Robbie Coltrane and Emma Thompson on the acting map and was arguably one of the finest drama series of the 1980s. Yet, with this pedigree, John Byrne’s Tutti Frutti has largely been forgotten in the pantheon of great television.

But that might all be about to change as, 20 years after it first aired, Tutti Frutti could be set for a long-overdue repeat run, according to The Scotsman.

It’s not hard to see why Tutti Frutti disappeared after its original (and one repeat) run. The six part story of Scottish band The Majestics had a seam of 60s music running like a seam through the soundtrack, leading to complicated and expensive rights issues which prevented exploiting further repeat runs and video/DVD releases.

Series writer John Byrne told The Scotsman:

“There are no longer any impediments to its being broadcast; that’s what they told me. I’m very happy for it to go ahead. That would be really nice, to give people a chance to see it again.”

BBC4 is reportedly in the process of clearing up any lingering rights issues on the music – previously, Little Richard had been said to charge $10,000 for using the title song for the one and only BBC2 repeat run.

But now these issues appear to have been surmounted, and BBC4 could be airing the adventures of Danny McGlone, Suzy Kettles and the rest of The Majestics this summer. Only two decades late for a multi-award winning drama triumph that deserves to be feted alongside the likes of The Singing Detective as an example of fine British television drama.

Mobile (Monday 9pm, ITV1)

Part two of this intriguing thriller and the perspective changes to one of the gunmen (Jamie Draven) who offed our mobile phone engineer at the end of last week. Time is rewound to give some background as to why the shooting took place, with links to the Iraq War. However, it all remains bewildering and I’m holding out the vain hope that all will become clear with next week’s closing instalment.

Coronation Street (Monday 7.30pm/8.30pm)

A pair of episodes that displays just why Corrie is still top of the pile when it comes it the soap mountain. Last night’s two hander between Tracy and Deirdre was top notch (even if it did give Anne Kirkbride too much opportunity to emote), and the trial of the century kicks off. Tongues are going to be wagging down Weatherfield way for weeks! Jason Grimshaw takes the stand – will the builder be able to grunt more than one syllable and get Tracy sent down for murdering his boss?

The Original Godfathers (Tuesday 11.30am, Radio4)

More of a Square Ears recommendation this (i.e. it’s on the wireless!), but anybody with half in interest in TV history will find this essential listening as Paul Jackson charts the writing partnership of Frank Muir and Dennis Norden. These giants of British comedy practically invented the sitcom with the family The Glums, part of the radio comedy Take it From Here, and here the pair receive just tribute.

Castaway: The Last 24 Hours (Tuesday 8pm, BBC3)

Danny Wallace counts just how many viewers have buggered off over the last day.

Life on Mars (Tuesday 9pm, BBC1)

We’re just a few episodes from the final reel, but Sam Tyler still has some 1970s style police work to slog through first before we discover the truth behind his unique predicament. When a Ugandan Asian is shot dead in his own record shop, it’s suspected that he may have been involved in drug dealing (bolstered by a wrap of heroin being found in his pocket). All good stuff, with plenty of Gene-isms to keep all of us amused, but with some issue based drama on the sidelines. Two weeks to go until we find out if there really is Life on Mars…

Coronation Street (Wednesday 7.30pm, ITV1)

A second recommendation for Coronation Street this week as the murder trial continues. This is worth it for a chance to see Kate Ford as toxic Tracy going for it full throttle as the Barlow bitch takes the witness stand in her defence. I’ll confess, when Kate Ford made her Corrie debut, I thought she was dreadful. Jump forward 5 years, and she’s one of the best things in it. Enjoy these final performances from this cracking soap actress while you can – one way or the other, Trace won’t be around much longer…

The Apprentice (Wednesday 9pm, BBC2)

The end of Masterchef has left me seriously in need of a TV obsession, and true to form, Auntie Beeb has answered my call. The Apprentice is back, on a new channel, but you can bet Sir Alan Sugar is going to be as much of a miserable old soak as he was last year. And hurrah for that – it wouldn’t be The Apprentice if he wasn’t. But will the new series provide us with a new Ruth Badger? Surely that’s just too much to ask!? The Apprentice - You’re Fired follows on BBC2 at 10pm.

Remembering Roots (Thursday 9pm, BBC4)

Still regarded by many as the finest example of television drama, this timely documentary examines just what it was about Roots that redefined the television viewing experience for a generation. Just one question: where’s the repeat for the series itself?

Bones (Thursday 9pm, Sky One)

Stephen Fry off of Jeeves and Wooster in Bones with David Boreanaz off of Angel. The mind does indeed boggle…

Wedding Belles (Thursday 10pm, C4)

This is a no-brainer for a drama of the week, being a darkly comic tale from the pen of novelist Irvine Welsh and Dean Cavanagh and featuring a headlining turn from the divine Michelle Gomez. Set in Leith, Amanda (Gomez) is preparing for her wedding to an airline pilot. Along with her three lifelong friends, Rhona, Kelly and Shaz, the route to the wedding is not a smooth or happy one. As this has Welsh’s name to it, prepare for filthy (but charged dialogue), violence and explicit sex, but put in context, it all works beautifully. Keep watching for another Irvine Welsh drama, The Granton Star Cause, directly afterwards at midnight.

News stories always come in waves, and TV has been no exception. It seems everywhere we’ve turned for the past few weeks, another tale has emerged of some TV programme falsifying something to pull the wool over the eyes of an unsuspecting public.

As with all journalistic fads, there’s usually one story that makes you stop and think, “right — that’s that genre done to death”. Now I thought it may have been the recent Blue Peter debacle — not that anyone should have been surprised on that score; after all, this is the TV show that replaced the ‘real’ Petra when the original puppy died off-screen; who denied Anita West a place in the programme’s list of past presenters until 1998; and who invented the phrase, “Here’s one I made earlier”, uttered by presenters during the famous ‘makes’ as they bring on a half-completed version that you know was made by someone else altogether.

But now, we have an altogether more banal story, that really shows that the bottom of the barrel is being scraped. The apparent crime?

Songs of Praise is recorded.

Yes. That’s pretty much the nub of it. Apparently, the Easter edition was recorded last year, double-banked with a Christmas edition from the same location. Different flowers and changes in lighting were used to avoid both editions looking too similar.

The Bishop of Lichfield says that, while the early recording was clearly not a “deliberate deceit” (gee, thanks, Bish), it would give an “air of unreality” to the programme. Which is only true if anybody believed that the smoothly executed broadcast from a different location each week actually went out live. Although I suppose that, given what miraculous events Christians celebrate at Easter, “BBC doesn’t mess up live outside broadcast” doesn’t seem quite so fantastical…

Now — while we’re on the subject of fictionalised versions of Songs of Praise, watch this video created by comedian Adam Buxton:

A great evening out at the Mayfair Hotel on Wednesday night, at the launch of Series 3 of Doctor Who. I met some great people, just a few of whom you can catch at the tail end of our Doctor Who podcast. During the Q&A session with David Tennant and Freema Agyeman, hosted by Russell T Davies, there were a few interesting and funny moments, as I’ve catalogued below. One or two mused on things that either went on in the episodes we saw, or the preview trailer for the rest of the series — so if you’re of a spoilerphobic disposition, you may want to look away…

RTD: Hello, I’m Nadine Baggott! (to DT, explaining who she is) She minces on about moisturiser.

RTD: We’re not going to answer any questions about Series 4… if you do [ask], I’ll come down there and slap you!

Question: Does the Doctor get married in Series 3?
DT (pondering the question): Yeeess…
RTD: All suspense, gone…
DT: He doesn’t not… That’s actually quite a difficult question to give you a truthful answer to.
RTD: Where’s Jessica Stevenson? (scans audience) She didn’t turn up!

Sam (Jo Whiley’s son): Did Yvonne Hartman [played by Tracy Ann Oberman] get sucked into the void?
DT: Let’s ask her!
TAO: I got turned into a Cyberperson. Although, frankly, Russell, listen…
RTD: For the rest of your life!
DT: Would you like to see her again? Well, she’s on the Weakest Link on Friday!
RTD: She’s too posh now, she’s got a column in the Guardian and everything! How to lose weight after having a baby. I follow it religiously.

RTD, to Daily Star reporter: The man who invented ‘Britney Spears is going to be in Doctor Who as a sex mad clone’. Were you bored that day, Peter? What was going on? You just made it up, didn’t you!
Star reporter: On a very serious note — David and Freema, when you had to kiss, did either of you slip the tongue in?

Jonathan Ross: You know, watching on the big screen with the sound, I thought, this has got to be a movie. It’d be great to have a Doctor Who film. Have you got any plans?
RTD: There are, er, we really haven’t got hours in the day to— I haven’t even got time for breakfast, let alone anything else. One day! One day, and it will be brilliant. But you know, we say that and then they come along and they say…
DT: “It’s got to have Britney Spears in it!”
RTD: And it would become a piece of trash…
DT: Not that we wouldn’t love to have Britney Spears in Doctor Who. I just want to slip that in.
RTD: As a good, bald alien… (to Ross) Give us the money, then. You’ve got it!
JR: I’m funding the Primeval movie.
RTD: ITV’s answer to Doctor Who!… We’re the BBC’s answer to Primeval!

South Wales Echo: What’s the best thing about filming in South Wales?
(pause)
(laughter)

Young boy: When are you going to go to the 1980s?
RTD: I never left!

Boy: Are you ever going to go back in time and meet Jesus?
RTD: Every year I hand that script in, every year… and he’s gay!

Sometimes a piece of television news can only be met with strangled cries of exasperation. Or in my case, the thud as my head hits the desk in weary resignation.

And so it is with the release of ITV’s latest dynamic plan for regeneration and revival - a daytime spin off from The Royal set in the present day called… The Royal Today.

I’m just going to say that again:

A daytime spin off from The Royal set in the present day called… The Royal Today.

Have they gone stark staring mad?! Look, I know The Royal (and its parent show Heartbeat) is still immensely popular and clearly earn its keep in the ratings, but enough is enough. Why this obsession with brand and siring yet more series on the back the one name?

This seems to sit at odds with ITV’s current ethos as it attempts to steer away from tried and tested formula shows to attract a more desirable audience for its advertisers (witness the success of Primeval as a huge step in the right direction).

But here we have a scheme that dilutes the creativity inherent in the TV industry. Clearly ITV has identified a gap in the daytime schedules, and I’m up for a proper job daytime soap as much as the next commissioning editor. So why not lay down the challenge to the rich seam of indie producers out there to come up with the goods? Actually, let’s not bother. We can just knock off The Royal, bring it forward a couple of decades, call it The Royal Today and then we can sod off for an early lunch. It’s just LAZY!

Or perhaps there is a fear of stepping into the unknown where this genre is concerned. After the failures of both Crossroads and Night and Day, one can understand the trepidation, and looking further back, when was the last new, successful soap created in the UK? I’ll let Doctors scrape through on a technicality, but it’s hardly an inspiring state of affairs, is it?

Have our commissioners lost their bottle so much that they’ve misplaced the ability to take a risk, to have a punt on something new that just might be the next big thing?

I’m not just pointing the finger at ITV here. The BBC are just as guilty with Holby Blue, Rogue Spooks and the industry that is becoming Doctor Who (but we love that, so it’s all right!). What next, MFI: Holby?

So come on, let’s get it together and fight for telly to be original and imaginative and challenging, not a homogenised wasteland of the same old same old.

And as a side note, Executive Producer of The Royal Today, Ken Horn, was quoted in The Sun:

“The new show is like M*A*S*H* without the cynicism.”

I really hope that’s a joke, because the only come back to that is: you should be so lucky.

Time was when the tradition of the Sunday afternoon childrens’ drama serial was a much-cherished part of the schedules. With this new entry to the Sherlock Holmes pantheon, the Beeb has resurrected this grand tradition with some style and verve.

The Baker Street Irregulars are the gang of children employed (some would say exploited) occasionally by Sherlock Holmes to do the tricky jobs that he can’t achieve himself. As the story starts, the leader of the Irregulars has gone missing, presumed drowned, but his sister Sadie isn’t too sure. New leader, Finch, does a good job of keeping the gang together as they take on more work for the world’s most famous detective and his faithful sidekick, Dr Watson. Somebody from Holmes’s past is killing policeman, leaving a jade spoon on the body as a calling card – and the police soon have Holmes at the top of their suspect list. Placed under house arrest, the detective must rely on the Irregulars to help solve the mystery and clear his name. But another member of the gang has gone missing…

Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars has a sheen of quality running across the whole thing, from lovely period detail that easily matches Ruby in the Smoke, the top flight casting of Holmes and Watson, a gripping mystery and a raft of young turns who make this acting lark look easy. It’s a shame that the show has been scheduled just as the lighter nights are coming as this would be perfect to snuggle up to on a dusky autumn evening with a mug of hot chocolate.

Jonathan Pryce chooses to play Holmes straight down the line, when other actors might have followed a quirkier route given this is a drama for, you know, kids. His take on Conan Doyle’s creation adds a calm authority to proceedings that ensures things will be taken seriously (and he might have a pipe, but he never puffs!) Pryce’s friend Bill Paterson gives Watson a nicely Celtic air and the genuine off-screen friendship between the two actors helps to create a memorable pairing.

As for the Irregulars, each member of the cast distinguishes themselves, most notably Aaron Johnson as Finch and Alice Hewkin as Tea Leaf. There’s no mawkishness and awkwardness in any performance and they provide a motley gang of new heroes for a young audience. Even if they are thieves subsidised by an adult who should really know better (in other words, don’t copy this at home, kids.)

The script (which never underestimates the audience) crackles with intelligent dialogue, has a nice air of menace and in Anna Chancellor as Irene Adler, a chilling villain and nemesis for the Irregulars.

This is what children’s drama should be, and on the evidence of this, the death of the genre has been widely exaggerated. ITV and others, take note!

Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars is on BBC1 on Sunday 25th March at 4.30pm.

An interesting morning at the press launch for Any Dream Will Do, the BBC’s new Saturday night talent show to find a Joseph.

We’ve solved (for now) the mystery of Louis Walsh’s involvement: he’s an audience member. Just as last year’s Marias were whittled down from a longlist of 20 to the final ten after a concert performance at Andrew Lloyd Webber’s country pile, this year’s final twelve potential Josephs have been selected after a similar event near ALW’s castle in Ireland. A number of famous faces could be spotted amongst the audience, Louis included — but only the judges made the decision on who to send home, and who to bring to London for the live shows. (That said, the finalists will continue to be getting plenty of tuition on various subjects between live shows, so it’s more than possible that Walsh’s involvement will continue.)

It apparently took two hours for the judges to reach their decision on the final of the twelve places, with the whole list only being finalised at 5 o’clock last night. While the identities of the finalists won’t be revealed just yet, we have been told that among the twelve you’ll be able to see:

• a David Beckham-lookalike
• two 17-year-old school pupils
• a builder
• an amateur dramatics enthusiast
• a professional actor

Bill Kenwright, who as coproducer of the West End musical in which the winner will perform takes the judge’s chair vacated by David Ian, revealed that he nearly didn’t take the job because the live Saturday shows could conflict with supporting Everton FC, of which he is the chairman:

When this came up and they said, “Would you do it?”, I looked at the fixture list. You could count on [one] hand the number of games I’ve missed in the last 54 years… There were three games there that were on Saturdays. So I just prayed they would become Sky games and would go to the Sunday so I could see them. I don’t know at the moment, there are three games there I could possibly miss. I have never missed three games in a season in my entire life!

Elsewhere, new judge Denise Van Outen revealed that after her stint on the US Grease: You’re The One That I Want (BBC Enterprises for NBC) finishes this week, she’ll still be commuting between London and Los Angeles, as she’s signed on for a new (and currently secret) US TV project. Also, as a single woman who was obsessed with Jason Donovan in his Joseph days, she wants the finalists to appeal to her in a particular way:

Being a single girl — twelve guys, you do have your favourite but I know it will change… It’s rather like speed dating for me, the audition process!

At which point somebody asked John Barrowman if he was using the show as a speed dating exercise. Cue a withering look, and a very embarrassed reporter as John explained he recently married his civil partner, Scott Gill…

• Any Dream Will Do starts on March 31 on BBC1 (time still TBC at the moment).

British accents in the US appear to be at the top of today’s agenda. Denise Van Outen has reportedly been sent for elocution lessons as the audience of Grease: You’re the One That I Want are having trouble understanding the Essex lass’s accent. This report comes on the day when Stephen Fry steps into the shoes of Alison Graham as guest TV columnist in the Radio Times to scribble some thoughts on English actors in the US (in a much more benign way than the sainted Graham a few weeks back).

On the subject of Van Outen (who Scott notes will also be judging the BBC’s Any Dream Will Do), none of the news reports quote anybody directly on the subject of the former Big Breakfast presenter taking any elocution lessons. What they do quote is a seemingly anonymous source from the States:

“She is a very attractive girl and has years and years of television experience. That, along with her English accent, meant that she should have been a hit in the States … but they aren’t keen on her voice.”

Which is a far cry from confirming that Van Outen has been sent to talk about the rain in spain. This is followed by the bewildering afterthought:

“They are not keen on her demeanour either.”

There is, as they say, no smoke without fire, but I’m finding this very hard to swallow. Let’s face it, Denise Van Outen, while far from being a spit spot Mary Poppins, she’s hardly Eliza Doolittle either. Lord knows what the US audience will make of Ant and Dec – the Geordie funsters must be quaking in their boots at their impending trip across the Atlantic. At least Heather Mills only has to dance and not say much.

And what about Stephen Fry? He writes in the Radio Times, on the eve of his debut in the Fox drama series Bones:

“I sometimes wonder if Americans aren’t fooled by our accent into detecting a brilliance that may not really be there.”

He goes on to praise American actors’ ability to relax in front of a camera and contrasts James Stewart and George Clooney with Olivier and Branagh. I think rather than having a go at Brits in America and the American audience, he’s coming down on the side of self-deprecation. Indeed, the sight of him playing opposite David Boreanz’s Seely Booth as an FBI psychologist is a patently bizarre sight, and Fry is quite rightly drawing us to the ridiculousness of the situation (whilst clearly being immensely proud of his three episode stint in Bones).

And as for poor Denise Van Outen, I’d rather have a lass with a bit of character than the neutral dullness of Cat Deeley twitterings on American Idol (with apologies to Cat Deeley and her fans, in advance).

Later this week, we’ll have a new Stage Podcast covering the new series of Doctor Who. The centrepiece of our coverage will be an exclusive interview with Doctor Who executive producer, Julie Gardner.

[Update: the podcast is now online]

One of the topics we covered was a possible move to HD. While spin-off show Torchwood was filmed in high definition, Julie confirmed to us that there were no plans for the Doctor to follow in its footsteps:

We do have conversations about it, but I don’t think we’re ready to be on HD. I think it would take more time for us to do our post-production, and I think it would be more costly. And I genuinely love the look that we’ve managed to achieve with our DOPs [directors of photography], and our grade on Doctor Who. Also, we do so many effects on Doctor Who compared to Torchwood — I can’t think what the exact ratio is, but if we’re doing a hundred effects on an episode of Doctor Who we’re doing, I dunno, twenty, or ten, on Torchwood. For the rendering time, the time it would take us for Doctor Who would really delay our schedule quite significantly at the moment. And so we’re happy with our digibeta look on Season 3.

The next edition of the podcast will be available from Thursday afternoon. If you have iTunes, subscribe now and you’ll receive this and future episodes automatically. Other podcast software users, we have an MP3 feed you can use — or you can drop by the podcast blog and listen to individual episodes online.

The Daily Mirror [via TV Scoop] claims that Louis Walsh, the former X Factor judge who was dropped from the show along with presenter Kate Thornton, is to “help out” with the BBC’s How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? successor, Joseph: Any Dream Will Do.

If there’s any truth to the story at all, then it would be a delicious irony for Walsh, as Joseph is due to go head-to-head with ITV’s own Maria successor, Grease is the Word — which, like X Factor, is to be a coproduction between Talkback Thames and Simon Cowell’s Syco.

Quite what he’d be doing on the show — if the Mirror is correct — is unclear. The BBC has already announced the judging panel for ADYD, and they’re all West End wendys:

• Andrew Lloyd Webber
• actor John Barrowman
• vocal coach Zoe Tyler
• producer Bill Kenwright
• actress Denise Van Outen

Of course, the first three are reprising their Maria roles, and Kenwright takes the producing duties and judge’s chair vacated by David Ian, who has defected to ITV1’s Grease. A bigger surprise is Van Outen, who rather confusingly was last seen on America’s Grease talent show hunt (chief judge: David Ian) as a co-presenter. Blimey, it’s all a bit incestuous, isn’t it? (“Just like the West End.”—Ed.)

What’s certainly not clear is where Louis Walsh — a man with no discernible theatre history — would fit into the BBC show. Unless, of course, he’ll be dropping by “Joseph School”:

…The intense Joseph School workshops also include celebrity mentors such as Jason Donovan popping in to lend their support and advice on what it takes to make it as a Joseph.

There is, of course, the possibility that the Mirror article is wrong — although that surely can’t be true, can it?

In any event, at least the BBC judging panel looks to be composed of experienced West End stars. ITV’s panel for Grease is the Word will, as well as David Ian (whose credentials are beyond reproach) consist of:

• American choreographer Brian Friedman (presumably the theatrical production’s choreographer, Arlene Phillips, is prevented from appearing by her BBC Strictly Come Dancing/Strictly Dance Fever contract)
• Former I’m A Celebrity… contestant David Gest (well, erm, he has an extensive collection of Broadway memorabilia, much of it relating to Judy Garland — although, of course, he had to give one piece back when she divorced him)
• 80s pop singer Sinitta. Who may seem an odd choice, but she was at least part of Simon Cowell’s mentoring team on X Factor, even if the poison dwarf’s ego means that we never got to find out how much of a role she actually played.

I have to say, in terms of being able to spot the better theatrical talent, my money’s on the BBC team of judges. But as far as theatrical longevity in concerned, I think Grease has better potential — even without a TV show to provoke interest in it. Personally, I find the 50s setting and romantic storyline far more appealing than the cutesy naiveté of the ALW/Tim Rice Bible story.

Mobile (Monday 9pm, ITV1)
My word, what do we have here? A genuine thought-provoking drama from ITV that doesn’t descend into formulaic nonsense with nary a quirky detective in sight? Remarkable in itself, but coming on the back of last week’s rather good Fallen Angel, there’s a sense that the country’s premier commercial broadcaster could be building up some momentum again. Mobile phone masts are being blown up at the same time as people are ending up with a bullet through the head for using their mobile phone in public. The police, for whatever reasons, look to a former mobile phone engineer as their prime suspect, thinking he may have motive to act against his former employers – he has a brain tumour. It’s an interesting piece that doesn’t quite set out its stall in this opener, but as the remaining pair show the same events from a different perspective, it should end up being highly satisfying fare. Neil Fitzmaurice and Julie Graham star.

Coronation Street (Monday 7.30pm, ITV1)
Janice Battersby turns detective tonight to discover what her wayward stepdaughter has really been up to in her absence from the cobbles. Is Leanne on the level or is she on the game? What do other readers think?

The Real Shilpa Shetty (Monday 9pm, Sky One)
Considering its long-term effect on the current broadcasting climate, not to mention Celebrity Big Brother being up for a Pioneer Audience Award at the Baftas, it’s probably worth checking out this slick documentary. Not that you’ll learn anything new about the high-profile Bollywood star, but considering her place in our national consciousness, even at this advanced stage, it’s interesting non the less.

Life on Mars (Tuesday 9pm, BBC1)
A belter of an episode that takes liberty with the format in an effort not to kill John Simm off with the pressure being in every single scene as Sam Tyler. In the real world (wherever that may be) it seems that Sam has been given an overdose of medication and he is, shall we say, tripping his tits off. Of course, here is where we get the truly stunning Camberwick Green sequence, but the episode goes beyond that. As Sam has been off on a sickie, it falls to Gene to relate some recent events in flashback, putting the DCI into the forefront of the action. With his wife and daughter kidnapped, a local businessman walks into police HQ and threatens to hang himself unless he gets some help. It’s all great stuff – let’s face it, any series that features the line: “Keep out of Camberwick Green!” has got to be doing something right!

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (Tuesday 9pm, Five)
Not that I’d suggest for a second that you neglect Life on Mars, but tonight’s trip to Vegas is noteworthy for a special guest spot from Roger Daltrey under all manner of different guises. Of course, Daltrey was probably only too happy to pop in to CSI, considering he likely pockets a very hefty royalty payment every time the theme tune screeches out from the speakers.

Ideal (Tuesday 10.30pm, BBC3)
A return for the Johnny Vegas sitcom, where the big fella stars as hapless drug dealer Moz. It’s okay, but falls very far from brilliant.

Party Animals (Wednesday 9pm, BBC2)
A half decent finale for the mostly hit (peppered with the odd miss) political drama series. In all honesty, there’s possibly one too many character making up the ensemble, but writer Ben Richards has kept tabs on the twisty-turny relationships and all their permutations through the corridors of power at Westminster, with the real star of the show being Andrew Buchan as political agent Scott Foster. It started slowly, but thankfully got there in the end, and hopes are high for a second series.

House (Thursday 9pm, Five)
Hugh Laurie is back as the miserably lovable medic, recovering from last season’s injury at the wrong end of a gun. Thankfully, it’s still the same old House, and that means entertaining yet thought provoking drama at the sharp side of gung-ho medicine. I’m still not sure about that accent, though. However, people who know better than me have told me it’s a stunning piece of acting from the redoubtable Mr Laurie, so I shall bow to better judgement.

The Yellow House (Thursday 9pm, C4)
I’m surprised Channel 4 haven’t been shouting from the rooftops about this solid piece of drama. For a start, it’s drama, seemingly a dying breed for the channel. Secondly, it’s starring the sizzlingly hot John Simm as Vincent Von Gogh. An third… well, it’s quite good. Also starring John Lynch, this tale tells the story of a year in the life of Van Gogh when he shared a house with fellow artist Gauguin. Throughout the year, the pair produced in excess of 40 masterpieces, and there’s not a cow in formaldehyde in sight! Good stuff and one to treasure.

Skins (Thursday 10pm, E4)
I never quite made my mind up on the subject of this interesting little drama, but mostly it seemed to strike the right note thanks to a highly talented cast of performers. Most of the attention has been on Nicholas Hoult’s Tony (Hoult’s turn in About a Boy gave him a certain pedigree), but he’s not the only diamond to shine here. If Skins had one major fault, it’s the confident swagger that makes it quite difficlt to like in places, but if that’s not an accurate depiction of the teenage condition, I don’t know what is. Roll on series two.

Oh, dear lord… Shed Productions, purveyors of such finery as Footballers’ Wives and Bad Girls, have been commissioned to make a drama series based on “a fictional look behind the scenes of a blockbuster TV talent show”.

And what’s worse, Simon Cowell is coming on board “to make sure the series is as true to life as possible.”

Which presumably means that whichever actors are hired to play the presenter and a judge will be sacked, while the short-arsed egotist who can’t spot long term talent to save his life but can quite happily identify which artists can be cynically manipulated for the record company’s sole financial gain will end up looking like a saint.

Simon Cowell apparently says (according to the ITV press release):

I am very excited about this show, the idea is brilliant and Shed Productions have a proven track record of making these type of shows very popular – think X Factor meets Dallas.

In which case, let’s get Charlene Tilton to play the “Mister Nasty” role. She’ll be the right height, and the epithet “Poison Dwarf” will be ever more appropriate…

It’s a sad day here at TV Today towers - Liz Thomas, The Stage’s broadcast correspondent-about-town, is leaving.

We’ll miss her permanent smile and ever-optimistic outlook on life (and all things televisual) just as much as her ruthless efficiency and seemingly effortless organisational skills. Still, our loss is the gain of the UK’s third best television publication, Broadcast (after, of course, The Stage and Doctor Who Magazine).

We’ll also miss her effortless ability to get into the swankiest parties, meet the top celebs and then swan in to the office talking about her exploits while completely avoiding our seethingly jealous looks.

Seriously, though, Liz — best of luck in everything you do. We’re going to miss you lots and lots.

Comic Relief (Friday 7pm, BBC1)

The marathon fund-raiser is back for more hilarity in the name of getting you to stump up your cash. Highlights include the last ever Vicar of Dibley (until the next one), the climax of Fame Academy, Girls Aloud taking on Sugababes, and lots of brand new sketch material. Lowlights? Too much exposure to Lenny Henry (hint: Lenny, you’re just not funny anymore). And as a sign of just how much of a knock-on Comic Relief has on the rest of the schedules, just switch over to Channel 4. They’re showing a triple bill of Ugly Betty reruns. Sigh.

Dancing on Ice: The Final (Saturday 6.30pm. ITV1)

I have a real blind spot where Dancing on Ice is concerned. The first series did nothing for me, and I’ve barely registered this second run. Still, it’s clearly a winning format, and I’m always prepared to applaud some celebs employing a bit of serious skill. I can’t skate for toffee (or dance for that matter), so it’s hard to get snobby about this show.

Eurovision: Making Your Mind Up (Saturday 7.40pm, BBC1)

It’s that time of year again when a rag tag group of performers takes a punt on Eurovision glory and prostrate themselves before the nation for approval. Among those hoping to succeed are Brian Harvey, Justin Hawkins and, erm… Scooch. They were a band once, apparently.

Primeval (Saturday 7.50pm, ITV1)

Primeval ends its first series with Cutter and the team being called in to a local zoo where something has been snacking on the lions. Turns out the MOI (Monster of the Week) is a highly developed bat creature from the future and is ready to open a can of whup ass on anything that comes near it. Eeek! Primeval has a lot going for it and I’m glad it’s held its nerve in the ratings and will be back for more. Some retooling may have to happen, otherwise the limiting aspects of the format will start to become apparent. Let’s have a longer run with episodes that actually see the team exploring the other side of the anomalies as opposed to running around generic locations. I want to see a T-Rex stomping down Oxford Street, so can we make sure that happens, please? And no more Hannah Spearritt in her pants. It isn’t big and it isn’t clever.

The Dame Edna Treatment (Saturday 9.40pm, ITV1)

What with Eurovision and Dancing on Ice: the Final, the return of Dame Edna to our screens completes a triumvirate of camp entertainment for the evening. Welcome to Spa Edna, the veteran entertainer’s exclusive spa facility for A-list celebs. There’ll be a parade of top-flight guests visiting for some R&R, while Edna’s daughter, Valmai, and Sir Les Patterson will also be on hand. Everybody breathe. Edna’s back. It’s alright now. Everything’s fine.

Rough Diamond (Sunday 7pm, BBC1)

Sorry, sorry. I just can’t help myself!

Coronation Street (Sunday 7.30pm, ITV1)

A noteworthy trip down the cobbles as we see the arrival of a new family, the Mortons. They look like they could be good value, with Brookie legend Michael Starke (aka Sinbad) heading the clan as daddy Morton. It’s always touch and go and when a new family arrives in force in a soap – one duff bit of casting could destroy the entire brood’s fortunes in seconds, so TV Today will be watching with interest.

The 100 Greatest Stand-ups (Sunday 8pm, C4)

Just when you thought Channel 4 couldn’t possibly come up with any more opportunities for lengthy list programmes, along comes this little affair. It’s all utterly subjective and there’s some questionable material along the way. However, on display are some blistering talents and some of it’s a joy. And then there’s Bernard Manning. Oh well.

Mansfield Park (Sunday 9pm, ITV1)

The first real test of the much-talked about Billie Piper comes with this frothy adaptation of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park (Ruby in the Smoke doesn’t count as it wasn’t such a big leap from TARDIS to Pullman). It’s a very zippy affair all told as Fanny Price (Piper) is sent to the titular Mansfield Park to board with rich relatives. She must adapt to life as the other half live it, and repress feelings she holds for her cousin. Perfect Sunday evening fodder to relax with.

My name is Mark and I am a Masterchefaholic.

You may have picked up from this column in recent weeks that I’m just a tad obsessed with Masterchef Goes Large, and it seems I’m not the only one, going by the ratings.

Last night’s double bill of culinary brilliance under pressure took the show to a new ratings high of 4.3 million. BBC2’s decision to move Masterchef to a primetime slot has paid dividends and then some, with a million new viewers arriving in the move from 6.30pm to 8.30pm. But schedule change aside, this third series of Masterchef Goes Large has been a slow sizzler from the start, building steadily from an opening audience close to two million, building to a tasty 3 million.

It’s so easy to have a go at broadcasters when they get things wrong (witness the ramshackle scheduling of Life on Mars), so it’s nice to give a pat on the back when a channel nurtures a show and lets it find a natural place in the schedules.

It helps that I respond to Masterchef Goes Large as a format. The 6.30pm scheduling of the regular shows dovetails beautifully with my arrival home and provides a gentle 30 minutes to relax and ease into the evening. As the early shows proceed and move towards the semi finals, you find yourself rooting for a favourite. John Torode and Greg Wallace flit around the kitchen like angels of death, handing out scathing criticism to the chefs with gay abandon. However, they’ll be nice when it’s deserved, and seeing John in the Downing Street kitchen last night proved he can put his money where his mouth is at the drop of a hat. And what about Greg Wallace? He’s worth it just for the moment when he shouts: “This competition. Just. GETS. TOUGHER!” at the beginning of every episode.

I know it’s just some amateur chefs throwing food together, but as a reality show (and let’s make no bones about this, it is a reality show) it has more going for it than any other reality show out there at the moment. These three finalists are being put through the mincer, with each cooking task piling on the pressure. There’s drama, there’s blood, sweat and tears and most of all, some real achievement taking place in these kitchens. In one week the finalists have cooked for an entire TV crew, flown to Cyprus to cook for the army, put together a three course meal for Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern, and endured the ultimate test of baring their cooking souls to some of the country’s finest chefs. I’ll quite happily admit to crying at the climax of last night’s double bill. If you’ve been there since day one, you’ll know where I’m coming from.

But I’m afeared that as Masterchef Goes Large comes of age with this third series, gaining deserved success, it will stop being a well-kept secret. I can see BBC1 eyeing it with hungry eyes, lining it up for transfer across like The Apprentice. This must not happen!

Masterchef Goes Large: The Final is tonight at 8pm on BBC2. Go Hannah!

Have those in the business of producing our television become so morally bankrupt that not even Blue Peter is safe from the cold, creeping malaise of phone line sleaze?

It seems not, according to BBC News. Last November the legendary children’s television show ran a competition involving a so-called premium rate phone line, with a portion of each 10p call going to UNICEF.

The BBC wasn’t making any money from the phone line, but the controversy comes from some behind the scenes shenanigans and a technical problem meaning that none of the little kiddies could get through to the studio to be live on air with their answer.

So what was the solution put into place by the pressured production types? They picked a passing child who was visiting the studio, pushed him towards the nearest phone and got the little mite to masquerade as a caller to the studio and then claim his prize for a correct answer.

Erm…

I am shocked and appalled by this state of affairs. If Blue Peter can try and pull a fast one like this, who knows what else is going on behind that trustworthy logo. I’m sure I saw Konnie Huq selling badges out of the back of a van outside Willesden Green tube last week.

What next? BBC admits Chuckle Brothers’ moustaches not real? Revival of Castaway a pointless waste of viewers’ time?

The fact that what amounts to a simple error of judgement behind the scenes is such a big story shows just how the question of premium rate phone lines has become the latest in a long line of whipping boys to clobber the beleaguered medium round the cathode ray with. I’ve stopped caring, and am getting mighty sick of all this tedious housekeeping being done in public and being dragged through the papers. Get over it already.

Good on Blue Peter for putting its hands up to a cock up. It shouldn’t have happened, and you nearly got away with it, but you can bet the production team won’t be so stupid again in the future.

Now, can we get away from headlines claiming television is in crisis and get back to watching Masterchef? What’s that? Greg Wallace has been faked and all the food comes from M&S?

So, as promised yesterday, TV Today sat down to see if the much-vaunted Current TV works as a ‘linear’ TV channel.

The verdict? It kind of does. While it’s never going to take up a whole evening of your viewing time, that’s not something it’s ever set out to do. For the occasional half-hour, though, you’re going to get to see short documentary films that veer between the OK to the mind-blowing.

One thing that hits you straight away is that although most of the short films (or ‘pods’, in Current parlance) have been filmed on fairly low-end equipment, production values themselves haven’t been skimped on. Partly this is because the amount of actual user-generated content (which Current calls ‘viewer-created content’, or VC² for short) is a lot lower than the hype suggests — around a third of the channel’s output. Also, what seems to be happening is that when VC² content is selected for broadcast, Current pays for it, giving the original producer enough money to polish their original segment. It’s a tactic which seems to work.

So, we go from an in-house movie (sorry, ‘pod’) satirising the movement pushing for Intelligent Design to be taught in schools, made by Current TV producer Joe Hanson, alongside a VC² exploration of London’s New Rave scene put together by the band “Trash Fashion”. But we also get an exploration of “waterboarding”, a form of interrogation/torture (depending on your point of view) that makes the suspect feel that they are drowning, which sees the presenter undergo the technique in a harrowing sequence, and journalist Adrian Baschuk talking us through an al-Qaeda propaganda video which includes scenes of bomb attack on US military installations.

It’s fascinating viewing — if not quite as politically neutral as founder Al Gore claims (subscription required):

Gore said that the channel would not have a political bias because it was designed to encourage debate from all angles. “The channel will have no slant towards Labour, Tory, Democrat or Republican,” he said. “But, if we do have content submitted with strong political views, great, we will use it to stimulate further debate by inviting people to say whether or not they agree. This is the whole point of the channel.”

The weakest part of the viewing was, for me, the Google-sponsored elements discussing the latest popular search terms. There was a little too much forced humour there which seems to interrupt the flow of the rest of the channel.

All in all, though, I was reminded of earlier experiments to introduce current affairs to a young teenage crowd. I realise I’m showing my age here, but there are distinct similarities with Janet Street-Porter’s Network 7, which ran on Channel 4, and its BBC2 successor, the DEF II strand. Current TV, with its short news documentaries, lighter bits and travelogues, looks like a mix of N7, Reportage and Rough Guides.

And it’s all the better for that.

Regular readers of TV Today will know that we’ve been tracking the convergence of “user-generated content” and traditional, channel-led television for some time now. Today sees the launch of a new UGC-focussed channel on Sky and Virgin Media: Current.tv.

The brainchild of former US Vice President Al Gore, Current does most of the UGC things right: it has a clear focus, and concentrates its appeal in a specific area. We’ll report back in a day or two as to whether it passes the “sofa test” — in other words, how well it works as a linear TV channel as opposed to a shortform library on the internet.

in the meantime, though, Current has done some great work compiling some easy to follow do’s and don’ts about filming your own short videos in its training section. Covering everything from production tips, to how to tell a good story in a short amount of time, the video tutorials are well worth a view.

Masterchef Goes Large (Monday – Thursday 8.30pm, BBC2)

Masterchef might have gone large three years ago, but it finally comes of age tonight as BBC2 schedulers wake up and smell the cooking to schedule the four instalments of finals at a grown up time of night. But then, pulling in ratings of over 3 million at 6.30pm, who can blame them for taking a punt on prime time success. The real trick with this show is finding a favourite amongst the cooks as they are put through their paces, something it was impossible to do with the rather insipid Lloyd Grossman incarnation. Here, as we spend so much time with the cooks, it’s easy to get engrossed in some of the challenges and feel for the pressure they are coping with (not easy when you have a tubby “ingredients guru” and a bad tempered Aussie overlooking your work). I’m plumbing for Hannah, but think Ben probably has it to go the distance. In the run up to Thursday’s final, the remaining three put together location lunch for the cast of Casualty, cook for an army battalion and head to Number 10 to sire a meal for the PM himself. But have they got what it takes to… Oh, you get the idea. Here’s hoping that BBC2 resists letting this transfer to BBC1. It’s far too good for that.

The Sopranos (Monday 11.35pm, C4)

Erm… 11.35? Oh tut, tut, Channel 4. I know! Let’s buy one of the finest dramas ever to come out of the US and then schedule it at a ridiculous hour. When you get it wrong, you really get it wrong. And cue Richard Madeley!

Stargate SG-1 (Tuesday 8pm, Sky One)

The end is nigh for the SG-1 team! Well, not counting the straight-to-DVD movies and most of the cast probably seeking haven and a pay cheque in spin-off series Atlantis. If you haven’t been a fan of Stargate and want to dip in, it’s probably best that you don’s t as you’ll be utterly bewildered. 10 years of arc based storylines come to fruition (if you’re lucky) and there isn’t even appearance from Richard Dean Anderson (aka MacGyver) to raise the game even a little bit. At its best, Stargate SG-1 was a fun piece of zippy, action-filled fun. At it’s worst, it was a bewildering load of old cock. Hey ho.

Life on Mars (Tuesday 9pm, BBC1)

Yeah baby, yeah! Life on Mars has found its mojo again. This fourth episode is exactly why we tuned in last year, full of great period detail, some eyebrow arching clues about Sam’s plight and Gene Hunt on vintage form. Hunt is convinced that a spate of murders signals the return of a serial killer he thought was long behind bars, forcing Tyler and Cartwright to go undercover as husband and wife at a swingers’ party. It’s car keys out for the most fantastically gauche 70s house you’ve ever seen, but there comes a moment in the last 15 minutes where something doesn’t feel quite right. Then Uncle Gene makes his entrance and all is fine again. It’s Coronation Street veterans a-go-go in this episode seeing guest spots from Eva Pope, Georgia Taylor and Katherine Kelly (currently walking the cobbles as Becky).

Kidnapped/The Wire (Tuesday 10pm, C4/FX)

C4 kicks of the first of a new US drama starring Timothy Hutton as a millionaire who is forced into hiring a private investigator to find his kidnapped son. It’s all a bit 24, with the plot strands running throughout the season, but this doesn’t have the deft lightness of touch that is meat and drink to the Fox show. Meanwhile over on FX, what could be the finest American drama ever (controversial, moi?) continues apace. The Wire, as I’ve noted before, isn’t pretty, but it is subtle while being labyrinthine, with such a breadth of talent across writing, acting and directing. The Sopranos? Pah! This is where it’s at.

Grand Designs (Wednesday, 9pm, C4)

Always entertaining, this week Kevin McCloud overlooks a couple who decide to build a three-bedroom houseboat out of nothing but scrap. It’s all very tense as, while it might be very well building the aqua-abode, it’s another matter entirely to find somewhere to tie it up at night. The only thing missing from any episode of Grand Designs are frequent comedy looks of bewilderment to camera from Mr M, but that’s a minor quibble.

Lift (Wednesday 10.30pm, BBC4)

Part of the Tight Spot season of new comedy from BBC4, and this isn’t a bad attempt from stand up comic Mark Watson on scripting duties. With an umbrella title of Tight Spots, this trapped-in-a-lift scenario is quite obvious, but some decent laughs and a good cast (including Siobhan Redmond and Nina Wadia) do a good job. One can’t really see it spawning a series, but BBC4 deserves praise for continuing to support new comedy.

Comic Relief Does the Apprentice (Thursday 9pm, BBC1)

Ahead of The Apprentice coming to BBC1 is the latest invasion by Comic Relief in fusing celebrities with a popular BBC brand. Alan Sugar gets to be all bad tempered with a bloke’s team comprising Alastair Campbell, Ross Kemp, Rupert Everett, Piers Morgan and Danny Baker. Meanwhile, the ladies are made up of Cheryl Cole, Trinny Woodall, Karen Brady, Maureen Lipman and Jo Brand. As the celebrities organise a charity funfair, the big question is whether Sir Alan would be more scared of: Ross Kemp or Cheryl Cole. I know who I wouldn’t want to upset…

Boston Legal (Thursday 10pm, Living)

In the absence of anything halfway decent on the box this week, here’s another US drama to dive into. Boston Legal is a bit on the mad side, being an almost spin-off from The Practice and featuring James Spader and William Shatner (that would be the Emmy Award winning William Shatner). It could have been a by-the-numbers legal show, but the producers have a habit of destroying the fourth wall in the most delicious ways. And come on, it’s James Spader and William Shatner – who could resist that?

EastEnders (Friday 8pm, BBC1)

EastEnders used to do these hour-long specials so well, but this episode focusing on the recent trials of the Wicks family is a rum do and no mistake. Kevin has decided to jack in London life and head off to France, but an encounter with a stranger (played by Torchwood’s Burn Gorman) leaves him bereft of cash and travel tickets. In Walford, his brood aren’t happy to see daddy Kev arrive back in the Square, but somebody might be pleased to see him (or is that just a packet of fags in her pocket?).

Castaway (Friday, BBC1, 9pm)

The original was apparently Britain’s very first reality show, so as it returns to our screens, we now know who to send the boys round to see with a big baseball bat. The format is pretty much the same, with a group of people are left on an island (New Zealand this time) for three months (not quite the 12 month slog of before) with basic facilities to see how they get on. Thankfully, we won’t have to wait months to see what’s been going on in the community as Danny Wallace and Richard Bacon will be bringing regular updates from the island. Will Castaway bring ratings gold for the Beeb this time, or will we have to settle for a new Ben Fogle to be unleashed on the populace?

The Wild West (Friday 9pm, BBC2)

On the whole, this series has been quite good fun, and tonight attentions are turned to the legendary gunfight at the OK Corral. Apparently, the fight lasted less than 30 seconds (so why on earth did Kevin Costner’s Wyatt Earp biopic have to last longer than the run of The Mousetrap?). Liam Cunningham makes a quite convincing Earp. More please!

The Charlotte Church Show (Friday 10pm, C4)

C4, please cancel this ill-advised enterprise. You really should know better.

Primeval (Saturday 7.20pm, ITV1)

Big flying dinosaurs? Oh yeah, I’m in for that. What I’m not in for is paper-thin characterisation, poor dialogue and Hannah Spearritt in her pants again. Look, Billie was enough for the dads in just a pair of jeans and a hoodie, girls in pants just make you look desperate. I liked the first two episodes of Primeval, I like the relationship between Cutter and the lady from the ministry (whatever her name might be) and the monsters can be entertaining, but I’ve slowly lost patience with what now seems a limiting format. With one episode to go, I’m giving this a C+, Must Try Much Harder.

Casualty (Saturday 8.50pm, BBC1)

In an episode co-written by Richard Curtis, the Casualty regulars getting into the fund-raising spirit for Comic Relief… with hilarious consequences and a cameo from Angus Deayton. Why then has the monumental return of the legendary Brenda Fricker to her first TV home been crowbarred into this novelty episode? Seeing Megan Roach back in Holby A&E, however briefly should have been the TV event of the year. This leaves me feeling mighty cheated at such an incompetent piece of TV production. Still, I’ll take what I can get where the marvellous Ms Fricker is concerned.

Gosford Park (Saturday 9.20pm, C4)

We rarely venture into the world of films (this being TV Today), but sometimes a film comes along that you just can’t help but go nuts over. Gosford Park is one such film, being Robert Altman’s take on life above and below stairs in a country pile, folding in a murder mystery on top. It’s supremely acted by a quite brilliant ensemble, and the overall effect is that of a fine TV drama. One to open a bottle of wine for.

Fallen Angel (Sunday 9pm, ITV1)

Crime drama starring Emelia Fox and Charles Dance, based on the book by Andrew Taylor. So much crime drama these days is about why killers kill (see Cold Blood), and this three-parter is no exception. Fox is Rosie Byfield, the titular fallen angel, arrested for murder before the clock is wound back to see just how she came to this sorry state of affairs. It’s all very ho hum, but Fox puts in a decent turn, along with the effortless Charles Dance, raising things to an entertaining enough level.

The South Bank Show – Victoria Wood (Sunday 10.45pm, ITV1)

It’s a South Bank Show focusing on Victoria Wood – what more do you need to know? The segment focuses on the comedienne’s role in recent drama Housewife, 49 and her work on directing the currently touring Acorn Antiques musical.

3lbs (Sunday 10.50pm, BBC1)

Stanley Tucci as an unorthodox yet brilliant surgeon? So far, so House, and that’s as far as this new US drama gets. However, the masterful Stanley Tucci doing a cheap imitation of Hugh Laurie is better than most people’s expensive imitations, so it’s worth giving a go on that basis alone.

What on earth has happened to Life on Mars? Last year, the show could do no wrong, pulling in cracking ratings and critically hailed as the best thing since… well, ever.

But the second series just can’t seem to find a firm footing on the schedules and after finishing its first run on a perky 7 million plus, this week saw the third episode of the second series slump to a disappointing 4.8 million. What would Gene Hunt have to say about that?

Why do I worry about ratings? Surely I should get on with enjoying what I enjoy and the rest of you be damned! I think I have a bums on seats mentality, believing that the best, original, imaginative television should be viewed by the widest possible audience. I’m one of those viewers who sits down to watch a favourite show and keeps glancing over to see if my beloved is enjoying it as much as I am. Sadly it’s likely to be while watching Rough Diamond at the moment, which makes it a rather fruitless exercise.

In the case of Life on Mars, it seems like poor scheduling and unfortunate sporting fixtures, possibly combined with high expectation, has knocked the shine off this great series. Starting a series off buy showing two episodes then pulling it in favour of a footie match a week later is never going to be good. Cue episode three, and the audience figures drop 600,000, probably not helped by a sub-standard episode and a BBC4 showing two weeks previously. And now BBC4 appears to have abandoned showing the next episode directly after the BBC1 showing, so now I’m thoroughly confused.

Am I looking for excuses here? Could it be that Life on Mars has gone off the boil and the audience who were there last year have decided they can’t stick with another 8 episodes of test card girls and cryptic clues about the reality behind Sam’s plight?

Nah, that would just be silly.

With another five episodes to go, there should hopefully be time to get some momentum going to shore up the ratings for a great finale. But I’ll be scanning at those overnight ratings like a ruddy-faced urchin at a Dickensian toyshop window on Christmas Eve, eyes wide with expectation and worry.

But, if the ratings for Life on Mars don’t shape up like a woodentop in plod school, will Auntie Beeb be quite so ready to give a green light to the rumoured Gene Hunt spin-off, Ashes to Ashes? I’d never be able to eat ‘oops again…

For just about everybody really…

Of course, the big story today being ITV’s woe’s after the announcement of further diminishing profits, seeing a whopping 19 per cent loss. It was quite odd hearing Michael Grade do a turn on Today this morning, being grilled quite mercilessly by John Humphrys. I’m not suggesting that anybody had been directed to stick the boot in, but there must have been a sense of satisfaction along the corridors of power at Broadcasting House this morning.

Of course, Grade is there to turn things around, and hopefully next year things might be looking a little rosier for the commercial broadcaster. Certainly if anybody can turn things around, it’s Grade. However, this can’t be good, coming as it does on the heels of the furore surrounding the use of premium rate, interactive phonelines and the thorny issue of ITV Play. While Play is off the air, it’s estimated by some that ITV could lose revenue in the region of £400,000 per day.

Ouch!

Speaking of ouch, Richard Madeley is also having a bad week after his daughter’s mugging on a London Street for her mobile phone. Last night, a bearded Madeley was seen to shake his fist at the screen in an approximation of what he’d like to do to the perpetrator of the crime. He’s quite right to be enraged, but the last thing I want to see on my TV screen as I’m sitting down to beans and toast is a crazed, unshaven man waving his fist at me. Unless it’s Brian Blessed.

Other bad weeks continue as Sky and Virgin continue to knock lumps out of each other, and it’s Richard Branson (another crazed, unshaven man) who appears to be coming out worse from this. As he continues to stamp his feet like a petulant six-year-old, the only people who are losing out here are the customers.

As reported by Scott, Channel 4 is still in wound-licking mode as it regroups following the announcement of a freeze to drama funding (will we ever see a the likes of Queer as Folk ever again?) and the BBC has been forced to apologise for the comments made by Jeremy Clarkson in the new series of Top Gear. Clarkson enquired if Richard Hammond was now “a mental” in the wake of his accident, which led to a formal complaint from the brain injury charity Headway. It’s very noble of the BBC to step in with an apology, but my question is this: why isn’t Clarkson standing up to make the apology himself?

But thankfully, somebody is having a good week. Levi Roots, who coaxed £50,000 out of judges on Dragon’s Den to market his Reggae Reggae Sauce brand, is certainly smiling. Bottles of his sauce, which have been sold at the Notting Hill Carnival for years, will be on sale in 600 Sainsbury’s stores this week.

I do like a happy ending!

I can’t work out if the news that Matt Lucas and David Walliams have filmed a cameo in Neighbours as Lou and Andy is sublime or ridiculous… Answers on a postcard, please.

Still, this keeps alive my vain hope for that Doctor Who/The Archers crossover I’ve always wanted.

Never one for keeping quiet about what’s on his mind, Shameless creator Paul Abbott has taken another sideswipe at the TV industry — this time, chastising drama commissioners for being ‘gutless’:

The way the system works at the moment [means that] commissioners give you three or six episodes at first and it is two years before they’ll commit to ten. The commissioners are gutless, because it is expensive to make TV drama and they won’t take the risk. But I think it’s important for us to learn to tell audiences that we have got something good, and if we commissioned 16 episodes straight away then the audience will appreciate that investment, and they’ll feel well looked after.

One can only wonder how comments like that will go down at Channel 4, whose commissioning editor for drama, Liza Marshall, has admitted that the channel will not meet its targets for one new flagship drama every month for the forseeable future. As ad revenues fall, the channel’s drama budget has been frozen at the 2006 figure of £101.6m.

On the other hand, as BBC Controller of Drama Commissioning (and Doctor Who executive producer) Julie Gardner admits in an interview in this month’s Doctor Who Magazine, longer runs are more cost effective, as costs can be spread over more hours of television. The trick, I suppose, is identifying which series could cope with a long run in the first place, and it’s a cautious approach to that identification which Abbott seems to dislike.

On the other hand, if Channel 4 had taken his advice, how many episodes of Goldplated would we have had inflicted upon us?

As we mentioned in last weekend’s Square Eyes, Channel 4 did another of its clip shows this weekend — featuring a subject dear to our hearts, TV drama.

There was much to commend The 50 Greatest TV Dramas — specially shot clips of the ‘numbers’, in locations designed to complement the show at that position in the chart; the general high quality of the talking heads (Marina Hyde notwithstanding — if they were going to get a Guardian person, they should at least have chosen from Sam Wollaston, Gareth McLean or the beloved Nancy Banks-Smith); the complete absence of Jimmy Carr.

Of course, there were faults aplenty. As Rob Buckley points out (with screen grab), David Tennant was inexplicably billed as ‘The Eighth Doctor’, for example. And is it really just coincidence that The Sopranos tops the list the week the series returns to Channel 4?

Nowhere on Channel 4’s site does it list the overall placings. Well, to save you the effort of looking around the net for them, read on…

Shaun the Sheep (Monday – Friday, 3.45pm)

Baaaa! Wallace and Gromit’s woolly pal from A Close Shave gets his own (long-overdue) series, and it’s a fluffy delight and colour that is likely to delight the little ‘uns and bring an explosion of merchandise with it. There are 40 five-minute episodes to follow, and big and little kids alike will find much to enjoy here. Hurrah for great childrens’ TV!

Coronation Street (Monday 7.30/8.30pm)

Ooh dear, smooth Sonny’s deception crumbles to pieces after the Connor brothers put the pressure on Sean to ‘fess up about his relationship with Michelle’s too-good-to-be-true fiancé. Michelle might just be traumatised enough to reform Hear’Say.

Cold Blood II (Monday 9pm, ITV1)

If there’s a reason to give this a coat of looking at, it’s Matthew Kelly’s chilling performance as serial killer Brian Wicklow. Anything else is, frankly, not worth the bother. Squeezing a sequel out of the original (and better) is some feat, and the prospect of a series to follow is stretching plausibility somewhat. Here, after Wicklow tears a strip out of a fellow prisoner, the police draft in a rehabilitated killer (John Hannah) to share a cell with Mr Stars in Their Eyes to see what makes him tick. So far, so ho hum…

The Sopranos (Monday 11.05pm, C4)

How funny that on Saturday, Channel 4 named The Sopranos as the greatest TV drama ever, and lo and behold, the same channel begins its showing of the final ever series two days later. Actually, I think The Sopranos probably has a reasonable claim to the accolade, so I’m not going to grumble too much. This should be an earth-shattering final run for a great series that has remained at the top of its game throughout and never gone to sleep with the fishes. Long live Tony Soprano (although the odds of him making it out alive are, I would say, fairly slim.)

Life on Mars (Tuesday 9pm, BBC1)

Back after a week’s hiatus, Life on Mars should be able to work up some momentum again, but this episode isn’t the best. It’s all a bit predictable as Tyler and Hunt investigate a spate of bombings, supposedly perpetrated by the IRA. Of course, this being Life on Mars, it’s a cut above most drama out there. Thankfully, this below average showing is a blip, as next week’s episode (which seems not to be popping up on BBC4 tonight) is a beauty and restores a lot of faith.

Smith (Tuesday 10pm, ITV4)

Some football shenanigans make choice limited tonight, but discerning fans of US drama might want to check out Smith, starring Ray Liotta as the leader of a gang of high-class thieves. It’s slick and shiny, the script is halfway decent and there are lots of explosions – and it only lasted a handful of episodes, so catch them while you can.

The Bill (Wednesday 8pm, ITV1)

It’s often easy to forget that The Bill is still there, but tonight’s episode begins the end of an era as the sole remaining original cast member prepares to hand in her warrant card. Yes, in the beginning of a two-part story, Trudie Goodwin says goodbye to the role of the legendary June Ackland, a part she has played since before the flood. Is she heading to a quiet retirement? Not likely, as dodgy ex Jim Carver is back to mix things up again – will the redoubtable Sgt Ackland leave alone, with Jim, or in a box?

HR: An Appraisal (Wednesday 10.30pm, BBC4)

A good showing in the second comedy one-off in the Tight Spot season bringing the always-magnificent Jonathan Pryce back to British television. This will strike a note with anybody who has sat through a performance review at work, with Pryce as the employee and Nicholas Le Prevost as the all-powerful man from Human Resources. Great performances raise the game for this entertaining two-hander.

Crufts (Thursday, 8pm, BBC2)

Erm… Well, why not?

Hotel Babylon (Thursday 9pm, BBC1)

As you know, I’m a sucker for this colourful confection, and I’ll happily recommend it every week. This week is notable for a guest appearance from Mark Heap (Green Wing’s Dr Statham) as a suicidal bellboy. Like another slice of pizza, you probably shouldn’t, but you can’t help yourself (as the healthy ratings show).

Al Franken – God Spoke (Thursday 10.30pm, BBC4)

Al Franken, he’s like a more sensible Michael Moore and writer of the book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them – A fair and Balanced Look at the Right. This addition to the Storyville series follows the one-time comedian through two years of his life in the harsh environment of the media and politics.

I’ve never really thought of myself as someone with despotic tendencies but after this week’s Pioneer/Bafta judging panel dinner, I sometimes think there are reasons why people should be denied basic human rights like freedom of speech.

Those reasons are, er… being a moron and er… having bad taste.

Readers will remember a little while ago I put out a plea for help to come up with the longlist for the Pioneer Audience Award for the Best Television Programme of 2006 for the 2007 Bafta Television Awards.

Well we’ve since had the dinner debate and come up with a shortlist of six, and while I think that it is reflective and balanced, and offers viewers a genuine range of programming from most genres to choose from - there are still a couple that made the list, that stick in my throat.

So the nominated television shows are:

• Planet Earth
• Dragon’s Den
• Vicar of Dibley Christmas Special
• Celebrity Big Brother 2006
• The Royle Family - The Queen of Sheba
• Life on Mars

Yes I know Whovians, it’s probably time to write raging letters to Outpost Gallifrey or picket Pioneer and Bafta offices about the omission of Doctor Who from the list but I would like to point out that this award is to:

Honour the show that has helped define television in 2006. It is given to the programme that has received critical acclaim through its original approach whilst also capturing the public’s imagination.

And kids, I just don’t think the Time Lord did that this time. The X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing fell by the wayside for similar reasons. Of course there will be some shows on the shortlist that you might disagree with, and there will be some that aren’t on there that you think should be, but hopefully overall there is something that everyone thinks is deserving for a shot to win.

Place your votes at at www.obsessedwith.tv and you could be in with a chance for tickets to the bash in May.

Ugly Betty Friday 9pm, Channel 4
It’s the morning after the night before for Daniel, and he’s stuck at Casa Suarez with the mother of all hangovers. Time for some realisation of how families should work, unlike his own dysfunctional kin… A bit syrupy this week, but Daniel’s defence of Betty’s nephew Justin is worth all the sentimentalism.

The Wild West - Billy the Kid Friday 9pm, BBC2
After last week’s General Custer opening, this week we see the story of William Bonny, aka Billy the Kid. Over-earnest at times, I can’t help thinking that this story would serve a full drama, or a full documentary, far better than this hybrid approach.

Comic Relief does Fame Academy from Saturday 5.55pm, BBC1, BBC3 and CBBC
There’s lots to like about Fame Academy — the amount it makes for charity, the sensible advice doled out by coaches Carrie and David Grant, the constructive criticism from at least one judge (guess who — okay, so maybe I’m biased). Equally, though, there’s lots to dislike: mostly the bad-tempered bitching between Richard Park and Patrick Kielty, both of whom return. It adds nothing to the show and subtracts substantially more.

Primeval Saturday 7.55pm, ITV1
So if you ignore the anomaly-sized plot holes in every episode (most of which revolve around Helen Cutter’s motives — or lack of them — for her behaviour over the last eight years) and switch off from the not-quite-cheesy-enough-to-be-enjoyably-silly dialogue, there’s still al lot of fun to be had here. I’m pleased that ITV have given this a second series.

This week’s extinct creature du jour is the dodo — a flock of which emerge from an anomaly carrying a deadly parasite that threatens 21st century life. Oops.

The 50 Greatest TV Dramas Saturday 9pm, Channel 4
A panel of telly experts — writers, directors, producers and the like — have ranked some of TV’s biggest dramas from the past 50 years for one C4’s traditional wallows in the archives. I’d expect Dennis Potter and Alan Bleasdale to feature often and highly, but hopefully there should be some surprises in there.

Grey’s Anatomy Sunday 8pm, Five_
I tried to get into the first series of this US medical drama, but something about it didn’t click with me. With the terrestrial debut of this, the second season, though, I’m willing to give it another go — if only to understand a little more of the backstage shenanigans that have seen TR Knight (who plays George O’Malley) come out as gay after some very public abuse from fellow cast member Isaiah Washington (Preston Burke). I can certainly imagine how the hour of my week that’s taken up with watching Casualty could be better served by watching this…

As TV Today told you back in January, the BBC has now launched two new channels on video sharing site YouTube, with a third due to follow later in the year.

The BBC channel seems to contain clips and background information on current shows, while the BBC Worldwide channel has some less recent, but still newish shows, with clips from Top Gear, The Catherine Tate Show, The Mighty Boosh and more.

It looks as though each of these channels will have links to, and receive links from, the BBC’s two forthcoming iPlayer implementations (the ‘standard’ one, and a commercial version operated by BBC Worldwide).

Broadcast reports that a third channel, linked to BBC World, the BBC’s international commercial television channel, will launch “in the next couple of months” with a collection of news and current affairs clips.

From the Broadcast report:

Ashley Highfield, the BBC’s director of new media and technology, said he hoped the partnership would help the BBC reach younger, “underserved” audiences. “YouTube has these viewers in the bucket load and it may encourage them to start watching BBC TV channels such as BBC1,” he said.

BBC director general Mark Thompson said: “The partnership provides both a creative outlet for a range of short-form content from BBC programme makers and the opportunity to learn about new forms of audience behaviour.”

Update: via paidContent.org, BBC worldwide clips will be funded with ads embedded in the clip video streams. Also, Highfield says that the Beeb won’t be pursuing any takedown policy for existing YouTube uploads, “although it would reserve the right to swap poor quality clips with the real thing, or to have content removed that infringed other people’s copyright, like sport, or that had been edited or altered in a way that would damage the BBC’s brand.”