Eating with the Enemy (Monday-Friday 4.30pm, BBC2)
Four food critics are presented with dishes cooked by amateur chefs, delivering, as they are wont to do, typically caustic appraisals. It’s a bit like Masterchef, but with everything that makes that show fun (ie John and Gregg) taken out of the equation. The critics panel is made up of Jay Rayner, Charles Campion, Kate Spicer and Toby Young. It’s a bit low rent, to be honest, and I do wish Kate Spicer would smile once in a while - it beats working, after all.
Dragons’ Den (Monday 9pm, BBC2)
Bliss! Some smart scheduling brain has wisely decided to put something decent on the TV over the summer months, and your TV Today correspondent is very grateful. I love Dragons’ Den - it has drama, it has comedy, it has the always-lovely and polite Evan Davis. It also has my favourite Dragon, the ebullient Duncan Bannatyne, who can cut down nervous and hopeful entrepreneurs with a single look of those laser beam eyes. The Dragon’s might be out, but I’m always in for this addictive show.
The Wire (Monday 10pm, FX)
The fifth series of what many high falutin commentators (or your TV savvy mate down the pub) will move mountains to tell you it’s the best television drama of all time. Clearly these deluded individuals have never seen Bonekickers. The Wire is undeniably brilliant, of course, and this fifth season shifts focus yet again to the press and media in Baltimore and how they fit into the landscape between the police and the drug dealers.
Bonekickers (Tuesday 9pm, BBC1)
“Get your coat, you’ve pulled,” growls Gillian Magwilde in fluent cliché as she drags colleague Ben into a newly-discovered burial chamber beneath the Roman Baths in, um… Bath. Ooh, I wonder if they’ll get trapped down there? It’s as silly as ever, and however fond I’m becoming of this crazy drama series, I can’t quite bring myself to forgive its inappropriate excess and bad dialogue. And isn’t it about time a student slapped Dolly with a charge of sexual harassment?
Celebrity Masterchef (Wednesday 8pm, BBC1)
We’re a stone’s throw from Friday’s last hurrah of Celebrity Masterchef, but the three finalists have plenty of challenges to overcome yet. Tonight they cook for a hungry gang of army cadets before heading to some of London’s top restaurants to refine their skills. I adore this silly, addictive slice of culinary entertainment unconditionally, and it never fails to hit the mark.
Burn Up (Wednesday 9pm, BBC2)
A slick stylish eco-thriller with a top cast, Burn Up casts Rupert Penry Jones as Tom McConnell, who takes over the running of major oil company, Arrow Oil, on the sudden retirement of his father in law. And from this point, his life is turned upside down as the lines between friends and enemies blur, with attacks coming from all asides. With a cast that includes Bradley Whitford, for once playing a bad guy, and Marc Warren, this is well acted, well scripted fare, despite the heavy handed ecological message. But hey, we live in difficult times… Concludes on Friday.
The Making of Me (Thursday 9pm, BBC1)
John Barrowman, he gets everywhere, doesn’t he? In The Making of Me, he subjects himself to a battery of tests, ranging from psychological to physical in an attempt to determine whether his sexuality was detfined by his upbringing, or whether he was born gay. The results aren’t exactly conclusive, but nevertheless, this is an interesting approach to a pertinent question, and Barrowman is a genial subject.
Harley Street (Thursday 9pm, ITV1)
I still can’t shake the feeling that with Harley Street somebody is having one big joke at the audience’s expense. I mean, with Bonekickers, I don’t think anybody set out to make it that bad - you’d have to be seriously masochistic for that. But with Harley Street, I think everybody involved knew exactly what they were doing, which is why I can’t just let myself go with it. The high camp was quite charming in the first episode as Paul Nicholls’ Dr Robert Fielding shags his way through an hour of paper thin storylines, but by episode two it’s just plain irritating. Hey ho, at least we’ve got Suranne Jones’s caked on posh accent to jolly things along.
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