The One Show

Here we are again, inspecting the turf of post-teatime telly and kicking up the dust for traces of good play. Read more

C4? Or seen it all B4?

So, I’m back from the C4 autumn season launch, and I’m kind of not sure what the big story should be … if anything. I suppose the fact Dispatches are running a two-part plug for David Blunkett’s forthcoming memoirs has to take top billing. Other than that, there’s a new Footballers’ Wives with fucking-style drama in the shape of Goldplated, which Kevin Lygo (forever looking like a prep school bully-magnet) describes as “Dallas with depth”. A show so constructed to be a Radio Times “guilty pleasure” you can almost hear Alison Graham’s fingers twitching. Read more

So lame – slight return

Not sure if this reflects one way or another on Chris’ comments below, but I should just add that OTT itself has taken a toe-dip in the naming and shaming waters in the past, namely with Steve’s piece here from four years ago. So, does that mean we’re just as bad? Read more

So lame, Naughton

And so, inevitably, to John Naughton’s appalling list of the worst 50 TV programmes of all time, compiled for, who else, Radio Times. Read more

Big Brother

“Eazamanna!” This was the Big Brother with the most weeks, the most housemates, the most twists, the most innovations, the most outside influences, the most late arrivals, the most eviction escapes by one person – and the most telegraphed winner since the first week. Read more

Charlie Brooker’s Screen Wipe USA

It’s amazing how a little bit of adversity can bring out the best in some people. Only a short while ago, largely thanks to his internet-based TV listings spoof TV Go Home, Charlie Brooker was the subject of widespread media attention and tipped for great things. Read more

Property Ladder

There are few more costly ways of making money than property development. Hundreds of thousands, are needed to be a professional developer just for the raw materials and the building. Read more

Sky’s the limit

Last night saw Sky One’s launch party for their autumn season. A lavish affair, boasting circus performers, Scalectrix, a big top … and Christopher Biggins (sporting the most outrageous green clogs). The crux of the event, of course, was the screening, which revealed Sky are going celebrity-encrusted-reality-TV crazy, with the return of The Match (if Graham Taylor doesn’t win this time, he’s sacked), The Race (celebs, er, racing) and Cirque du Celebritee (celebs in the circus). Read more

It pays to revive Nationwide

I’ve been waiting ages to use that headline, ever since the The One Show was announced. Unfortunately, on the evidence of tonight’s first edition, it might not have been such a profitable decision after all. It all seemed a bit, well, inconsequential, really. Anna Adams did some undercover reporting which proved that, when sitting next to someone with a noisy mobile phone on a train or in a restaurant, some people will confront them. And some won’t. Read more

The Man Whose Arms Exploded

You pretty much know what you’re going to get when you watch a documentary on five entitled The Man Whose Arms Exploded. Read more

Big Brother

Dreams can come true. Imogen is out of the Big Brother house at last, and by some idiotic quirk Nikki’s found her way back in. I’m disgusted, but only on principle. Read more

To everything there is a season

You can tell the listings magazines are aching for the autumn schedule to start. Heat running a big Dragon’s Den spread in the show’s second week, RT asking “One Final Question” to Dara O’Briain to tie-in with – umm – episode two of Turn Back Time, and BBC1′s perfunctory How to Improve Your Memory getting a hefty number of inches across all the weeklies. Read more

Count down south

The power and possibly the ego of Des Lynam seems to have surfaced, and as of next year his only current television show, Countdown, is relocating from its Leeds studios to “somewhere near the M25″ because he is apparently fed up of having to travel up to Yorkshire for a week once a month to record the programme. This 400 mile taxing routine seems to be all too much for poor Des according to certain newspapers. Read more

Turn Back Time

“And now for something completely different”, that familiar phrase from Monty Python’s Flying Circus would not have been the first thing to spring to viewers’ minds as they tuned in to watch ex-Python Terry Jones discuss his career in BBC2′s new offering, Turn Back Time. Read more

Big Brother

It’s been an atrocious week for Mikey, and his sudden, grievous demise and eviction sums up the ruthlessness of Big Brother. After 10 weeks of relatively effortless surfing of the wave, his fall into the drink was quick and spectacular. Read more