This Christmas, then, I was surprised to find that The Office Christmas specials were the only programmes over the festive period that, for me, will leave any lasting impression. They made me laugh, made me punch the air when Brent told Finchy to “fuck off” and made me warm inside when Dawn and Tim got together after all.

It would have been terribly easy to carry on down the cynical “look at Brent – what a wanker” route to the bitter end, something which in my opinion was one of the problems with the second series of I’m Alan Partridge. The fact that the programme didn’t is to the credit of – yup – Ricky Gervais and co-creator Stephen Merchant. The fact that Gervais has discussed Brent in the context of Shakespeare has always suggested to me that he sees him as a “tragic” character, and that means he’s made up of three basic elements – a character flaw (insecurity), a moment of tragedy (his sacking) and a moment of redemption. With hindsight then, it was obvious that there would have to be a character shift in Brent come the final episodes to secure that redemption, but the way in which it worked was still enormously satisfying and entertaining.

Brent’s realisation that the PR gigs he was doing were pointless (although I suspect in real life the post-modern student union crowd would have embraced him without any of the awkward silences) plus the juxtaposition of his character with Bubble of Big Brother 2 and Howard from the Halifax ads was perfect as far as micro-celebrity goes. It was here that his character began to become a little more self-aware, a through-line continued in the final part of the episode which saw Brent honestly discussing his failings with his blind date at the office Christmas party. Brent’s character has always just wanted to be loved, and I found it to be a truism that when he stopped trying he finally put himself in a situation where that might become possible. In any case, if anyone had missed that point, the scene where he told Finchy to “fuck off” was a wonderful piece of television. It has been said that David Brent is just a wanker but when it came down to it Chris Finch was the real thing (as indeed was Neil, who was positioned here as being properly on Finchy’s wavelength – something Brent aspired to, but never really managed). In contrast it turned out that Brent does in fact have some redeeming qualities after all, and can actually learn from his mistakes. Lovely.

I have a sneaky feeling that there are a lot of people out there who would have been happier if The Office had ended up with a more downbeat, unhappy ending, and that Tim and Dawn getting together was a cop-out. I beg to differ. In my opinion it would have been very easy, and very much expected to leave this storyline unresolved. The twist, then, was that the show chose to do the opposite and move the characters to a place I never thought The Office would go to.

But amongst all this I haven’t yet mentioned whether any of this really made me laugh. It did on several occasions, with a few big belly-laughs and a few quiet chuckles too. I loved the scene where Brent almost leaves the restaurant when he sees his second blind date, or where he tells the overweight woman he was worried that she was his blind date. Like all great comedy (and despite running the risk of being accused of surfing the zeitgeist, I do think it is great comedy) The Office is also good drama. It has a particularly refreshing view of workplace relationships as revealed mainly through Tim’s commentaries which pointed out that you don’t actually truly connect with most of these people you have to spend a huge part of your life with. An observation that must have hit home with many, surely?

Ultimately I found The Office as a whole, and the last episode especially, to be as much about how people treat each other as about making people laugh – and the fact that it also boasted a very un-sitcom level of character development was very satisfying. Basil Fawlty (the character most often compared with Brent) never really changed, or learned from his mistakes, something I have always found enormously frustrating. Similarly, in Only Fools and Horses – which has often been held up as a good example of “dramedy” – Del and Rodney never really changed, they just went through life with things happening to them. As such, The Office has redefined the standard for effective comedy that actually has something to say. It’s shown the competition just how to mix drama, comedy, characterisation and poignancy without becoming too cynical, or mawkish.

Make no mistake, Pop Idol is a great series – compare it to the likes of Fame Academy and Popstars: The Rivals, and it’s obviously hugely professional and likeable entertainment, among the very best of its kind. It’s no surprise that the format has been so successful abroad as it’s a simple idea that could really run forever, the sort of concept that television companies thrive upon. Equally, it’s no surprise that Simon Fuller and Simon Cowell, the two major movers behind the series, want to capitalise on this success. The idea of bringing together the winners of all the national competitions into one huge sing-off seems a logical idea.

Well, until you think about it for more than five seconds. The basic appeal of Pop Idol is that, throughout the run, we get to follow our favourites and watch them improve and become more famous as the weeks go by. So in the first series we got to see Will turn from an also-ran to a contender to a star throughout the run. Ditto Darius in the first series and Mark in the second. Their appeal didn’t just come from their performances, but the interviews and filmed items that they participated in throughout the run. The fun of the series is that there may have been better singers, but the ones who did well appealed to the public thanks to their personalities.

The obvious problem with World Idol is that this doesn’t happen. We all know about Will, and also Kelly Clarkson thanks to her hit single in the UK. The other nine, though, are complete strangers. When the German or Dutch Pop Idol comes on stage, all we can go on is their performance, and as such it simply becomes a bog-standard singing competition between a bunch of nobodies. Not caring about the contestants means that virtually the whole appeal of the programme has gone. Sure, we got the odd clip from the various editions – the Arabic version excitingly including the audience storming the stage after a shock result – but not enough to tell us much about the hapless participants.

The other obvious problem is that as well as us not caring about the contestants, the contestants don’t care about the competition. Will Young, for example, is one of the most famous people in Britain and has sold millions of records. What does it matter to him if the Polish judge doesn’t like him? He’s already a winner, as are all the other contestants. On the normal Pop Idol, the judges’ comments have value – Simon or Pete suggesting that, say, Mark is never going to be a star without charisma is a useful thing to say and Mark can learn from it. On World Idol, though, Will doesn’t need to be told that he isn’t very good because he knows that he is, and can prove it through record sales and critical acclaim. Will is not going to be losing sleep over losing that all-important Norwegian market.

That’s the basic problem – who cares who wins? Ant and Dec seemed to spend an awful lot of time asking us to vote for our favourite, but to what purpose? The prize for winning World Idol is that they become World Idol – that’s it. All the finalists already have record deals and are all famous in their own countries, which is probably about the limits of their ambitions. Maybe there’s some sort of kudos in being named the best of them all, but it means nothing to the viewer. The fact we can’t even vote for Will further diminishes the appeal for viewers at home. If it was charity, maybe there would be some incentive to phone, but this competition has been created for no purpose other than to line the pockets of the two Simons.

Indeed, it’s even more pointless when you see the contestants. The winner of the Arabic Pop Idol, for example, sang a traditional middle-eastern song in Arabic, and clearly sang it well, but it was utterly alien to everyone outside the Middle East. Similarly, Belgium’s representative was a long-haired Kurt Cobain look-alike who sung Nirvana. Trying to compare these two acts is simply impossible and makes the contest ridiculous. Similarly those from a non-English speaking country are at a disadvantage as they’re singing in a foreign language.

It’s obvious that all the participating countries have completely different tastes in music and completely different ideas as to what makes a Pop Idol. If Cowell and Fuller wanted to illustrate the worldwide reach of the programme, then they should have done it with a documentary or variety show. Making a competition out of it is ludicrous because there’s no way you can judge between them. Furthermore, when Cowell slags off the German Pop Idol, he’s not just slagging off the singer, but also the tastes of the German viewers for making him winner, and the German series as a whole for not coming up with anyone better. This isn’t a celebration of the world of pop, if anything it’s penalising it for being unique to its country of origin.

Even the execution of the programme itself was rubbish. Not only were there 11 singers, there were also 11 judges, one from each country and all sat in a giant Blankety Blank-esque panel. Obviously, this was way too many, and some hardly appeared at all, the South African judge uttering one sentence throughout the entire programme. The Polish judge, however, seemed to want to make his mark on the world stage, and continually read out bizarre statements from a piece of paper to everyone’s utter bemusement, Cowell eventually calling him “moronic”. Again, apart from our representatives, we didn’t have a clue who any of the judges were and so their comments and criticism had little purpose. The Polish judge was simply some bloke – we were never told what he’d done to deserve a place on the panel.

Even Ant and Dec couldn’t hold the programme together, mostly thanks to the fact that they were unable to interact with the judges or the contestants. Clearly, the performances and judges’ comments were seen worldwide but the presentation was localised in each country, so the duo were simply spliced in between them – hence the fact that only Will got an interview. It would have been nice to see Ant and Dec taking the piss out of the Polish “moron”, or chatting to the other contestants, but seemingly they weren’t able to do that. Again this diluted the appeal of the programme. Worse still, to allow all the viewers worldwide to vote, we now have to wait a week for the results, by which time we’ll no doubt have forgotten more or less all the competitors.

Pop Idol‘s always been about making money – Simon Cowell’s not doing this show simply to make the public’s dreams come true – but it’s normally carried out with enough wit and charm to help you forget that. World Idol, though, was devoid of any of that and its only purpose seems to have been to show off. ITV1′s Christmas Night schedules have been notoriously poor in past years, and thanks to this, 2003 was no different.

Two years in the making, BBC2′s The Million Pound Property Experiment met the television schedules slap-bang in the middle of a deluge of property programmes. The genre fast on its way to becoming the biggest stick with which to beat-up unimaginative commissioning execs, on first glance the show looked to be another worthless wannabe. And with Channel 4′s holy trio of Property Ladder, Grand Designs and Other People’s Houses covering all the bases, who needed another home “how to” anyway – particularly one fronted by two of BBC daytime’s more unpalatable ghouls?

However, what The Million Pound Property Experiment has proved over eight highly enjoyable weeks is that in every market there’s always room for more if that “more” is something imaginative and well made. And, against all the odds, this series has also managed to emerge as something truly distinctive, thanks to the unique relationship it adopted with its own presenters, designers Justin Ryan and Colin McAllister. Sparky, over-dramatic, absurdly verbose and highly opinionated the pair eschewed their leaden daytime personas and quickly made for the most watchable couple on television. Less your traditional presenters and more the subjects of a fly-on-the-wall documentary, we’ve been witness to Justin and Colin’s spontaneous quarrels, deliberations and pontifications. And funnily enough seeing them at their most tactless and fallible – a million miles away from the groomed persona of the presenter – has made the pair all the more endearing.

With tonight’s episode being basically an extended post-mortem on the whole experiment, reuniting “the boys” (the accepted term to describe them, it seems) with their erstwhile project manager Nigel Leck, it became apparent that, aside from the huge whack of cash they’d risen for charity, the note that would most stick with all the participants was the sense of the damage done to relationships. This was an extraordinary conclusion for a mainstream lifestyle programme to make, but one that – yet again – marked out The Million Pound Property Experiment as something different from the rest of the pack. As they relived the failures and successes on the way to their million pound house there was barely concealed hurt and recrimination between Nigel and the boys. As Colin railed against Nigel for only ever giving them good advice after the event the atmosphere was understandably strained, but bursting with electricity. Great television, in short. Nigel’s later admission that he’d withdrawn from the experiment halfway though due to his depression about the way things were going was an equally brave moment, and worlds away from the general chitter-chatter of “wow-factors” and Belfast sinks that proliferate the genre.

The recriminations, however, finally gave way to rapprochement and some overall sense of satisfaction at a job well done. And that was all to the good because, despite the vicarious pleasure in watching other people disagree, one couldn’t help but ultimately root for all the parties involved. For the boys who’d climbed the property ladder with wit, anguish and a sense of adventure. For Nigel who’d endured some hideous slurs against his professionalism (“I don’t give a toss what Nigel says” commented Justin at one stage, prompting Nigel to demand an apology upon viewing the footage back), kept the engine room stoked up and – thanks to his acknowledged experience in the trade – shouldered a vast slice of the responsibility for the whole thing coming good.

Unlike Jamie Olivier, Justin Ryan and Colin McAllister were never obvious candidates for a public reappraisal. Popping up during the day to chirpily offer tips in “juicing up” that house always lent them an air of disposability and kept them off the main television byways where their crimes would have been magnified. Nonetheless, The Million Pound Property Experiment has been their Jamie’s Kitchen, and their rehabilitation equally fulsome. And to do all that in the now saturated market of property programming is an achievement indeed – their value is skyrocketing.

Even from a simple visual point of view, this is a programme profoundly depressing to watch. Rather than adopt one “look” and apply it throughout the programme, those in charge of The Christmas Show‘s format and design seem to have gone out of their way to assemble a magpie’s nest of the most irreconcilable ideas imaginable. Against a series of gaudy, lurid set-piece backdrops, all decked out in painfully unforgiving primary colours, every possible sparkling, twinkling, light-reflecting bit of junk is suspended, strung, twirled and garlanded. Giant plasma screens relay images of a dingy and dirty Oxford Street, heaving with shoppers and traffic: surely one of the most unappealing sights imaginable on a dark December evening. Nothing is permitted to remain too subtle, too understated, too co-ordinated – a policy which, while rendering the programme’s set a hideous cacophony of poor taste, matches the ethos of its presentation perfectly.

The two hosts, Eamonn Holmes and Tess Daly, conduct their on-screen relationship in wholly glacial terms. This pair was presumably thrown together in an effort to emulate some of the warmth chemistry that has come to exist between fellow ITV1 daytime odd couple Des O’Connor and Melanie Sykes. The reality has turned out to be somewhat different: this duo can barely deliver the shortest of links without talking over each other, spend most of their time standing as far apart as the camera allows, and express a violent disinterest in prosecuting the task in hand.

Holmes devotes as much time as he can be bothered to developing a line in hand-me-down Wogan-esque blarney, but which merely ends up making him sound shifty and petulant. “Let’s get the party started, as Pink would say,” he drawled at the start of today’s show, before choosing to introduce special guest Basil Brush as “everybody’s favourite bartender,” a singularly inappropriate and meaningless remark. After trying a half dozen times to raise a laugh with the phrase “on the piste”, he took to angrily wrapping his knuckles on a nearby tabletop in what appeared to be a bizarre kind of applause.

Where Wogan can get away with being absent-minded, self-consciously inane or downright suggestive towards his co-hosts, Holmes lacks the charm and dignity to try the same thing and not end up looking objectionable. So whether seeming to forget the programme wasn’t on at weekends, curiously professing “I wish I was Danish”, or accusing Tess Daly of wearing decorated dog collars around her thigh, the end product was always the same: a sense of discomfited bemusement on the part of Holmes, a nonplussed silence from everyone else in the studio, and a cry of despair from at least one person watching at home.

It’s hard to outrank Holmes in terms of all-round uselessness, but Tess certainly gives it a try. Whatever the circumstances, it’s dreadfully hard for her to avoid giving an impression of having only cast an eye over her script just seconds before going to air, or struggling to think up any kind of spontaneous remark that isn’t desperately clichéd. She responded to Holmes’ thigh-related saucery with a half-hearted, “Oooh, you liar – your pants are on fire.” When her co-host uttered a quick “ho, ho, ho!” she came back with “hey, hey, hey.” Faced with the pivotal task of giving the big name guest of the day Sheryl Crow a suitable welcome, Tess opted for the one question guaranteed to get things off to a bleak start: “Are you looking forward to Christmas, Sheryl?” Unbowed, she later confronted another guest, an actress from The Bill, with the conversation stopper: “So, if you could kiss anyone under the mistletoe, who would it be?” to which the reply eventually came, “My husband”.

With such an agonising ping-pong of empty platitudes threaded right through the programme, energy levels on this edition of The Christmas Show rarely rose above the apathetic. Not once during the entire hour did a guest find an opening from the presenters to develop an anecdote or fashion a response that could sow a few seeds of enthusiasm. Unsurprisingly, this left proceedings decidedly downbeat, morose and, above all, positively un-festive. Sure, people were in Santa hats and there was irritating seasonal muzak playing non-stop for the duration, but it just didn’t add up to anything particularly alluring or exciting, let alone a line-up to get you into, well, a genuinely Christmassy mood.

This is actually the biggest flaw of all. The Christmas Show isn’t really that interested in Christmas. Special guests come on to plug forthcoming records or TV appearances that have nothing whatsoever to do with the festive season. We’re promised suggestions on how and where to find last-minute present ideas, but all we’re shown are ludicrously expensive specialist items which, again, could do just as well as gifts all the year round. Pre-filmed reports trailed as a glimpse into how the rich and famous celebrate Christmas turn out to be throwaway pieces about what it’s like to go skiing in Colorado and how big the beds are in Aspen. The only real nod towards the kind of thing that’s probably on viewers’ minds with just a few weeks left until the big day is a competition – but this is dispatched in such a joyless and unimaginative manner as to make you wonder why it’s even worth bothering taking part.

Removing every last tiny trace of worth and credibility from the enterprise is the knowledge that this entire lifestyle-orientated, two-handed magazine guests and gimmicks-heavy formula is being rolled out at exactly the same time on Channel 4, and with 50 times as much style and aplomb. There’s absolutely no reason to tune into The Christmas Show when you’ve an experienced, reliable alternative on the other side in the shape of Richard and Judy, who are responding to the run up to Christmas in a far more topical and entertaining fashion – besides boasting a couple of presenters who at the very least know how to talk to each other on camera.

The fact that there are now less than 20 shopping days left until Christmas might very well give some cause for concern; but the fact that there are only a dozen or so editions of The Christmas Show to try and avoid between now at December 25 is something for which we can all give season’s greetings.

Growing up in the confines of the 14th floor of a flat in the Sighthill area of Glasgow was, at times, a salutary experience. Glasgow was big on concrete in the 1970s. We had lots of it. Sandstone tenements were demolished with disgusting haste and godless multi-storeyed architecture took root. Built by men who would never countenance living in them, we were piled high in the sky in these massive monuments to the dreams of planners. But strangely, their height added another dimension to my everyday life – the views. On a clear day they were, quite simply, stunning. Arran, Dumgoyne and a magical myriad of other names that were equally exotic to me, could be viewed from my personal eerie. My love of physical geography took hold and then, in 1976 it became a full-blown affair as Scottish Television screened one of its most popular and enduring programmes, Weir’s Way.

The diminutive figure of Tom Weir popped into our homes and, in his allotted 10 minutes, took to joyously tramping around Scotland and exploring the land around ourselves. Whilst Benidorm, Torremilinos and Majorca began to seal their stranglehold on our imagination, Tom took it upon himself to remind us that Scotland was still a beautiful country worthy of our time and love. What is still even more remarkable is that almost 30 years later, Weir’s Way is still unbelievably popular. Pulling upwards of 70,000 viewers two or three times a week despite being shunted around the early morning schedules like an epileptic shuttlecock, this equates to a 30% share of the audience. These truly astounding figures give you some indication of the universal popularity of Tom Weir. Heading on for 90, he is still to be found walking the countryside around his beloved Gartochran home and is still being recognised and congratulated for his show. Which, given its uniform excellence is not in the least surprising.

For me, a spotty 12 year old with a burgeoning interest in the countryside, Weir’s Way was a wonderful introduction to God’s own country. More than that, he would be filming in areas that I could view from my flat. This allowed me to gain a greater depth of knowledge for these places and a deeper love for my homeland. Tom effortlessly translated his passion for walking, for the countryside, for its history. If I may be so bold, this was a performance which is equal to the likes of Schama or Starkey in the present day. Yet unlike these modern stars of the small screen, Weir always managed to present himself as a mere peripheral figure who happened to be where he was as he waxed lyrical over the subject matter at hand. This was a perfect balancing act between presenter, landscape and script. Tom was lucidly aware that, at that time, he was by no means a star, he was merely the presenter. Yet a star he has become.

Tonight, we were treated to a quintessential edition of the show. Our genial host was in fine form as he explored the beautiful Fife village of Largo. A jewel in the Fife crown, I would urge anyone to visit that beautiful, timeless stretch of villages such as Largo, Anstruther, Pittenweem, Crail, St. Monan’s and revel in a stunningly beautiful part of the world. The village of Largo has two main claims to fame and Tom expertly explained to his public with crisp precision what they were – or rather who. Sir Andrew Wood (the Nelson of his time) and Alexander Selkirk, upon whom Robinson Crusoe was based were the two sons of Largo who made their impression upon the world. Clad in his regulation uniform of bobble hat, dodgy jumper and wellies, Tom proceeded to inform us of their tales as he strode through the village, pointing out places of interest along the way. This remarkable, intuitive calmness manifested itself in one memorable scene in which Tom opened the Alexander Selkirk Museum. Drawing the curtains over the plaque open, Weir simply proclaimed “So, here we are – declared open!”

There you go, Queenie, that’s the way to do it.

This was a charming, gentle, educational and ultimately fascinating 10 minutes that was delivered with warmth and authority. The current viewing figures bear testament to the fact that this programme has stood the test of time and it’s easy to understand why it has remained so popular. It is a simple, honest and immediate piece of television that delivers on its intentions fully. It is there to entertain and to educate. It is there to inspire and inveigle. It is there to tell and to be told. It is the past, the present and the future but most of all, it is hosted by one of Scottish life’s great gentlemen and iconic figures, a man who is loved and cherished as the national treasure he is. And believe me, this man – and his wife – are held in deep affection by the Scottish public.

But to end on a sour note, I remind you again of the fact that Weir’s Way pulls in a 30% audience share in the graveyard slot. Not bad at the best of times but for a show almost three decades old, truly remarkable. However, Tom’s original deal had no arrangement for residuals. Needless to say, the nabobs at Scottish Media Group are hiding under the cover of the phrase “no moral obligation” and, in effect, sticking two-fingers up to Tom and saying “tough luck”. Now, the man himself simply says the pleasure that his show gives the public is payment enough – once a gentleman, always a gentleman. But it is utterly despicable of SMG not to make a one-off payment to one of Tom’s favoured causes in lieu of the enormous good he has done them. If anyone from SMG is reading this, then shame on you. And if, by some small miracle, the majestic Mr Weir is reading this, then I say simply thank you for the enormous pleasure you’ve given us all. You are a credit to Scotland. God bless you, sir.

Yet, malleable though my malcontent is, tonight hinted at a golden future in the medium term. For too long certain actors have been given depressingly one-dimensional characters to play, with little or no room for latitude. Signs of a thaw though are beginning to appear and the green shoots of hope assail the eyes now and again; whether it is traces of Ian Beale possessing a soul or Sam Mitchell being given the opportunity to sink her pearly whites into some serious scenes, it surely beholds a brighter future down Walford way now that some of the characters are being fleshed out. Not only that, but there’s actually some development of character that is integral to the plot. Tonight we saw a pivotal scene as Phil passed the family baton to his sister. For far, far too long the character of Sam has been nothing more than faintly ludicrous. Forcing the character into the role of moll may, perhaps, be the saving of her. Ignore the overly symbolic matriarchal stereotyping, what we have here is the chance to watch an actor sink or swim with the script that they are given. And for Kim Medcalf, it is indeed a moment of truth.

Coupled with the promised return of the spurned Andy, at last we have the regular promise of a genuine malevolent presence on the screen. Michael Higgs’ turn as Andy proved that there is room for a dark, gothic character within the cast. Both the Watts of the parish carry no threat at all and Young Den’s continual wild-eyed stare into the middle distance has moved inexorably from annoying habit to national joke. A cheeky smile and a sub Dick and Dom haircut do not a gangster make. Similarly, the seamless transition of Old Den from horny but loveable wide-boy to major player has been as baffling as it has implausible. Positioning the two as a mini-firm has proven to be a bit of a disaster. The plotline that carried us to this point has been utterly risible. And a not so subtle combination of bad acting and bad dialogue has ensured that, for Steve McFadden at least, a short stint in the pokey means less screen time with the two lightweight Watts’ boys.

The pre-occupation with gangsters has been another failure of EastEnders. The eagerness to play upon this aspect of the East End is understandable but it defies belief that it has been so badly handled throughout the history of the show. There have been many outrageous examples of desperately bad characterisation over the years. Christ, we’ve even had the bizarre sight of Wullie Melvin as a gangster. What the hell was he going to do – camp them to death? Hywel Bennet’s turn as a weeble was also instantly forgettable. Ross Kemp always seemed camply aloof and Martin Kemp played, well, Martin Kemp. The pervasive image of bad boys will always be a staple of soaps but, in recent times, only the character of Corrie‘s Jez Quigley can be said to have been truly evil. Thankfully, as I’ve intimated previously, Michael Higgs as Andy could be the saviour of the East End bad boys. Following in a long line of fulsome failures, Higgs has an air of real menace about him and, unlike his predecessors, a genuine aura of evil malevolence. I really hope that the writers intend to bed him in for the long run. Giving him rein to take over the Square and wreak his revenge would be a master stroke. It would also, I believe, give the show greater scope for developing the Alfie/Kat story further.

The success of Shane Ritchie has been a genuine surprise. About a year and a half ago, I reviewed a miserable programme that recalled the highlights of television for the year 2001. In it I wrote, “I really don’t need to see a clip of Shane Ritchie behaving like a tosser. I know he’s a tosser.” Well, forget the slicer, give me the whole humble pie. The man’s performance has been of a consistent level of nothing more than brilliance. I scoffed at his introduction to the show but, for me and a fair few other critics, Ritchie has rightly earned the copious praise that he has been showered with. Despite the awful, early scripts, his character has injected life into the show just as it was reaching a level of stultifying averageness. In their determination to pair Alfie off with Kat, I’ve previously accused the writers of short-termism. Genuinely, I believe that the show would have worked so much better with Kat having married Andy and developing into the moll that Sam will become. This would have left Ritchie to further deploy his not inconsiderable charm to the masses. But, with the return of Andy, we have some fantastic possibilities for character and plot development.

Tonight we witnessed the demise of Phil. Strangely under-written, the scenes allowed Steve McFadden little artistic manoeuvre other than a menacing phone-call to Watts Senior. The dialogue placed in his mouth was strangely creaky and out of kilter with the actuality of the situation. It has long been a bone of contention at OTT Towers that soaps are inherently badly written for men. Fellow contributor Chris Diamond and I rail long into the night (and our pints) at the inadequacy of writers with regards to dialogue in these scenarios. Sadly, this evening proved no exception – another aspect of getting it wrong with regards to gangsters, I’m afraid. This is a pity as McFadden has hidden depths as an actor that are rarely challenged on the show. Despite his heavyweight storylines and intrinsic value to the plot, he is rarely rewarded with decent material in relation to his billing. However, despite the weak script afforded him, he still manages to out-muscle his would-be pretenders to the bad boy of the manor throne by some considerable distance. Really, these Watts boys are paperweights who are adding little or no value to the show currently.

Another performance that deserves mention is that of Ricky Grove’s portrayal of the hapless Garry. With a quite wonderful sense of comedic timing, Groves has turned in a level of consistent excellence matching that of Ritchie. The recent bed-hopping antics and the upcoming STD dénouement have been brilliantly written and Groves has stolen the show of late. One can only hope that something along the lines of “Remember; an STD is for life and not just for Christmas” pops up in the script. Aye, if you can’t laugh at the clap then what can you laugh at? Regardless of the subject matter, Groves has conveyed considerable guile and charm as the new-found love god who can’t quite believe his luck. Like Perry Fenwick’s Billy, the character of Gary has been sparingly used, perhaps even underused. It seems that their characterisation is always founded in the immediacy of the imminent future rather than the longer term. Which is a pity, as both are wonderful actors with an impressive range to offer, which in the case of Groves, we are finally being allowed to see.

Whilst the future is looking considerably brighter, we’ve had many false dawns in the past and the viewer knows better than to be carried away on a tide of hopeful exuberance. The return of Andy holds bounteous promise as does the possibility of McFadden phoning in his performance from the nick on a regular basis. EastEnders has always excelled at psychological drama and the re-positioning of these two characters allows the writers to further explore that particular territory. For once, instead of self-indulgent navel gazing we can be confident of some long, deep and dark soul-searching invading our homes. Forget the pantomime performance of Brian Capron as Richard Hillman (undoubted brilliance though it was), here the writers have a genuine opportunity to deliver something special. God knows we deserve it.

New Executive Producer Andi Peters has overseen the biggest changes to Top of the Pops‘ format for 12 years. He’s said that there’s to be less emphasis on the chart because nobody cares anymore. Yet if this is the case, how come there are currently around half a dozen charts on TV and radio? The appearance of the Smash Hits Chart, Flaunt Chart, Hit 40 UK et al would suggest that ranking records in order still holds an appeal. Also, these days you can’t pick up a Sunday supplement or style magazine without reading about Kylie, Beyonce or Justin, while Saturday night TV on both channels seems to be almost entirely devoted to finding new pop stars. If this is pop at a low ebb, goodness knows what sort of coverage it would have whem it was vibrant.

Peters also claims that simply watching back-to-back performances is “a passive experience”. How this explains the umpteen TV channels on digital platforms simply playing non-stop videos, and presenter-less radio stations, is beyond me. Furthermore, given the slot Top of the Pops currently holds, surely all viewers want is a “passive experience” – most will be getting ready to go out or simply tuning in to see a favourite act, and won’t want to, or can’t, sit down and watch interviews and features. Over the past four decades, what anyone remembers from Top of the Pops is not the presenters or the extraneous material, but the peformances.

It’s not as if features have no place in music programming. CD:UK on ITV1, for example, invites pop stars to review the latest singles, and if it’s all a bit contrived, it can sometimes come up with some interesting and lively television – note the spat between Louis Walsh and Melanie C a few months back, which got the programme in the papers. Previously, though, all Pops has been able to come up with in the way of features – as demonstrated last time OTT reviewed the show in March – was simply watching Gareth Gates drinking a cup of coffee, or getting the cast of Cutting It in to plug their show. If you can’t think of features, just don’t do them.

So what of the new show? Well, it’s not quite as “All New” as the name might imply, as the first five seconds illustrate. The “new” theme tune is in fact simply the return of Tony Gibber’s composition as introduced with the useless 1991 relaunch. Tim Kash offers a brief hello, and then it’s straight onto the first act. Mis-Teeq are perhaps a curious choice of opener, mostly because they’re only at number 13 in the charts. But they don’t just perform their current single, but a medley of some of their other hits – something else more often seen on CD:UK.

We then get Kash in a sea of audience members, delivering a link that goes on for ages. This unfortunately means that during this bit he is firstly drowned out by the cheering crowds – a side-effect of broadcasting live – but then later battling against a deathly silence, with the audience unable to keep their enthusiasm up while he promotes the show’s new phone and text number (“if you want to get in touch with us”), as well as the website. It’s all very well promoting what’s still to come, but it does mean that there are no surprises, and if the viewer doesn’t like any of the acts in the list, there’s no real reason for them to keep watching.

In any case, it’s hard to imagine anyone staying awake, let alone watching, after the second track – it’s Elton John in concert in Atlanta. Of course, Pops is a family show and as such Elton would certainly deserve a spot on the programme with a new single in the charts. However, he is performing Your Song, a hit in 1971. There’s no point to this performance being on the show at all, he’s simply there because he’s Elton John and he is famous. And for a supposedly vibrant new programme, the quality of the footage is awful, mostly stuck on one shot of Elton’s head throughout and seemingly shot by a member of the audience with a camcorder.

Will Young follows, live in the studio, and he performs well, but there’s a marked lack of occasion here, partly because he’s already performed this song on dozens of other shows and partly because the new set seems to dominate the studio and there’s a large gap beween the stage and the audience. Following that is what we’ve been waiting for – the first feature, with the cameras following The Darkness on tour in America. At least now Pops is actually putting some thought into their features and turning them into proper reports, rather than simply watching pop stars stand around backstage and hoping they do something funny.

Yet there are two flaws in this package. The first is that Top of the Pops has the first screening of the band’s new video, but only about 20 seconds of it are actually shown – just throwing it away, despite that clearly being a bigger draw than a boring feature. The second is the voiceover. Lynsey Breckney is the new “voice” of Top of the Pops, but throughout the whole show puts virtually no enthusiasm into her narration. She’s not helped by a dreadful script – such sentences as “This four-piece band from Lowestoft in Suffolk are taking their music and their very British sense of humour to the US” make her sound like she’s reporting for Panorama rather than Pops. Hard to imagine the teenage audience enjoying a programme seemingly written by their dad.

Another lengthy link sees Kash seemingly introducing the programme all over again, before setting up a video vote – a decent enough idea, if another lift from the opposition. Then it’s a performance by Nelly, but again this rather undermines the “All New” aspect as it’s exactly the same performance as was seen on the previous week’s edition, on the old set, with simply the new logo stuck on the backdrop. Next up is Kash on his CD:UK-style sofa alongside Gareth Gates and Kelly Osbourne. What are they there for? No reason at all. Gareth talks about his fans, Kelly talks about her dad and then a minute of Gareth’s video is shown. Again we’ve got editorial content for the sake of it, wasting time that could be better spent playing more tracks.

Breckney then simply reads out the album chart, with stills of the sleeves shown – hardly exciting telly, especially as it’s nearly a week old. Kash muddles his way through a competition, then it’s Kylie Minogue live in the studio performing an album track. Next up is the much-hyped appearance of Victoria Beckham, where the viewers get to choose which of the two tracks on her new single they’d like to see her perform. However this isn’t going to happen until next week, making this appearance largley pointless. Then it’s another report, with Craig David in South Africa. At least this one lacks the dull voice-over, but it’s no more interesting – certainly the casual viewer couldn’t give a toss about what David thinks of Johannesburg.

An ace cock-up follows with Kash setting a Robbie Williams competition with a choice of three answers, all of which are wrong – something that hardly proves how nuts about music the programme is. This is followed by a clip from Williams’ Knebworth concert – already shown on television and available on DVD, though presumably this replaced the promised Michael Jackson video that was incomplete and couldn’t be broadcast. Margerhita Taylor plugs the appearance by Lemar later on BBC3 – a man who’s entered the chart at number five. Surely he’s a better choice for the main show than one hit wonder Lisa Maffia, who’s on next, and performs, again, a medley? This means yet more old tracks, making it seem like nothing special.

Then Kash is outside with a throng of Blazin’ Squad fans – well, four of them anyway – who simply say that they like Blazin’ Squad. Yet after more plugging and recapping, we get the best performance of the night – and it’s by, of all people, Blazin’ Squad themselves. They’ve got a hundred dancers circling the fountain outside TV Centre, à la All Star Record Breakers, before rushing inside and taking over the studio to perform Flip Reverse. For the first time the show feels like an event, as if the acts are treating it as something special and as if you’re seeing stuff you wouldn’t get anywhere else. It’s just a shame that, again, the track is old.

Some dull music news follows, and then it’s the top 10 – with Breckney again sapping all the excitement out of it thanks to her boring voice-over. Getting Fatman Scoop’s name wrong doesn’t help either. Westlife perform the number one live in the studio, but then the show ends somewhat aimlessly, with Kash talking to a non-plussed competition winner on the phone, 90 seconds of the video vote winner by the Black Eyed Peas (which has already been on the programme before) and then goodbyes from Kash and Sabrina from Mis-Teeq, into a microphone that doesn’t work. It’s an appropriately anti-climactic ending.

This new look was, at best, a disappointment, and we’ll have to see how the programme works in its usual 30 minute format for a better idea of what the future might hold. It’ll need to get much pacier, certainly, with less of the padding and repetition that dogged this episode. However it does seem very much like change for the sake of change. The features are boring and the chat is pointless, and all the time spent on editorial features would have been better spent on more music. It’s as if the production team are almost embarrassed by the fact that the show just strings performances together, but that’s undoutedly what the audience wants.

Will this revamp see ratings rise? The answer is almost certainly no, because it’s still opposite Coronation Street on Friday nights and thus handicapped before it’s even started. Indeed, the only revamp that could help the show would be an unpopular overhaul of Corrie. Peters says he’s sick of people saying it should be back on Thursdays, claiming they say so purely for nostalgic reasons. But almost any slot would be better than the one it occupies now, at the wrong time on the wrong night of the week – especially when BBC1 precede it with programmes like Open All Hours, hardly of major appeal to Pops‘ target audience. Tuesdays or Wednesdays would be just as good as Thursdays – or if they really want to be up to date, why not Sundays so they can reveal the new chart first? It’s perhaps unfair of BBC1 to put pressure on Pops to change when a better slot would have much more of an effect.

Still, next week’s Top of the Pops sees a performance by Sting. So much for “All New”…

And with that, they were gone. The departure of the Burton Race family from our screens will leave a poignant gap in the schedules. Derided by the critics, this show has managed to turn their petty words into straw with contemptuous ease. Running after the wonderful, brilliant Tales From River Cottage, this hour on Channel 4 has become must-see viewing for the discerning viewer. That the schedules are (what feels like) chock full of shows featuring couples escaping England’s green and, perhaps not so, pleasant land or pairs of over-waged egoists purchasing charming holiday homes in the Dordogne or the Costa Blanca, it’s to the credit of the filmmakers that this show in particular has managed to breath a much needed breath of life back into the ailing genre.

Rightly described by one critic as “a weekly free commercial for the Languedoc tourist board”, the gripping unfolding of events chez Burton Race has developed nicely into a wonderful homage to the rural way of life in France. Picture postcard scenery, impossibly arched stereotypical behaviour patterns that even Richard Curtis would shy away from, this – initially – had all the classic hallmarks of just another escape from the rat race showcase for an unknown wannabe. Yet in spite of this – perhaps even because of – the tale of one family’s year out in the French boondocks turned into a thoroughly charming and utterly entertaining slice of television.

Forget the laughable assumption that this was yet another formulaic tale of an Englishman abroad. Sing that line, however softly you will, and you’re missing the fundamental point of the show. Which was that this was a man who was an unashamed Francophile putting his love to the test. In an age of increasing Europhobia and a growing distrust of Johnny Foreigner, here was a man prepared to wear his heart on his sleeve, and sink or swim in the arms of his heart’s desire. I am all too aware that the selective editing and willful disregard for the actuality conveyed a version of the truth for the viewing public – but, oh! What a version!

After managing to lose the annoying habit of referring to himself, in the third person, as a world famous chef, the edges were continuously and consistently being knocked off John Burton Race from around the third episode of French Leave. The loss of self-induced tension and the innate sense of falling deeper and further in love with his adopted homeland were particular highlights of this programme. The love for his family, for France, for cooking and for the terroire were wonderfully conveyed. Sure, disagreements occurred, tears flowed and curses cursed. But life, by its very nature, ground on and situations were addressed with candid honesty and, occasionally, more than a soupçon of naked aggression.

The warmth of the show was evident in every frame. Like Hugh in the slot before him, John clearly believes in – and proselytises – the provenance of his ingredients. Whether it was bangers and mash (with Toulouse sausages) or garlic pie, Burton Race was clearly fascinated in – almost to the point of obsession – exactly where his produce came from. And, once again, just like Hugh, his insistence that livestock was responsibly treated and plants allowed to develop naturally was a delight to behold. Patently subscribing to the theory that the whole was greater than the sum of its parts, John managed to effortlessly translate his love of rustic French cooking with consummate ease.

The recipes and ingredients were but a strand of the show, the real stars were the family themselves. From the tears on arrival in their strange, eerily hostile new surroundings to the tears on departure from their beloved adopted home, the weekly dynamics were raucously good viewing. Watching John get lost in France, then get half-canned in a local bar as he made increasingly drunken calls to the trouble and strife explaining his predicament was joyous. The scenes of him camping out with his son and cooking freshly caught fish were both touching and moving. The dynamics between the family were also hugely entertaining. I particularly enjoyed the arrival of the mother-in-law with a suitcase confiture packed with junk food. There were faint echoes of the atrocious Lenny Henry vehicle Chef here. But only faint.

Like all good television, this was brilliant as a result of its simplicity. There were no grand designs, arch antics or deeply, meaningful insights. Just a series of simple but mouth-watering recipes, simple but honest adventures and a beautiful backdrop of some of the most delightful drop-dead countryside France has to offer. A cast of extras that would have elevated the god-awful A Year in Provence into the realm of good television proved that reality is, indubitably, more entertaining than televised fiction. Truffle sniffing dogs, cherry picking nuns and wild boar hunting locals were, most definitely not, from central casting. The open-air markets were wonderful and, as so rightly commented on by John, a necessary antidote to the evils of supermarket shopping.

One can only hope that this experiment will have a lasting effect on the Burton Races. Clearly, as a family unit, they had learned to like each other again and attain a level of love and affection that had been missing before. This was an intimate, moving portrait of a family that saw out the great dream of their slightly demented, but roguishly lovable, leader. For them, you would hope that the future will return them to the beguilingly beautiful Languedoc region. If fate is so kind, then I pray that the cameras will follow them back to their promised land.

Even the redoubtable Paul Merton looks a pale imitation of his Have I Got News For You self; embarrassed to be there almost. Despite his assured stewarding of the show, the palpable truth laid bare is that this noteworthy dog has well and truly had its day. Which is a pity as Room 101 has provided the viewer with many a happy comedic memory. But these memories are being slowly, but surely, sullied by the overwhelming onslaught of tedious unevenness being offered up in recent times.

Tonight’s edition encompassed some of the major problems currently inherent in Room 101 – the wrong type of guest, the dull choices, the forced banter, the weak scripting. The trailer that proclaimed Linda Smith to be “the wittiest person on Radio 4″ was, on this evidence, sadly misjudged. With a voice that could turn milk, Smith may be a fine stand-up and an assured wit, but sadly here she failed miserably. Her choices were thoroughly uninspired and said much more about her than anything else. The chip on her shoulder was evident from the off and the “I know best” arrogance permeated the programme constantly, to the extent that you felt almost as if you were wading through her bile by the close of the show.

Starting off with pop at adults who read Harry Potter, her dogmatic but intellectually anorexic arguments failed to back up her choices spectacularly. Leaving aside the ridiculous (and risibly pathetic) notion that adults shouldn’t read children’s books, Smith revealed the paucity of her intellect by railing that those adults should instead be reading Madame Bovary. Just like the cerebral deadheads who argue along similar lines in The Big Read, the notion of “proper” books is bordering on the fascist. The conceit that Candide is superior to The Voyage of the Dawn Treader solely because it is a “proper book” is as tragic as it is fallacious. In the best of all possible worlds, one cannot even countenance this erroneous hypothesis. I’ve ploughed through Bovary and, God knows, it’s dull beyond belief. It was, for me, one of those tomes that after reading you couldn’t help but think that that was a slice of your life you’d never get back.

Smith’s argument that by reading Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings these adults were doing society harm was an inane observation that deserves to be treated with patronising contempt. On this showing in front of a supine audience and an encouraging host, her lack of improvisational skills were shocking.

Raging against the machinery of bow ties, comic opera, “back to school” signs and Tim Henman fans, Smith continued to pettily snipe at her intended targets – the middle and upper classes. An unlikely class warrior, the usual secondary scapegoats were trotted out – Bernard Manning (a comic who could, comically, literally and figuratively, eat her alive), golf, The Daily Mail and toffs in general – and a scattergun was taken to them with no effect whatsoever. This was miss and miss stuff, symptomatic of the malaise that pervades Room 101. Smith, unlike Boris Johnson, is clearly unable to laugh at herself: a deep, deep flaw for a guest on this programme. Whereas the most entertaining leader a political party could ever have is patently aware of his foibles and plays to them with a childlike sense of mischief, Smith belongs to that school of though that proclaims I am funny, so you’ll laugh with me. As they’re fond of saying at pantomimes the land over, oh no we won’t.

Room 101 currently has an air of all too chummy bonhomie wafting about. The guest list needs to be looked at and expanded dramatically if the show is survive in its present format. When you’re faced with a nonentity like Ronan Keating parading his bête noires to the nation then you know your number is up. As much as I admire Merton, I have to profess to a preference for the previous host, Nick Hancock. As talented and engaging as Merton is, he’s not a natural host and, on occasion can seem somewhat stilted and uncomfortable in that chair. Compared to, say, Stephen Fry on QI or Mark Lamarr on Never Mind the Buzzcocks Merton is plainly not in their league. Whereas Fry and Lamarr can play to the panelists, the audience and the camera simultaneously with a certain amount of élan, Merton seems to be incapable of drawing all the components in and creating a sense of wholeness.

For me, Room 101‘s time has passed. The joke wore paper thin a long, long time ago. I really can see no future for it and it’s clogging up a half-hour of the schedule which could be put to far better use. Like placing Linda Smith in a roomful of Tim Henman fans. Now, that would be worth watching.

By any standards, BBC2′s treatment of Robot Wars has been odd. If the show had been axed after the first one or two series, nobody would have cared. Looking back at early editions on UK Horizons is faintly embarrassing, as a pair of feeble robots, invariably looking like biscuit tins nailed to roller skates, “attack” each other with ineffective toothpick-like axes, until one of the drivers accidentally sends his creation hurtling into the “Pit of Oblivion”. Indeed, the only entertainment provided in series one was the sight of host Jeremy Clarkson wandering around in a full-length black overcoat, trying to make the whole thing sound exciting. To axe the show just when all those years of development were starting to pay off seems downright crazy. For five, this must have been a dream come true. A programme with an established fan base suddenly available for anyone else to snap up. The BBC spends six or seven years developing the show, then five walks in and reaps the reward.

The most obvious thing to have changed in the transition to five is that it now goes out at 7pm on Sunday nights, which seems far from ideal. Sunday simply doesn’t feel like the right time for this kind of programme, and for five to schedule any major new series so that the second half clashes with Coronation Street seems almost suicidal. Not only that, Robot Wars starts just half an hour after Channel 4′s Scrapheap Challenge, leaving it open to the possibility that watching a Red Dwarf cast member hosting a game show about amateur engineering will have lost its novelty before curtain up.

There is some good news, however, and that’s that the move to five has not changed the format of Robot Wars very much at all. Same arena, same basic rules, same style of presentation, same judges, and mostly the same robots. The main changes are an alteration of the first round format to allow four robots to fight at once (the format of this round seemed to change constantly in the BBC years anyway) and the replacement of Philipa Forrester with Jayne Middlemiss. Middlemiss doesn’t seem well suited to the role of pit-reporter, but then neither did Forrester at the start, or her temporary replacement Julia Reed, who both eventually grew into the role admirably.

One major change is the prize for winning the series. Whereas the winners of the BBC’s Robot Wars got a trophy, five offers “a cashpot of £20,000″. Admittedly, Craig Charles’ announcement of this innovation makes it unclear whether this goes to the winner, or is the total prize money to be shared among the teams. Whichever it is, it does slightly detract from the spirit of the “glorious amateur” that prevailed before.

As it ever was, Jonathan Pearce’s commentary remains the highlight of the show. Like all great commentators, Pearce has a curious ability to make even the dullest moments seem thrilling, and to infuriate the viewers with Murray Walker style gaffes. “I think it might have been immobilised!” he’ll yell, while up and down the country people mutter “of course it has, we’ve just seen its battery fly across the arena”. His emotive style really suits the programme, which wisely concentrates on spectacle, rather than Scrapheap Challenge-style technical detail. Arguably Pearce’s only real flaw is to assume that the audience already knew the show’s jargon, failing to explain terms like “srimech” (self-righting mechanism, used to get a robot back on its wheels after being flipped). Nevertheless, Robot Wars without Jonathan Pearce would be unthinkable.

Obviously, one major change dictated by the switch to five are the commercial breaks. Not a problem in themselves, but they do give rise to the show’s most infuriating habit. On the BBC, every edition would start with a few clips of what was coming up. This meant that, if you’ve already seen a clip of, for example, Razer fighting Chaos 2, it wouldn’t take much brainpower to realise that these two won their respective first round fights. As such, you found yourself in a situation where you knew the results of most battles before you’d seen them. On five, these clips are also shown before the ad-breaks, meaning that you go through the episode almost as if you were watching a repeat.

What remains to be seen is whether five will be able to make the most of their big new signing. Previous “major” signings on the channel have always tended to get a lot of attention for the first episode and then fall into total obscurity. I have my fingers crossed that Robot Wars will work in its new home, as I believe it deserves to. If it can just be given a decent slot (and more importantly, one where it is shown with some semblance of regularity) the programme’s established audience will help it to survive. If not, then it may be one battle that not even the House Robots can survive.