SPOD IDOL! The search for the new Corpus Christi, Timble!

UCL WOOLLEY!

Encyclopaedic knowledge? For a girl, she was pretty impressive on the traditionally male subjects like sport. But her team lost (albeit probably as a highest scoring loser) 2/5

Somehow both smug and embarrassed? Not smug at all, but very coy when Jeremy praised her knowledge. 2/5

Bizarrely alluring? Enough to fluster Paxo... that deep baritone voice, the strong shoulders, her rather shapely throat. It's a mixed up muddled up, shook up world, except for Livvy... 3/5

Name that's great when you shout it like Roger Tilling just before the gong? 

Look, if you haven't worked it out yet, Olivia is a trannie with a name that sounds like "willie". You bet it's entertaining to shout. 4/5

TOTAL 11/20 (second place behind Warwick, Christmas!)

Spod Idol - the search for the new Corpus Christi Trimble!

MANCHESTER NEIMAN!

Encyclopaedic knowledge? She's blind yet she got one of the picture questions (with the help of a Braille card, but still - she was quicker to read it than any of the sighted students read the screen) 4/5

Somehow both smug and embarrassed? Quietly satisfied getting starters right, but it's a good team and the plaudits were shared. She did much of her best work in collaboration with her captain. 1/5

Bizarrely alluring? She's a big girl with bright pink hair and her eyelids closed. There's a bit of a Penelope Garcia in Criminal Minds vibe, but she's not as sassy. 3/5

Name that's great when you shout it like Roger Tilling just before the gong? 

Unfortunately she was up against a vet called Bones, so the best name was on the opposing team. 2/5

TOTAL 10/20 (second place behind Warwick, Christmas!)

Comedy Round-up: Top 3

That Mitchell & Webb Look

Ever-reliable sketches. Very clever and self-referential (there was a brilliant skit about having to write some misses, because every sketch show had to be hit and miss). And, thankfully, a lot less than usual of Webb's inexplicably popular tramp, "Digby Chicken Caesar".

Psychoville

The League Of Gentlemen hit the target again with a I Know What You Did Last Summer plot device as the salver on which they serve up a selection of their traditional obsessions... conjoined twins, serial killers, circus people, dangerous healthcare workers. It's like Fellini with gags.

The Chaser's War On Everything

An Australian version of Dom Joly's The Complainers or Balls Of Steel, it should be bloody awful. But when they tested whether people had learnt lessons from history by trying to deliver a wooden horse to various organisations, it had me in stitches. Mainly because Aussie security guards are so funny: "Hello, stage door? Fella here's got a fucken' great horse for ya." Notably, the only people who wouldn't let it in were at the Turkish consulate - possibly because the comic laid it on a bit thick by saying it was a gift from the Greeks!

Comedy Round-up 3

Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow

Or... A Massive Swizz. Off the back of McIntyre's stratospheric rise – biggest selling stand-up DVD ever etc. – the trailers made out that this would be Michael McIntyre doing stand-up around the country. Now that seemed pretty implausible – who the hell's got six hours of material? (Unless Springsteen does stand-up?) But not once has the Beeb sold this as what it really is – Live At The Apollo on the road, or a moving vehicle for the agent Addison Cresswell's clients. Which is fine – there are some majorly good stand-ups on his books, including Jeff Green and Sean Lock. But to sell it as the McIntyre show, when he basically only MCs, kicking off each week with a little regional piss-taking, as all comperes must, is misleading. Why isn't The Daily Mail getting into a lather about this?

Comedy Round-up 2

Mock The Week replaces the appalling

Kröd Mändoon And The Flaming Sword Of Fire

So they put an umlaut on Krod to make it appropriately pronounced "crude", then pronounce it Krod Mandoon? That was just one of the irritating things about this show, which has hopefully disappeared after five episodes (one an hour-long struggle). To think the BBC used to make period parodies called Blackadder. This was just juvenile tosh that presumably was only greenlighted because Matt Lucas signed up. Note to the BBC: Matt Lucas can't act. His character Dongalor (phnaar, he said "Dong") was just "I'm The Only Gay In The Castle". The shame of all this is that Radio 4 has a pretty good Lord Of The Rings spoof, written by The Office producer Anil Gupta, called Elvenquest, which could easily have transferred to TV with its radio cast of experienced British TV comedy stars in tact. This pile of turd means it's highly unlikely we'll see Sophie Winkleman, Alistair McGowan, Stephen Mangan, Kevin Eldon and Darren Boyd hit the screens.

Comedy Round-up

Thursday night is comedy night on the Beeb, so Barking At The Television thought it was time for a quick scan over the current comedy crop.

Mock The Week

Or... Have I Got Fucking Spastic News For You is back in all its sweary, un-PC glory – well, all Frankie Boyle's. You still get a bit of Now Show political satire from Hugh Dennis and childlike wonder from Russell Howard. The format is samey (Dara O'Briain can barely be arsed to explain the rounds any more) but the jokes are razor-sharp as ever (although it was a surprise to hear Howard trot out the hackneyed line about Andy Murray being British when he wins and Scottish when he loses).

PLAYER POWER (Shows you haven't missed after all)

University Challenge

BBC iPlayer, till Monday 8.30pm

The search for the new Gail Trimble ("CORPUS CHRISTI, TRIMBLE!") has begun. Over the weeks, Barking At The Television will be rating this year's contenders in a sort of Spod Idol competition, judged on their x factor. Or rather a number of x over y to the power of 10 divided by π factors. This week's contender...

WARWICK, CHRISTMAS

Encyclopaedic knowledge? Was the best on his team, but made some intemperate interruptions and earned a telling off from Paxo. 3/5

Somehow both smug and embarrassed? Regulation smugness to begin with, then mortified after the 'Carly Simon' incident. 3/5

Bizarrely alluring? Not really - wears a grey shirt and looks like a young Lloyd Cole. 1/5

Name that's great when you shout it like Roger Tilling just before the gong? 

Come on, the guy's called Christopher Christmas. Brilliant shouting material. 5/5

Total... 12/20

I got (Torch)wood

[SOME SPOILAGE IF YOU'VE NOT SEEN EP 1 YET]

Where the last two Doctor Who specials were better than feared, Torchwood: Children Of Earth is greater than fans dared hope for (when Jack skipped off with Martha and Mickey in 'Journey's End', looking like a rubbish new Torchwood team; plus, if you'd listened to any of the somewhat lame plays on Radio 4 last week). 

Those of us who've knocked Russell T Davies's writing in the past stand more corrected than someone with orthopaedic shoes and a spirit level. The director, Euros Lyn, shot Doctor Who library episodes and The Girl In The Fireplace, and there were some lovely touches, like the close-ups of Gwen's and the nutter's hands.

The first episode of five nightly parts had everything, starting with some great creepy-possessed-kids scenes, reminiscent of "are you my mummy?". We were bombarded with conspiracies, kill orders and shady organisations; the doctor was a brilliant red herring (just when you thought he'd make a crappy replacement for Owen...); we got another great something-major-in-Jack's-past shock; and finally the "double pregnancy" bombshell, ahem.

And so, we shall find out the answer to that old question: sure, Jack revives when he's shot or stabbed, but what would happen if he were blown into mincemeat? Will it at least stop him running like a camp Terminator?

CSI: Cliffhangers Suck It

So, in the past week, one of the CSIs returned and two ended for the year. And the contrast couldn't have been greater. 

CSI: Miami – the most watched TV show in the world and therefore written with a pan-global audience of retarded gimps in mind – came back after its second fake "officer down"cliffhanger. In season 5, Delko was shot in the head, lost about eight pints of blood, was clearly dead... yet he woke up with a few vision and memory problems (eventually having a chat with the ghost of Speedle in the worst. episode. ever. of any crime show – though back when Rory Cochrane got the hell out of this show, at least people shot in the head died.). So it was no surprise that Horatio Caine – gunned down, lifeless, leaking a swimming pool's worth of blood at the end of the last season – turned out to have faked his death. It was pathetic – he was hanging around the police station and meeting dozens of people when pretending to be dead. Yeah, deep undercover... Absolute tosh.

The original CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, realising that we'd been put through the mangle enough for one series with Warwick's death (see... he got shot in the head; he stayed dead) and Grissom's departure, told a simple tale with an Old Vegas theme (time for Greg to trot out some lore), in which Langston has to take a life. It rounded off an unspectacular but sound series – Laurence Fishburne plays his part with enough Grissom oddity and sagacity but is gently steering in his own direction. It's a classy touch having the star as a junior team member. Hopefully next season will see more plots centring on Lauren Lee Smith as Riley Adams, who arrived with a foul mouth and some leftfield ideas but has been somewhat ignored by the scriptwriters since.

And CSI:NY continues to veer between being as good as Vegas and as bad as Miami. The finale saw Detective Angel shot and she died in surgery. So far, so realistic. The team tracks down the baddies; Flack shoots one of them when he didn't strictly need to - nice Shield-style grittiness. And then they go to a cop bar and drink whisky in Angel's memory. Nice NYPD Blue touch... now, just fade to poignantly silent credits, don't do anything stupid. Gah, nooooo! Here comes an attack of the Miamis; can't resist; must have drive-by shooting, making all the characters dive to the floor, possibly hit, possibly renegotiating contracts. For chrissakes, what is this? The Moldavian Royal Wedding from Dynasty?

Today At Wimbledon

Will Miss Scotland (the blonde out of the two attention-seekers pictured) be back at Wimbledon for Andrew Murray's semi-final against Andy Roddick? And if so, will the BBC continue to attempt to create some little soap opera around her? 

On Wednesday, every time Murray won a point, they cut between the restrained applause of his girlfriend, Kim Sears, sat next to his Mum in the players' box, and the screeching former schoolmate in the Royal Box (which is, in fact, the comped tickets box). Were they trying to make Murray look more interesting with a fake love triangle? 

If so, they failed pretty badly as, when Murray was shown footage of her after his match he said that he'd sat next to her at school in Dunblane and she was "pretty annoying". The guy had to hide under his desk to escape the Dunblane massacre and he found her the most annoying thing about school. She must be a right pain in the arse

Mardy Bummed

The player with the best name in tennis lived up to it yesterday when he and fellow-American James Blake were knocked out of the doubles – almost literally. Number one seeds and suspected T-1000s Nestor & Zimijonic kept peppering the Yanks with body blows, which pissed off the piscine one no end. And Blake-Fish lost from two sets up. That was one mardy* Fish.

Just in case you don't know this word, here's the Urban Dictionary definition:

Mardy: A word popularly used in the Nottingham/East midlands area of england. Words with a similar meaning include: stroppy, moody, sulky, grumpy, childish etc. 

Today At Wimbledon

Oi, BBC. Stop changing channels

It messes with Sky+ and some of us like to record the tennis to watch when we get home. Are you saying that no one will tune in to the Murray match unless it's on BBC1? Don't be stupid - the viewers aren't; you expect us to work the red button with the skill of a great lover, we can find the word Wimbledon on the EPG, thank you.

Oi, BBC. Shut up about the British

Precious minutes wasted all last week on Today At Wimbledon on the "debate" about the state of British tennis. When the pundits are clearly fed up with answering questions about it and Inverdale can't even muster any enthusiasm for talking about it, don't you think that maybe the viewer might be bored shitless? At one point Tim Henman had his head in his hands, crying "No, no!" for crissakes.

Actually... Oi, BBC. Shut up about a lot of stuff

The roof; Cliff Richard; grunting; talking endlessly about how nobody's talking about Federer (course they bloody are); and non-specialists saying that if Murray wins, it'll be devalued by the absence of Nadal (it's not like he's never beaten him - and he has beaten him this year).

In fact... BBC, just shut up

Mark Petchey: "It's not only Safina. There's been a bit of a trend of players asking people to pronounce their names in new ways recently." No, Petchey, they're asking you to pronounce it properly, you dick.

Except for Pat Cash

I switched over to the Lleyton Hewitt match just as Cash was saying "leaner and fitter this year". Presumably he was talking about his compatriot, but he was speaking over a shot of a Beth Ditto lookalike draped in an Aussie flag.

Can You Heal It? Jacko Coverage

 Came home from the pub at midnight to find out more about Jacko's death (and to rewrite some copy I'd just filed about The O2 Arena – whoops). But of course, instead of further information, on the 24-hour news channels it was all filler and no Thriller...

Sky News The first to commit to "He's died" (why do I keep hearing "Who's Bad?" when I see that?), but after that there was simply a reporter quacking on over a helicopter shot of fans on a central reservation outside the hospital. He'd basically launched Spotify on his computer and started reading out song titles. And then he talked about the live shows as "son et lumière extravaganzas". Son et lumière? Are you saying Michael Jackson performed classical music favourites with a laser display at Leeds Castle?

BBC News 24 Same deal but with a voiceover who knew what the hell he was talking about.

CNN Had all the actual info first - an inaudible interview with the LA County Coroner and the footage of the ambulance (how slow was that to reverse out of the gates? No wonder he was DOA). But after that they basically wheeled out a parade of ghoulish rock journos who'd obviously raced to the studio, elbowing each other out of the way to get publicity for their blogs. Lucky bastards.

Eric Delko beat Sharapova?!? It's Yesterday At Wimbledon...

Sorry, CSI fans, turns out its Gisele Dulko. And very attractive she is too. Tim Henman was obviously affected:

New Colemanballs, please

"Her mouth was dry and she was very tight."

Er, we are still talking about tennis here, aren't we Tim?

BBC Sport: The New Daily Mail

What hypocritical bullshit from the Wimbledon-covering team. There they were, appealing to Middle England's delicate sensibilities by quacking on about the distracting "grunting" of female tennis players (anyone else think there's a touch of the misogynist Puritan witch-hunt about this). And what did they do? During a game involving one of the louder players, they went to a reporter – live – in the audience, who then asked a spectator if he found the noise disturbing while the players were actually playing a point. 

Good on the spectator for saying that it didn't bother him (and for waiting till they'd finished the point to answer), but how much better would it have been if he'd replied, "It's not as intrusive as some silly cow with a mic talking through the play."

The Tom Hardy Guide To Being A Gangster

Martina Cole's The Take

Sky 1, 9pm

Sky 1's shoddy ganster melodrama continues tonight and Tom Hardy – of RocknRolla, Bronson and baddie-in-an-old-school-Star-Trek fame – can be expected to trot out a few violent episodes that go like a Nirvana song: quiet for a bit then suddenly aggressively loud. If there's an ad break coming up and he hasn't stuck a bottle in anyone's neck, trowelled out a relative's eye or raped his best mate's wife yet, you'd better brace yourself. And, for the benefit of any characters dealing with him, here's the checklist of indicators that he's about to explode...

1. Eyes go extremely slitty

2. Playing with his watch

3. Talking very, very quietly

4. Smiling way too much

5. Involuntary twitches (jaw or fingers)

6. Saying, "Right" a lot

7. Chewing gum faster

8. Going to hug you

Yesterday At Wimbledon

Spotted

What the hell's up with the grass at Wimbledon this year? It's striped like a football pitch! When they put that roof on Centre Court, did they use the people who made the Millennium Stadium? "Tell you what, make it an even £80 mill and we'll throw in the Cardiff groundsman." Or can you now be caught offside on a drop shot?

New Colemanballs please

• "Lu Hung Tough."

John McEnroe seemed to have renamed  Taiwanese player Lu Yen Hsun. Actually he was just referring to the effort he put in against Roger Federer in the first round.

Things you only hear at this time of year

• "He's done a lot of work with Larry Stefanki"

• "The big Croat"

Women's Championship News

Chuckitova beat Flyova 6-3, 6-1 and goes on to face Maidenova in the second round.

Ashes To Anoraks: The Music

Finally seen the series 2 finale of Ashes To Ashes, after some technical handicaps. So, never mind the coma within a coma plot twist. Here's what really matters: a complete list of the ace and spazzy 80s tunes, compiled by Mad Dog's musical consultant DJ 80s Twat (plus the odd unsuccessful Shazam attempt - any help with the two missing tunes gratefully received). There were some pleasingly obscure early goth and indie tunes used this series, which you couldn't tell from the Duran-heavy album they released. There's an alternative playlist you could put together with Bauhaus, The Cure's All Cats Are Grey, The Associates etc...

Episode 1
Fun Boy Three - The Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum 
Duran Duran - Rio
Haircut 100 - Love Plus One
ABC - The Look Of Love
J Geils Band - Centrefold
The Specials - Working For The Rat Race
Hot Chocolate - You Sexy Thing (yeah, not so classic)
The Human League - Mirror Man

Episode 2
Echo & The Bunnymen - Back Of Love
Kid Creole & The Coconuts - Stool Pigeon
Squeeze - Tempted By The Fruit Of Another
Japan - Second That Emotion
Phil Collins - In The Air Tonight
The Jam - Town Called Malice
Dexys Midnight Runners - Come On Eileen
Orchestral Manouevres In The Dark - Messages
A Flock Of Seagulls - Wishing (If I Had A Photograph Of You)

Episode 3
UB40 - Food For Thought (over a scene involving a hunger striker - nice)
Trio - Da Da Da
Survivor - Eye Of The Tiger
Duran Duran - The Reflex
Thomson Twins - Lies, Lies, Lies
Tight Fit - The Lion Sleeps Tonight (making this a particularly naff episode)

Episode 4
This was the episode when they suddenly went all out for obscure Bauhaus ska period tracks. Oddly, despite the episode being about young girls being kidnapped for sex parties, they didn't go with Pete Murphy & co's biggest hit, She's In Parties.
The Wurzels - I've Got A Brand New Combine Harvester (sung by cast)
Bauhaus - Harry
Fun Boy Three & Bananarama - It Ain't What You Do (It's The Way That You Do It)
Modern English - The Token Man
Pigbag - Papa's Got A Brand New Pigbag
Unidentified dancey song in background - sounded like a cross between Divine and The Associates
Bauhaus - In Fear Of Fear
Korgis - Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime

Episode 5
A musical disappointment this week. Nothing wrong with the tunes but the mysterious bloke on the phone with a tinge of an Irish accent, who might help Alex get home, turned out to be Adrian Dunbar, not Elvis Costello.
The Jam - Funeral Pyre
Odyssey - Back To My Roots
Blondie - Atomic
Queen & David Bowie - Under Pressure
UB40 - Food For Thought (again?!)
New Order - Temptation
The Clash - Should I Stay Or Should I Go
Iggy Pop - not sure which tune
Bill Withers - Just The Two Of Us
Madness - Embarrassment
David Bowie - The Man Who Sold The World

Episode 6
Captain Sensible - Happy Talk
Grace Jones - Pull Up To The Bumper
Motörhead - Ace Of Spades
Donna Summer - I Feel Love
Michael Jackson - Thriller
Haircut 100 - Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Girl)
Anti Nowhere League - Streets Of London
Billy Idol - Hot In The City

Episode 7
Adam & The Ants - Goody Two Shoes
The Cure - All Cats Are Grey
Gary Numan - Music For Chameleons
Tears For Fears - Ideas As Opiates

Episode 8
The series finale was supposed to be so dramatic (ahem) that there was no time for silly 80s music for a whole 40 minutes. Finally there was a little flurry...
Roxy Music - While My Heart Is Still Beating
The Associates - Country Club

Orchestral Manouevres In The Dark - Maid Of Orleans

Mixed news, everyone!

Futurama is back!

Comedy Central has commissioned a full 26-episode series of Matt Groening's sci-fi toon, six years after it was cancelled (where were the petitioners then? It deserved 20 times the hoo ha of Chuck). So many possible story lines to come... Surrender your mysteries to Zoidberg.

The Cleveland Show is real!

So, what seemed like an elaborate April Fool's joke is for real. Of all the Family Guy characters, Cleveland has his own spin-off. And, judging by the new trailer, it'll be as bad as it sounds - the funniest line in it is a farewell from Stewie Griffin. Cleveland has suddely acquired a fat son, leaves Quahog and marries his high school sweetheart. She's got a sassy tramp daughter (yawn - trying to make up for the vacuum that is Meg) and a toddler son who talks like an adult (what an original idea, don't you think, Stewie?). Then there are random anthropomorphised animals. The neighbours are bears and Cleveland gets harassed by roid-rage bull. The great thing about cartoons is that you can do whatever you like. That can also be the worst thing about them.

Caine RIP

David Carradine – Kwai Chang Caine in Kung Fu (as well as Bill in Kill Bill) – has died.

Kung Fu was one of my favourite Saturday night shows when I was a kid - probably my earliest TV memory, even before Doctor Who. Not being a big fan of Westerns, the Eastern twist made it stand out from a lot of American shows of the 70s. After that, I loved anything with an Asian martial arts theme to it: The Water Margin, Shogun, Monkey...

Carradine's brother Keith, who played the teenaged Caine ("Grasshopper", according to the blind Shaolin Master Po), is still going strong and has been brilliant in Dexter and as serial killer Frank in Criminal Minds in recent years. To paraphrase Jules in Pulp Fiction, may his brother's ghost walk the earth, like Caine.

Channel 4: Nothing to see here

Big Brother

All Channel 4 strands

24 hours a day

So we say goodbye to Channel 4 for the summer, as its channels are given over to pictures of narcissistic eejits in swimwear with a soundtrack of birdsong. C4 and E4 have 24-hour coverage (with E4's revolutionary endoscopy coverage for the most in-depth BB coverage ever). To celebrate BB's 10th anniversary, More 4 will be showing Simon Schama's epic series, The History Of Big Brother; and Film 4 has the world premiere of the new Jade Goody biopic, Kebabs And Chemo.

For all your Big Brother coverage, GO SOMEWHERE ELSE. Barking At The Television will remain a Reality-Free Zone for the duration. So, in addition to zero BB coverage, there will be no calls for a Scottish lady to be given a prize here; nor will there be a report on which wannabe celebrity is pointed at by a former businessman who looks like Nookie Bear.

Instead I'll be bringing you news and reviews of all the most interesting TV of the summer.

ER is dead. Long live House

House

Sunday

Sky 1, 9pm

The one non-crime US drama Five showed has been snaffled by Sky, which will upset people not quite as much as when the Beeb lost Lost to dish'n'cablers, but enough. I say non-crime but, thinking about it, House is basically CSI: Pancreas. I'm not convinced it'll provide the Sunday night cornerstone of a Lost, 24 or even Prison Break or Fringe - it's an episodic procedural you can dip in and out of (notwithstanding last season's ongoing Doc Idol plot, where Dr House chose his new team). Still, I'm glad it's back, whatever the channel.

Hey C*** F**ksy! John's back!

Tourettes: I Swear I Can't Help It

BBC1, 9pm

Twenty years after he became the new Joey Deacon, Tourettes sufferer John Davidson is back in a new documentary (TV tends to catch up with him every few years - a sort of Seven F*** Up. We can all pretend we'll be watching to raise our awareness of this issue and discover if John can pass on advice to a new generation of sweary young men, but of course we really want to see him screaming profanities in the supermarket and calling his mum a slut (in fact he's now whacking her in the face out of the blue - unless the producers are paying him to invent new symptoms). 

The poor bloke has aged really badly - it must be a stressful life, especially when you get the likes of Keith Allen turning up to do a documentary on you (Tourettes De France - Allen and a film crew with a title in search of a programme lead John and other sufferers on a bike ride to the Paris hospital where Doctor Tourette discovered the condition).

Anyway, essential viewing for schoolchildren who want to be up on some very inventive swears. Although, be warned. As Shakespearean actress Eleanor Bron made clear in her original stentorian voiceover: "John doesn't always swear. Sometimes he barks... like a dog."

APOLOGIES, BUFFY FANS We missed the start of Joss Whedon's new show

There was me trying to find out when FX or Sky would show this Fox drama in the UK (and monitoring US network announcements and rumours about whether this would reach season 2 – looking like a yes) and it sneaks on to SciFi behind my back on Tuesday. Among all the Star Trek repeats, B movies and lame duck series like Knight Rider and Eli Stone, they just occasionally showcase something interesting... after all, remember who brought us the only worthwhile season of Heroes.

Anyway, luckily, this is digital telly, so there are repeats all week. Here's the review I've had in the starting gate for months...

Dollhouse

SciFi

Tonight 8pm, then Tuesdays 9pm

Eliza Dushku was the bad girl vamp-staker Faith in Joss Whedon's first hit, Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Having been in the doldrums with Tru Calling (she sees dead people, yawn), she returns to the Mutant Enemy fold (raargh! argh!) as Echo, one of a group of "Actives" (or dolls), tabula rasa people who can be imprinted with mental/physical/emotional traits and abilities to fulfil roles for high-paying clients (which usually boils down to wanting a high class hooker who can also ride a motorbike). The Actives are people who've signed up for this because they want to escape their real lives – their minds are wiped after every assignment.

The drama comes from an obsessed FBI agent trying to uncover the secret of the Dollhouse; the problem that old imprints and memories of their former lives start to leak into some of the Actives' minds; an escaped psycho-Active; and (judging by the first two episodes)... every, time, Eliza Dushku, goes out on a job, something, goes frickin, wrong.

The Whedon stamp should ensure quality - surprises, pace, empathy and, above all, wit. But the snappy one-liners of Buffy and Firefly are sadly in short supply. Some US thriller TV clichés have crept in: the honourable African-American bodyguard; the wisecracking geek computer expert (called Topher - that awful shortening of Christopher); the shady corporate types; and the aforementioned dogged FBI agent. And the fact that the lead character changes persona every episode means it's hard to invest in her development.

Word has it that the later episodes are much better than the first five, but so far this just rubs salt in the still-sore wound of losing Whedon's space cowboy romp Firefly after just one season.

AD BREAK: Sponsorship will eat itself at Five

If you watch CSI: New York tonight, you may get confused. At the beginning and end of each ad break, where the name of the show you're watching traditionally flashes up, something else is happening. A red smiley face flashes up, which then morphs into the Five logo. And in case you don't know what the smiley refers to, the screen then reads The Mentalist. So, apparently, not only are all of Five's crime dramas (the CSIs, Law & Orders etc) sponsored by Kia cars (very good stings, by the way - the right kind of kooky), they're apparently also sponsored by... one of Five's crime dramas. 

Now, I could snidely claim the channel is desperate to prop up a show that has lost viewers steadily since its strong debut - because Brits have better taste than Americans, where this drivel has been a big hit. However, this is just one example of crazy sponsorship and promo efforts at Five. If you watched the showing of The Da Vinci Code the other Sunday, you would have heard the odd statement, "The Da Vinci Code is sponsored by Angels & Demons" - the screening of one Dan Brown nonsense-fest being funded by its own sequel! They certainly can't be faulted on novelty.

One novelty that needs to be stamped on, however, is Wolf Blass wines' sponsorship of Cricket On Five. Now fair enough, they've come up with the idea of wine bottles as stumps, the ball knocking into them etc. But this is not an ident: these are the actual opening credits of the highlights package. Real England players are mixed in to the advertising images. Has the ECB been involved in this? Are the players aware? And earning from it? And, more's the point, is this legal? Isn't the promotional message supposed to be kept outside the programme itself - especially when it comes to sport and alcohol? Barking At The Television will be contacting Ofcom and the ASA to find out...

PLAYER POWER (Shows you haven't missed after all)

Feast

BBC iPlayer

(and BBC4, Wednesdays, 9pm)

Conflict of interest alert! Presenter Stefan Gates is an old friend, so of course I'm a big fan. But I'd enjoy this series anyway - travel, food and personable presenter with an easy style: what's not to like? 

In this first episode he visits India. First he's a guest at a three-day society wedding in Rajasthan (why don't we have cricket matches at British weddings?). Generously, he does not compare it to PoshnBecks' nuptials, even though he must have been sorely tempted. In fact, Stefan humanises something that seems all façade - and eventually the incredibly overprivileged families come across sympathetically.

Later, he visits Kerala for the Onam festival. Whereas the food is rather glossed over in the wedding section, there is some good insight into Keralan cooking here. But the highlight is when our man gets shaved and painted like a tiger for a parade. (He still had a yellowish tinge when I saw him about a week after he got home.) 

As the first white boy to join in this part of the festival, he attracts a lot of media attention and accidentally assaults a local TV reporter. The Indian equivalent Dennis Norden (Dinesh Norden?) will already have bought up that clip.

Just one point of order - Gates claims the hypnotic tiger dance is like being at a rave in the 80s. Rave, Stef? When we DJed together in 1989, you kept on putting on James Brown records while I was trying to play 808 State and A Guy Called Gerald.

END OF SEASON REPORTS

Damages: 6/10

The climax was pretty good - although it was obvious from the start that Ellen wouldn't have shot "Paddy" Hewes (despite attempts to convince us with a flash forward of Patty bleeding in the lift). Nice that Patty was in control of the situation all along (at home as well as work - that little priggish son needed bringing down a peg or ten), and how Wes dealt with sociopath detective Rick Messer.

However, on the whole, this felt like a bit of a holding series. Frobisher featured so fleetingly, there was hardly any point him being involved; Walter Kendrick wasn't much of a baddie; and we didn't get enough of the really sinister characters – Dave Pell (played by the brilliant Clarke Peters - Lester Freamon in The Wire, Mandela in Endgame and soon to be in Holby City!) and "The Deacon", the dead-faced killer of Purcell's wife. We must hope season 3 will centre on them. More cold sweat from William Hurt would be good too.

Heroes: 3/10

Should this be a judgement on Season 3 or Volume 4? I don't know: it's a mess.

Season 3 began by implicitly saying, "Let's pretend season 2 never happened". Characters disappeared (Monica the muscle mimic, Maya, Molly - woe betide anyone whose name began with M, barring moaning Matt Parkman). And it ended in much the same vein - poor old Daphne the speedster dies and a couple of episodes later Parkman seems to have forgotten that his whole purpose was to build a life with her and is now fighting to get his former missus back. 

Volume 4 just tread water, despite having a clear villain (in The Hunter). That was what made Season 1 so good - everything built towards foliing Sylar. This term Sylar swapped sides twice an episode, heroes were unconvincing both as villains (it boiled down to Petrelli family bickering) and fugitives (they just wandered around a bit). The main heroes – Claire, Peter, Nathan, Parkman, Mohinder (oh, another surviving M), Hiro & Ando – became duller and duller. Meanwhile new characters drifted in and out: Claire Bear's daddy issues made it impossible to keep a boyfriend; and some interesting ones were killed off instantly, thus wasting ability-based storylines which could have developed nicely.

At least Sylar's shape-shifting was cool and the subsequent identity crisis was the only genuinely engaging storyline since Season 1. 

In the end though, you spend too much time wondering about stuff you've missed or forgotten – or possibly the producers have. Does Mohinder have powers still? If not, why does Ando? Is Ando still going to kill Hiro? What was all that about Sylar becoming a stay-at-home married dad with a penchant for cooking in the future? Was that that in season 2 so therefore "didn't happen"? Do we even care any more?

Coming soon: Lost (I've got a few episodes to catch up) and 24