AD BREAK: Never mind the swine flu...

... we're being overrun by meerkats and lemurs!

Ladbrokes Casino

There's much twittering and blogging about the new Ladbrokes ad ripping off Comparethemarket.com. Sure, the animal has a funny accent like the meerkat (which is voiced by the guy who played the Geordie in I'm Alan Partridge, by the way) and its face looks similar, but it's a lemur – primate, not mongoose family. Sure, it's a rip-off, but not of the price comparison ad, durr brains... both ads are a rip-off of King Julien in Madagascar (that's why they have silly accents). I like to plagiarise it, I like to plagiarise it...

More to the point: what is the message of a giant lemur running riot and damaging property in a game of hide and seek? It looks like an anti-gambling ad: the lemur represents something you might think of as benign and fun, but it has grown out of proportion until it's out of control and destructive. The gamblers try to escape it, but end up in a dumpster in a bad part of town. Hey guys, log on to Ladbrokes with your credit card!

PLAYER POWER (The shows you haven't missed after all)

                

Reggie Perrin

BBC iPlayer

'Til Friday 8pm

It was always going to have a job living up to the original and, God knows, Martin Clunes is no match for Leonard Rossiter, but the remake of The Fall & Rise Of Reginald Perrin actually stands up. It seems that the combination of Perin's creator David Nobbs and Men Behaving Badly writer Simon Nye works - presumably Nobbs throws in new versions of all the original gags ("I didn't get where I am today...", "27 minutes late..." etc.), while Nye does the updating. There are a few proper laugh-out-loud moments, as well as nods to the original (his company is next door to Sunshine Desserts). It's a BBC1 prime time sit-com, so it's hardly edgy, but comes up with a few naughty moments. Not sure this'll make it onto the Barking At The TV Sky+ series link, but it's worth a shuftie.

CRIMINAL MINDS: Guest star alert

Criminal Minds

Living, 9pm

Criminal Minds has always had great guest stars - Keith Caradine as Frank was probably the most chilling – and does a great line in letting nice-guy actors play psycho (Frankie Muniz, Malcolm in the Middle, as an unravelling cartoonist, was a highlight). But recently the show's been chock full of resurrected 90s stars. We've already had evil James van der Beek or, if you will, Dawson's Creep; Star Trek: TNG's Will Wheaton as Wesley Bonecrusher; and Beverly Hills 90210's Luke Perry as a cult leader. And tonight, best of all, here comes Jason "George Costanza" Alexander. Who's bringing the big salad?

UNMISSABLE - DEXTER SEASON 3 TONIGHT

Dexter

FX

Friday, 10pm (and +1)

One of the best shows on TV currently - certainly the best crime thriller – is back tonight with Season 3. In case you don't know the show, Michael C Hall of Six Feet Under is Dexter Morgan (managed to resist writing Dexter Fletcher, Press Gang fans), who is a CSI specialising in blood spatter by day and a serial killer by night. He's not an antihero - he is 100% hero, as his adoptive father channelled his psychopathic urges into vigilantism. He only kills killers and rapists. But that code is about to be put to the test...

For fans who might be concerned that offing skanky-but-sexy Brit nutter Jaime Murray (ex-Hustle) in the Season 2 coda would reduce the raunch, it appears that Dexter's girlfriend, played by Julie Benz (Darla from Buffy, one for the nerds), is on heat (the patter of little psycho feet later in the series, perhaps?). And having seen off the bloodhound tec played by David Carradine in Season 2, Dexter has a new nemesis to deal with – played by Jimmy Smits (NYPD Blue and President Bartlett's successor in The West Wing). Oh yes, we love a Special Guest Star.

THEY CAN'T BOTH BE THE NEW X-FILES...

Eleventh Hour

FX, 9pm tonight (and +1)

Fringe (by JJ Abrams of Lost and Star Trek fame) & Eleventh Hour (the US adaptation of the British Patrick Stewart vehicle) have both been described as "the new X-Files" - FBI adventures with a scientific bent. But which one really does have the best chance of filling the TV shoes of Mulder & Scully?

FBI chick who's hot and a hardnut?

Fringe: Agent Olivia Dunham can handle herself, but she often looks close to tears. 7

Eleventh Hour: Agent Rachel Young's first appearance sees her trip up a bloke, put her boot on his neck and point a gun at him, because he may be a threat to the scientist she is protecting. The bloke she takes down is a cop. Yes, blonde hottie, yes, hardnut. 10

Spooky obsessed weirdo hero?

Fringe: Well, scientist Walter Bishop is a complete nutter, with a great line in scatalogical oversharing, but he's a bit old to be a Mulderish hero and too forgetful to obsess over anything. 6

Eleventh Hour: Rufus Sewell plays bug-eyed science genius, but he hasn't got the driving dogma of Mulder 6

Supernatural/extraterrestrial element?

Fringe: Teleportation, a hedgehog werewolf, walking through walls, giant slugs making Alien-style escapes from people's bodies, dead men talking, a weapon that encases victims in amber... That supernatural enough? No proper aliens yet, though. 9

Eleventh Hour: At first sight, these are investigations into unexplainable phenomena, but they usually have a rational explanation. There seems to be a fair deal of Daily Mail-style bad science (we're not really that close to human cloning, are we?), but that's not the same as sci-fi. 5

Shadowy forces forces at work?

Fringe: Who is creating "The Pattern" of strange happenings? Is it the suspicious Massive Dynamic corporation, with its fake-armed spokeswoman and its as yet unseen chairman William Bell? Or is it the creepy David Robert Jones and his fellow-believers in the "Destruction by the Continuing Advancement of Technology". 9

Eleventh Hour: We surely haven't seen the last of the mysterious doctor/scientist woman known as Gepetto, who turned up fleetingly in the pilot. 7

Tragic past?

Fringe: Well, Olivia's boyfriend died in the first episode, but since she was chasing him with a warrant for his arrest when his SUV crashed, this tragedy is somewhat tinged. Not exactly Mulder's sister being abducted. 6

Eleventh Hour: Dr Hood lost his wife to illness not long ago, but it doesn't get mentioned very often. If she was the victim of shadowy forces, that's a plotline yet to be tapped. 8

Unresolved sexual tension?

Fringe: There's going to be a will-they-won't-they between Olivia and Peter Bishop (Joshua Jackson - Pacey from Dawson's Creek), the nutty professor's son, which will probably drag on too long. 7

Eleventh Hour: Agent Young does stare with wonder whenever Dr Hood makes a huge logical leap, and she seems even more protective than her job description requires. 8

Funny nerds?

Fringe: Only one, rather than the threesome of The Lone Gunmen from The X-Files, but a belter. Walter keeps a cow in the lab, gives constant updates on his erections, has more food cravings than a pregnant Kerry Katona and conducts his experiments to an Al Green soundtrack. 9

Eleventh Hour: While being briefed on an air crash, Hood drifts off into a seeming daze, before snapping out of it and saying, "Ice cream... Do you have any ice cream? And a hotplate?" It is, of course, an experiment which solves the mystery of the crash in seconds. 8

Going into warehouses with wobbly torch'n'gun combo?

Fringe: Tick. 10

Eleventh Hour: Tick. 10

Total

Fringe: 64/80

Eleventh Hour: 62/80

Fringe shades it...

Fringe

Sky 1

Sunday, 10pm (after Lost)

POSH PRESENTERS: Class or arse?

Alexandra Tolstoy's Horse People
BBC2, 9pm tonight

Alexandra Tolstoy (yes, as in that Tolstoy) is the latest member of the upper class to get her own TV show. Conforming to stereotype, she presents Horse People, in which she travels the world neighing with pleasure at the equine lifestyle. She's typically posh – charming, game for anything (holding a rubber horse vagina as a stallion shoots his load into it) and naïvely coming out with an entertaining stream of double entendres: "I've never ridden such an intelligent animal". Brilliantly, she also pronounces "horse" as "whores". 

But is she class or arse? High-fallutin' frontmen and -women fit into two categories. Suggestions for the full chart welcome via the Comment button below...

Class: the upper crust

1 Valentine Warner from What To Eat Now – the chef who loves huntin’, shootin’ an’ fishin’ and doesn’t mind playing Nicebutdim, even though he seriously knows his food.

2 Peter Owen Jones from Around The World In 80 Faiths – the rocking vicar brought awestruck wonder to his religious tour of the globe. Showed Michael Palin how it should be done.

3 Dan Cruickshank from Adventures In Architecture – brought a grandfatherly Attenborough-lite style to architecture. There are Werther’s Originals  under that hat, I’m sure.

Arse: the cream of society (rich'n'thick)

1 Charlie Boorman – How come Joey Dunlop, Barry Sheene and Evel Knievel are dead and this twat is still riding his motorbike?

2 Ben Fogle – You boring, thick, present-anything bastard.

3 Tara Palmer-Tompkinson – Not sure which are worse: the appearances when she's coked up, or the ones where she's "thinking straight". Brian Blessed's pooch came up with a critical response to her presenting skills on The Underdog Show that no critic or blogger could better. It pissed on her leg.

 

Ashes To Ashes - Update

So, looks like they've dispensed with the bearded "friend-of-the-family" character from the first series - probably a good thing, as it was getting a bit psychosexually complicated, what with Alex having erotic dreams about her godfather, while he flirted with her adult self and comforted her 10-year-old self. Hmm.

And instead of the Bowie clown, there's a masked doctor who knows the future (can't think of a Dame song with a doctor in it...). Anyone else get the Pont D'Alma reference before Lady Di appeared on TV? And anyone else think "Doctor Death" sounded like Elvis Costello, and had the right specs too? They didn't play Watching The Detectives, so maybe not...

Tonight's 80s classics:

The Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum - Fun Boy Three

Rio - Duran Duran

Love Plus One - Haircut 100

The Look Of Love - ABC

Centrefold - J Geils Band

Working For The Rat Race - The Specials

You Sexy Thing - Hot Chocolate (yeah, not so classic)

Mirror Man - The Human League

New series tonight

Ashes To Ashes

BBC1, 9pm

The second tranche of the Life On Mars follow-up begins tonight. The first series took a lot of criticism but a lot of it was Extras Syndrome – a knee-jerk backlash. OK, it was far more cartoonish than Life On Mars, but then the whole thing is supposed to be happening in the imagination of Alex Drake, so it makes sense. There were some great touches, such as a young Tom Robinson at a gay rights rally, and the plot twist with the father finished off the series with a punch. Advice to viewers: fire up the Quattro, don't fasten your seatbelt (not a legal requirement till 1983, ahem) and just enjoy the ride.

The Omid Djalili Show

BBC1, 10.35pm

After a gap of 18 months, the London comedian gets a second series of his stand-up and sketch show. I say London comedian because that's what he is – a Chelsea-supporting West London boy with an Iranian background. So let's hope that there's a bit less of his earlier "only Iranian comedian" material, especially as he no longer is (Shappi Khorshandi et al); and a bit more general stuff. One thing 's for sure: when Mad Dog met Djalili recently, the comedian was complaining about the predominance of blue material in stand-up routines, so don't expect Horne & Corden.

Whither comedy? Withered comedy, more like

Last night...

Testees

FX, 9.30pm

A half-hour set-up for an entirely predictable fart gag. That was the entire show. Oh, wait, I beg their pardon: there is the title (and in case you don't get it, the company that performs medical tests on the loser protagonists is called Testico – phnaar, sounds like testicles); plus a sub-plot with an enlarged penis joke and a premature ejaculation punch-line. That was it. FX has one of the finest comedy minds in the world, Stephen Colbert, hidden away at midnight, while this (and its lame predecessor No Signal) gets a prime time slot. Testees - utter bollocks.

Tonight...

Genius

10pm, BBC2

Dear BBC, it has come to our attention that you have failed to notice that Dave Gorman is not actually a comedian. He comes up with concepts which, in the right hands, could be funny. That is what TV producers do. Then they find someone to present their show who doesn't have a rat-like gnawing quality to them, who doesn't sneer at the public, who comes up with jokes during the broadcast. Someone, like, say, a comedian. If Gorman insists on presenting the Radio 4 show he came up with now it's switched to TV, put him on BBC4, instead of the far more entertaining and charming Marcus Brigstocke and his show, I've Never Seen Star Wars, which is actually – and this is a word you may not remember – funny. 

AD BREAK

Honda Insight

The latest bit of cleverness from Honda (after the live skydive) sees the headlights of a thousand hybrid vehicles, lined up in a car park, producing moving smileys. Very impressive - but is it that wise to draw attention to the number of unsold cars sitting in car manufacturers' lots?

PLEAT-BLOCKER UPDATE: Miracles do happen

Anyone watching the Bayern v Barça game to avoid Pleat will have been shocked to have heard the nasal incantation, "Evening everyone". Yes – he's been banished to Bavaria and for Chelsea v Liverpool, ITV Sport has paired Jim "I played in a European Cup Final with Liverpool, honest" Beglin with Tyldesley. Small mercies...

WARNING: No Pleat-Blocker tonight!!!!

Fans of Chelsea and Arsenal have a regular gripe about Champions League coverage... both Sky and ITV consistently prioritise Liverpool and Manchester United games. That means the London clubs are always shown on the secondary channel - ITV4 or Sky Sports 3. The coverage is poorer, you miss out on highlights from other games, sometimes it's hard to find the game on in pubs. But Barking at the Television correspondent Nick Fleetwood has an alternative viewpoint...

"I understand Arsenal and Chelsea fans' gripes about being shunted across to lesser channels on Champions League nights. I, though, am one Arsenal fan who you won't find complaining: watching on ITV4 suits me just fine. You see, United serve as our Pleat-Blocker. As long as our games clash, the Manchester club gets ITV1 and therefore are lumbered with chief pundit David Pleat, possibly the worst co-commentator ever to put a hairy, palsied hand around a mic. 

"This is the man who once said, "There's Thierry Henry, exploding like the French train that he is" and "a game is not won until it is lost". He pollutes a game by sticking as many cliches as possible into one sentence and he wrote Jens Lehmann Law (saying "Lehmann's having a great game", before the then Arsenal keeper conceded three in 10 minutes). 

"So yes, Arsenal and Chelsea games might be a bit harder to find, but to be denied Pleat's Bleating (Pleating) is a blessed relief.

"Tomorrow, Man U will also step in as a Gray-Blocker. While Andy Gray is a division below Pleat in the Irritation League, it's still a relief not to hear his name-mangling and 'tikaboo, son' catchprases."

Pleat-Blocker – good point. Only one problem tonight... Liverpool can't be Chelsea's Pleat-Blocker, because they're in the same match. Is it too late to become Catalan? "I know nothing, I from Barcelona! Let me watch ITV4!"

EASTER SPECIALS - THE VERDICT

Red Dwarf

Oh, that was why it was taken off air 10 years ago. Only managed the first of the three episodes (which, due to series linking on Sky+, ended up buggering up all other Friday night recordings by saving everything else on Dave that night). Gave up after a woeful bit of pantomime where the crew wrestled with a giant tentacle while another character failed to see the danger on a monitor. The sort of scene that would be rejected by Lazytown producers for being childish. When a spoof sci-fi "comedy" delivers fewer laughs than the sort of show it's parodying, you know it's drifting lifeless in space...

Doctor Who

Much better than expected - a simple race against time with a sprinkling of portent to get Whoies twittering and a movie reference every few minutes for laughs. It looked fantastic – Dubai was somehow more convincing as a desert planet than Penarth. The aliens were a great mix of old-fashioned blokes-in-monster suits (the fly-people) and top-quality CGI (the flying metal manta rays, which must have upset a few Steve Irwin fans). And, apart from thankfully minimal interruptions from Lee Evans, the lack of shrieking is so welcome. The first Tate-free episode, with David Morrisey, was moving; this one was a romp. And Michelle Ryan's cool and sassy character had it right when she said "We could have been so good together" - the campaign to write her in as a companion for the 11th Doctor should start now. 

Skellig

Sorry, The Masters was too exciting.

EASTER SPECIALS – Oh the Eggs-itement (shut up)

FRIDAY

Red Dwarf: Back To Earth
Dave, 9pm (& Sat, Sun, plus outtakes, making of etc – see Dave)
A sci-fi cult classic off the air for a decade, loved only by nerds in the meantime, returns reinvented… could Red Dwarf be the next Doctor Who? Well, unless the “smeg” and punch-in-the-nuts gags are replaced with arch humour, the laddishness gives way to ambiguous sexuality and Rimmer becomes some quasi-Jesus, probably not. Still, the scripts of early series were often clever and funny (Star Trek moral/logical connundrums solved by loaded readers), so it’ll be interesting to see how this turns out. Plus, they’ve pulled in Sophie Winkelman (Big Suze) for the Peep Show crowd.


SATURDAY

Primeval
ITV1, 6.15pm
Nah, don’t be ridiculous; we'll all be watching…

Doctor Who
BBC1, 6.45pm (see BBC: Doctor Who)
Of course it’s sad that David Tennant’s last few appearances as the Doctor have to be scripted by Russell T Davies, while Stephen Moffat (the man behind all the best episodes – "The Empty Child", "The Girl In The Fireplace", "Blink", the Library episodes) concentrates on the 2010 series. However, let’s just enjoy the romp. Here we have giant flies in boiler suits, a double decker bus on a desert planet, spaceships with mouths, and (God help us) Lee Evans as a mad professor. There’s also the unbionic woman, Michelle Ryan, who’s described as “mysterious” and set to have a major impact on the Doctor”. Worryingly, those are the same words used to describe River Song, who’s been left in limbo (and is surely set to stay there, as Alex Kingston is surely too MILFy to pair up with Matt Smith’s Timelord). Ryan seems a far more workable future companion for the 11th Doc. If she survives "The Planet Of The Dead"…


SUNDAY

Skellig
Sky 1, 7pm (see Skellig)
Sky 1 have basically abandoned the rest of the weekend, putting all their choccy eggs in this basket. It’s got elements of ET, Stig Of The Dump and The Iron Giant – lonely kid finds strange, ailing creature (Tim Roth as a sort of magical birdman/angel), friendships are built, spiritual awakening is awoken… It promises much, with the naïve kid from the excellent Son Of Rambow playing the boy Michael and even the minor parts filled with talent – John Simm and Kelly MacDonald as the parents (seems like only yesterday that she was Trainspotting jailbait).

Exclusive Horne & Corden sketch

Hilarious antics as the fat one and the pretend-gay one lark about on the golf course in a new skit from their... Oh, sorry, it's Lee Westwood and American Zach Johnson playing in the Masters. My mistake.

Watching sport in Foreign

Apologies for a lack of postings but Mad Dog has been pursuing his other passions - skiing, eating cheese and drinking heavily... in the Alps.

So, no TV, except for BBC Prime (the cream of British TV for expats - Red Dwarf, Tittybangbang, you get the picture...); German late-night shows that appear to be nothing but adverts for dirty phone lines ("Oooh, ich bin geil, ruhf an nul nul acht drei drei drei funf. Geil!" - what? It's research. I had to watch for half an hour to write the words down); and today Formula 1 in French.

I can highly recommend Sport in Foreign. You can still pretty much follow everything but you learn new words like "le box" for the pits and "pneus" (think that's tyres, but the commentator may have had a sneezing fit). It works best for football - watched the Chelsea v Juve game in Bar Italia a while back. The Italian commentators were just like Andy Gray; they refused to pronounce foreign names correctly. They were OK with Bosingwa (unlike Gray) but they wouldn't accept that not everyone has a sounded vowel at the end of their surname. Thus Lamparda and Ashli Cola.

I'll make this a mission: I want to watch cricket in Punjabi, skiing in Swedish (where everything sounds like a dirty word); and rugby in the language of its champions: Gaelic.