The Million Pound Drop is one of those new TV formats that throws a tantalising amount of money in front of contestants. It sounds good on the adverts and when the show is promoted. It makes it a high stakes experience. The trouble is, anyone who puts a bit of thought into it, has to come to the conclusion that the maths of the game have to be seriously rigged against the contestant. In the case of The Million Pound Drop, things seem seriously rigged towards the contestant coming away with...nothing. In most shows, the idea is to give the contestants a nice amount of money, on average, but never the serious headline amount.

Not for this show, it's all about going away empty handed even if you do very well.

You start with 1 million GBP in 25K GBP packs. That's the first important part of the maths, as it creates the lowest amount by which your stash can be divided. The game is then about eight questions. You're given the question and then the answers. The first half of the questions have four answers, the second half have three answers. You have to leave one of the answers without any money on. It's then a confidence game, because if you're not confident of the answer you'll spread your money across more answers and all but the right one results in the money being dropped and lost. It's actually very hard to spread the money you see, as you have eight questions and 25K blocks, so it divides down into nothing surprisingly fast. If you hedge your bets too much you can divide your money by a third or half in a single stroke, or hedge your bets with a small amount and then get it wrong and you're left with the small hedge! This small hedge isn't enough to carry you forward through the questions (the thorny 25k packs). In truth, you have to be bold and gun for the right answer or you can run out of packs of money.

So, the reward goes to the bold? Not bad. This actually did happen, through playing the confidence game, knowing the answers and taking some big risks a young couple did end up with half a million on the last question. A seriously good play. They did this through always piling the money on one answer (the small hedging they did would have meant they went away with nothing if they'd got a question wrong). Looking good? It's then you learn that the last question only has two answers and you can only put your money on one. It's a bet with a 50% chance. That to me was the ultimate mathematical kick in the teeth. Even if you get the the final question with a good stash you can't hedge your stash to come away with something good. Of course, the question is ridiculous difficult, such as date-based question with only one year separating them. Needless to say, that young couple got it wrong and half a million dropped out of their grasp on the final question.

I'm waiting to see if anyone wins any sizeable amount of money. I suspect this small run will result in every contestant coming away with nothing. I may be wrong, but we shall see. On this basis the maths may be just too rigged for the show to work out long-term?

If there is one show I look forward to every week it's Glee. It doesn't necessarily hit the 'high notes' every week, but it has done more often than not, and when it does the show is a work of pure genius. After all, who cannot like a show that tells us the high school football team can achieve success through performing a dance routine to Beyonce before the match?

I understand Glee was a surprise hit in the US, but looking at the show it has managed to pull together a number of ingredients which you'd think would guarantee success. At its heart Glee is a musical delivered as a TV show. . It's also a high school drama, a modern one playing with the set-up a bit. You could also say it has a lot of the tropes of a sports drama as well. It's sort of a grand High School Musical, Fame, Bring It On and Popular mash-up. When you look at it like that it had every chance of being popular and popular across age groups as well.

Personally, I like Glee for a number of reasons.

It's a musical, and I like musicals. If there is one mistake Glee does make it's the fact not all the musical numbers are perfectly woven into the narrative to further tell the story. At times, they just happen because of the story, not so much to explore it in a different way. Glee should take a note from Moulan Rouge, and incorporate more of the musical numbers, based around popular music, to highlight relationships and narratives. Despite this, Glee manages to put on display the exuberance of song which is ridiculously infectious. It being a musical also allows it to take some liberties with its storytelling. It doesn't go all the way into a 'musical reality', but it occasionally takes enough strides in that direction to make it different. The episode with the football team dancing to Beyonce being a case in point.

It's damned sexy. Glee, like most US high school dramas, exists in a world in which very few people are ugly, as a result the Glee cast are almost universally good looking. While I'll not comment on the finer details of the male cast, the female cast consistently sport short skits, long socks, cheerleader outfits and all sorts of other elements statistically proven to appeal to a large part of the male psyche. It undoubtedly does this on purpose, giving the odd visual tweak that goes above and beyond adopting 'typical' High School drama style. This undoubtedly peaked with the cheerleader sponsored car wash complete with associated song and dance routine (one example in which the song did reflect the conflict of the scene as well). While it's hardly the 'Dirty' music video, pop music and high school dramas do have a sexy element to them and Glee does play with it.

It's funny. It also manages to deliver the humour in ways that aren't typical of US comedy dramas. A core of the humour is similar to the show Popular, which takes the high school drama and delivers the set-up in a very knowing, stylised and extreme fashion. It's sort of a fantasised, knowing, fairy tale sort of vision of High School in which every conflict is heightened and taken to extremes. In this way it plays to the outrageous, which works in the context of the semi-musical. The cheerleader coach is a case in point, playing with the stereotype of the ex-marine football coach but in female form with a dose of surreality. This brings us to the characters, the 'set on success lead female', the gay Glee member who is also the football team's star kicker, the OCD pastoral teacher, the wife of the Glee coach who is an extrapolation of the 'popular cheerleader in school' who has gone on to adulthood and found life wanting. It's all good.

Ultimately, Glee achieves something most musicals aim to achieve. They aim to pluck a primal string that just raises the emotions, to carry you forward on a wave of joy, excitement and humour that traditional dramas find hard to compete with. After all, having the Wicked Witch of the West explain how she's going to learn to fly off on a resistance campaign against the tyrannical Wizard of Oz is one thing, having her sing about it in a triumphant number is something else. Glee works on that principle, and it does it well enough in a weekly format to deliver something unique.

Above and beyond all this, I'm going to commit sacrilege and say the Glee version of Don't Stop Believing is the best one.

A while back the Doctor Who logo, essentially the graphics and associated font that will be used as a consistent branding for the show. While this was done in a rather innocuous fashion, it actually speaks volumes about how different the show might be when it comes back as a series in 2010. The simple reason being the gold, art-deco colour scheme was an intrinsic part of the show, it was layered throughout the production, especially the internals of the TARDIS, and was even suggested it was a Gallifrean colour scheme. It also had a whole 1930's pulp feel.

The changing of the logo almost certainly suggests the gold, art-deco colour scheme will not be as prevalent in the series in 2010? It would seem strange to change the branding external to the show but keep the different colours internal to the show. It would to me anyway.

The Doctor Who production team have also said that one of the reasons they couldn't go to HD was because the sets were not good enough to be exposed to the HD camera. One set specifically being the TARDIS set. As a result, they are taking the opportunity to upgrade the TARDIS set, and the new man in charge likes the look from the Peter Cushing films. Interesting, though I can't remember what they looked like. The internals will probably conform to the new colour scheme of the logo,and presumably, the show. It may be quite radical.

All in all, it looks to me like 2010 might see Doctor Who hit our TV screens under a re-imaging not necessarily on the scale of the 2005 re-launch, but sort of a mini-version of it. It makes sense. The show has always been about re-invention, it hard codes it directly into the mythology of the main character and different series under different writers and actors have had different approaches, themes and styles.

Looking forward to it.

Tonight will probably be the most watched Question Time in the history of the show. If people aren't glued to it tonight they'll be catching up with it on iPlayer as a result of the coverage after the event. I was shocked when I heard the BNP would be appearing on the headline show going on a month ago. I just never thought it would happen. Initially, I thought it was a bad idea and was against it in that 'I will do nothing about it' way. I’ve thought about it a bit more since and I actually think the BNP should be on Question Time.

For me, the reasons I think this are quite simple. First, I think marginalising them actually works for them. There is no better way to allow some of their more disgusting beliefs to exist than to leave them unexposed in the shadows. Is it true they may pull off a great performance and make their party more valid? It’s possible, but then that will have been a failing of the other members of the panel to make an effective argument. This brings me to my second reason. While I'd never vote BNP, and I'm such an inclusive thinker it's ridiculous, if it takes the BNP to be on Question Time to get a sensible immigration debate going then so be it.

I'm not against immigration. I'm against uncontrolled immigration without planning, foresight and long-term strategic aims. I'm also not for using immigration as a blunt instrument to solve other issues, which inevitably just creates new ones. No one is going to ever persuade me immigration without this planning and strategic context is a good thing. Note I use immigration in the widest possible terms here and it has nothing to do with colour and more to do with the needs of a country and planning for future manageability and growth.

It's about intellectual honesty and courage, something we seem to be lacking of late. Ideas need to be challenged and held up to scrutiny, even the slightly or totally insane ones. If you don't do this ignorance gains a foot hold and runs rampant. This is the one concern I do have about tonight Question Time. I don't really hold the people who are appearing alongside Nick Griffin as possessing the intellectual skills or honesty to give the man a good grilling. They'll ridicule him. They'll throw their hatred fuelled policies in his face. They won't intellectually challenge him in a way that enlightens the audience.

I may be wrong. I hope I'm wrong. But then I also know the most intellectually honest and courageous Question Time show I've seen in years was when the audience was made up of teenagers. On this basis, I suspect the opportunity might be slightly missed. This will be a failure of intellectual honesty and courage though, not one of morales in terms of letting the BNP on the show.

I'm all for the big concept. Ideally big brash, high concept ideas used to drive character drama. It's why I like Lost, it's ludicrous in its audacity, but it uses it to construct what are essentially character studies. I'd never heard anything about FlashForward, beyond the vague mutterings of people getting a vision of their lives six months into the future. Needless to say, I sat up and became totally enthralled when I watched the first episode on Channel 5 and learned that the premise is the whole world passing out for two minutes and seventeen seconds and having visions of their lives six months into the future. The realisation of that apocalyptic event was done really well, just the images of the carnage on major roads was enough. The image of a loan man, who didn't pass out (the mystery unfolds), walking amongst the unconscious masses in a stadium was also great.

The premise is very rich, allowing all sorts of ideas to be raised. The mystery behind the event is obviously one, and I'm sure the focus for many, but from my point of view it's the individual things that intrigue. Such as is the central character investigating why just because he saw himself doing it in the future? What about the character who received no vision, does that means he's dead by that point six months down the line? And the wife who sees herself betraying her husband, will she do it even though she saw it and hated herself for it? It's all great stuff. I'm sure we'll get other people dealing with the issue as the episodes unfold.

It's going to be very interesting to see how the series pans out. I'm hoping it's got a bit of a plan with a natural end point. I don't mean planned out in meticulous detail, but some idea of if its a one season affair, or how many seasons they are going to take. The simple reason being these sorts of shows tend to work best with the deadline for hitting the conclusion in mind.

Still, it was a most impressive start. It's also fascinating it's on Channel 5, and airing pretty much in synch with the US. They'll be hoping they've got a hit on their hands, and they may just be right.

After the phenomenal success of the last series of Britain's Got Talent, it was decided that all X-Factor auditions should be performed in front of a live audience, plus the potential contestants would get 2-minutes to sing, I believe. As someone who likes to see things shaken up a bit, I thought this was a good thing. The interesting thing for me is how it would influence who got through to the next round.

Traditionally, the most promising categories in the X-Factor are the young guns, the under 25 male and females. In fact, discounting the first year, and the winner who is never mentioned, we've had two male and two females winners from the under 25 categories. Not only does an over 25 rarely come close to winning the one that did win was a great example of why you shouldn't vote on the 'sob story' as he vanished without trace, probably casting a shadow over that category for some time.

The existence of the audition audience might have changed the prospects of the Over 25 category. They seem like a very strong category this year, possibly the strongest, and one of the key reasons for this is it takes a certain level of age, maturity and confidence in oneself to play the audience and get a stadium-style response from them. It's been the Over 25 category that has done that. I think it's allowed the best of the Over 25 category to play to their strengths, to use their confidence and world experience in the auditions. You can only do so much when stood in front of four judges in a room.

The process hasn't pleased everyone, some people think the audience allows crap people to hide behind the audience, but I can't say I've overly seen this. It may have allowed a good, rather than astounding singer, to get through on audience reaction, but then that's fine, the goal isn't really about finding the best singer, but the biggest star (though the two often combine in the case of the X Factor). What it does do is make the process to the live shows more fluid, it will also mean the live shows will have to change. In the past we've only had the 'stand on the spot performances' to go on, now we'll enter the live shows with at least a handful of people who truly got a stadium response from the audition audience. It'll feel strange, if those personalities get through, to have their live show performances trampled on with endless ballads.

We shall see. First it'll depend on who gets through boot camp and the Judge's houses. In terms of the categories, I'd like to see Cheryl Cole get the groups, just to see, if by some miracle, they could get a win, but the leaks suggest that isn't true.

Yesterday I watched the final episode of The Wire, and it was good. I have to admit, I felt a deep sense of loss when it finished. I'm glad it's over in a way, as it finished as strong as ever, though it could be argued it peaked with series three and four, and it never carried on too long to deteriorate into mediocrity. The loss came from the fact it is a show that makes you think and has a lot to say about human nature, the effect of economic fall out on society, politics and the nature of organisational behaviour. It's that good, it could be said to be partly educational. Fascinating. It's that experience I'll miss. It verges on being profound.

I've been thinking on and off whether I'd purchase the DVD sets. At the moment the answer seems to be no. I'm not sure I'd ever sit down and watch The Wire from start to finish again, and unlike certain types of show, it's not overly worth watching specific episodes or focusing on specific story arcs (they don't exist for one). It might be a one off deal for me. I'm not sure the experience would be the same the second time around. This may change over time.

One thing I know is, everyone should watch The Wire. It's not just a TV show, it's something else more nebulous than that.

When I think of Space Opera, my mind naturally focuses on people zapping from one end of the galaxy to another, from the core worlds to the outer rim, from solar system to solar system without a thought. Space Fleets. Galactic Wars. Aliens. Blasters. All good. The one problem with this is it institutes a certain scale, and once you set a scale certain things fall within and without that scale. In this case, what tends to get missed is the sheer vastness of space. Individual solar systems are massive and each individual planet potentially has the richness of Earth itself. All this is lost as each planet becomes one location of many quickly visited, often simplified to a signature type, such as a water or desert world.

In the back of my mind, I've been thinking lately about space opera on a different scale: no FTL drives, solar system only. At first, I couldn't get my head around it, but as usual, the ever bountiful internet and TV shows come to the rescue. You have to remember the solar system is big. Very big. It's not small. You just have to get your brain into the scale. TV shows like Firefly, Battlestar Galactica and role-playing games like Fading Suns help in this matter, along with Wikipedia.

Technology is always a strange one, as unless you go for the space opera approach of it being a 'galaxy far, far away' or ridiculously far into the future, you face the technological development of today. So, you either completely ignore that or have some sort of 'golden age' that has fallen. I'm thinking fallen 'golden age' due to some war. Who knows what with, but the point is all sorts of mad, out of control technology has been lost enough to be dangerous science, both because it did prove dangerous, to a degree, and because it brought about the war. This re-creates the science on the edge factor and allows for lots of existential risk. As a result, in a way, technology is more advanced but not as far advanced as it should be. Typical space opera.

In the solar system, Earth is obviously the richest asset, as such it has to be as interesting, and potentially capable of enough stories that you never have to leave (just like the real world). You have the chance to mix it up due to the 'fall event'. You could have the different regions of Earth facilitate different story types. Japan is a futuristic wonderland. The US is a mixture of coastal havens and a wasteland with mutant tribes in the centre, complete with 'Amtrak Wars' wagon trains. Europe has also suffered, with city arcologies being dominant. China is potentially the new power. People live in the oceans allowing for 'SeaQuest' situations. Lots of possibilities.

Once we move away from Earth we have numerous options. You can have floating cities just outside Earth orbit. Serious colonisation of the Moon. A half terraformed Mars. The asteroid belt is a hot-bed of mining outfits, a bit like 'oil rigs' but on a massive scale and much lonelier. It may also be a lawless frontier? Hell, you could have floating aerostats cities in the glorious Venusian atmosphere. This then creates the need for space ships to travel between the various locations, thus turning the solar system into a new version of the ancient seas. If the oceans are big enough to play host to navy fleets and trade then the solar system certainly is, accepting space opera factors being in place. You also have the concept of the inner and outer solar system. The inner system before the asteroid belt can be more 'colonised' while the outer system beyond the belt is remote, mysterious and not colonised.

You take a space opera view of space vessels, essentially creating an analogue between solar system travel and the oceans of Earth, either surface or submarine. Not exactly the same, but similar. The vessels are akin to something like Battlestar Galactica, with a strange juxtaposition of technologies, possessing 'artificial gravity', life support, fancy computer interfaces and being capable of having gunfire on board without falling to bits, while at the same time having sensors that offer enough blindness for things to be strange (no sensing out to Jupiter from Mars) and battles interesting. We can also ignore the 'no horizon' of space, etc. Space vessels have that semi-realistic feel of Battlestar Galactica in terms of how they move and use missiles and projectile weapons and have ablative armour not shields. Obviously, some fancy drive exists, say an ION drive, that allows reasonable, but not too fast, travel times within the system and we ignore relativistic effects, navigation problems and the need for shielding. Why does space combat happen so slow like in Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galactica? Usually this is via separating STL from FTL speeds. Hmmm, maybe it's 'just so', after all, Star Wars STL drives are ludicrously fast but battles still go slow!

If a space navy existed, what would they be protecting people from and who could they have occasional spats with? That's the main issue in 'solar system space opera'. Individual nations of Earth? New factions of some sort? It might be more a 'policing' force? I'm thinking old-style political blocks like the EU, an Asian Block, North and South America, etc. Possibly.

Threats? The usual stuff. Fringe science (or re-discovered dangerous science). Apocalyptic cults. Genetic madness. Psychic emergence. Conspiracies. Corporate power. Ancient mysteries. Secret organisations. Aliens. Essentially existential risks. What happens if a damaged alien ship appears in the system? An ancient ruin discovered on Mars? A wormhole on the edge of the solar system? Or an intelligence from the 'Darkness Between the Stars', outside of the suns reach, in deep space, takes an interest? Lots of possibilities.

So, after a bit of breaking the back of it, solar system limited space opera is possible. It may even be a very cool alternative. You may also be able to achieve a rich, less broad brush scale, while sacrificing none of the epic nature intrinsic to Space Opera. It was tasking me, and this is the result of my small, sporadic considerations.

One thing spin-off shows have to do is distance themselves from their very popular parent. Yes, you want to garner some of the parent's audience. Yes, you want to acknowledge the shared universe enough to gain the advantages of that rich fabric. At the same time, the spin-off has to stand on its own, set its own values and, if possible, out shine its parent. This is what all good spin off shows have done, Deep Space Nine and Xena: Warrior Princess both did this well.

Torchwood, over its first two seasons, always fell into the trap of just never coming out of the shadow of its parent. Hard to do, since its parent is Doctor Who, one of the most popular shows in the UK at the moment. My view of the show is explained in Alien Escapades in Cardiff, it's regarding season one but it holds for season two, if slightly less so. Despite holding all the cards: great actors, great sets, a substantial budget, great special effects, and so on, it always punched under its weight and was less than the sum of its parts. The fault was the writing. At times it was like it was using Doctor Who reject scripts. At other times it tried to distance itself by over compensating with sexual content. Not that I'm against that, but when it feel false it doesn't work. The writers' never had the bravery or the skill to jump out and set a great agenda that was Torchwood's own. A few episodes did it, but for the most part it remained something you watched to keep in touch with the Doctor Who narrative (as characters weaved between shows) or the shows potential, rather than its inherent brilliance.

That was until Torchwood: Children of Earth, essentially series three.

In a bold move the BBC decided to make Torchwood event TV, foregoing a regular 12 episode season in favour of 5 one hour episode shown Monday to Friday consecutively. Many people were sceptical, as while it was being promoted to BBC1, the lack of a series proper was seen as a sign of failure. If the ratings are anything to go by it was a bold move that worked. Whether a conscious decisions, or due to the loss of actors intending to transfer to the third season, it doesn't matter.

Torchwood finally became what it always should have been, a mixture of Quatermass-esque mystery and Spooks. It swaps the pulp scientist, broad brush saving 'reality itself' approach of Doctor Who for a much more down to Earth, in every sense of the phrase, darker, political, societal aware show. In Children of Earth, the alien incident is felt, and its consequences impact political decision making and people trying to live their lives. It wasn't Schindler's List, but it was relatively harrowing stuff, and I think this is the ground Torchwood needs to inhibit. The scenes in the final episode feel awful, and the decisions made in the cabinet office about which children to select is chilling. It's adult without going 'look we have sex aliens, we are adult'. It needs to be a show that deals with the slightly more 'realistic' side of things, sort of Batman to Doctor Who's Superman.

Children of Earth also did something else very well: it acknowledge the Doctor Who show, but only in ways that fit into its new way of looking at the world, and never to the extent anyone watching needed to understand the link (the Gwen's speech to the video camera in the final episode has more weight if you watch both shows). This is what all good spin-off shows do, they establish their own lens to see the world through, and filter everything through that. Deep Space Nine's view of the Star Trek universe was never the same as the other shows, and Torchwood won't be the same with respect to Doctor Who. Also, was it me or did Captain Jack try to 'Doctor Who' the alien menace and was found wanting? Not sure if that was the intention, but if it was it was also a parallel only fans of both shows would notice.

Ultimately, it was a good mini-series. While it's only anecdotal evidence it seems to have got some people watching the show who never watched it before, they liked it, and remained absorbed for the whole five episode run. In my view, they should keep the format and always run Torchwood as an event mini-series. The nature of the show works best when they have a big problem to solve, and doing that every week for twelve episodes, without ever leaving Cardiff could have worked, but they never got it to work.

Will there be another dose of Torchwood? I hope so. It would be ironic for the show to find its voice on a signing-off piece.

I've just watched series two of The Wire. I understand the series got a bit of negative press compared to the first series. In a way, I can see why. The series is a bit distributed as the cast of characters grows to ridiculous levels. This is caused by the fact the series introduces the stevedores on the Baltimore docks, but in turn it doesn't drop the characters from the projects. It also introduces a whole range of other criminals in the form of 'The Greeks' organisation. If someone thought the first series of The Wire was too complicated in terms of the number of characters, they'd just go catatonic over series two. I agree a bit, the old Barkstale crowd did feel like an extended epilogue, though I realise I know nothing of what series three is about. I suspect The Wire turns its 'gaze' back on them next season.

What held series two together, and made it work for me, was the humanity of the story, which seemed to work better in this series. This may be a highly personal thing. The story of the stevedores was fascinating, as it did a better job of framing the normal people caught in criminality to try and make themselves a better life. This was true in the projects, but due to their lifestyle it was hard to completely sympathise. This isn't true of the stevedores, they are just trying to keep their way of life intact. I've worked in shipping for a number of years, I've been on docks and container terminals and, of course, the north east did once have a ship building industry which got wiped out. The ending of series two was much more heartfelt, emotional and unfortunate.

Typically, for The Wire, the humanity of the story is also explored through the negative. In the case of series two the whole investigative element of the series is kicked off via a petty vendetta initiated by Major Valchek, one of the most despicable characters in the show, because the secretary of the stevedore's union, Mike Sobotka, got his stained glass window in the local church rather than he did. In any other show, you'd know that Valchek would get what was coming to him eventually, in The Wire it's entirely possibly he'll last it out and get rewarded for it.

Still, just once, I'd like the law enforcement characters to get the bad guy. I know they did it in the first series, but the the best of the bad guys took the fall. In series two it's very much an issue of 'the good bad guys' really losing, and the true criminals getting away completely. I know, typical heroic TV. It doesn't have to be though, surely just once the organisational politics and incompetence could result in a good outcome? Possibly. I doubt it though.

Poor Mike Sobotka. I really liked series two.

I've never been someone to hide my interest in reality TV. I really liked the first three series of Big Brother and I still quite happily watch I'm A Celebrity and X Factor. One show I've never watched is Britain's Got Talent. I think part of the reason why was I never understood the point, I suppose the strength of it, the variety in the acts, put me off. It just seemed to be an exercise in anything goes (which it is).

For the first time I've watched Britain's Got Talent from the beginning.

Okay, it's got all the usual manipulative techniques going on, but these don't tend to bother me. It doesn't bother me that they attempt to weave a narrative out of proceedings as I know they are doing it, and I don't view it that much different to scripted shows. What has surprised me, is the quality of the acts, has it always been of this calibre or is this a particularly choice year? The usual clutch of stupid and novelty acts are there, but once you get past those there has been some really great stuff. This year the dance acts have been astounding. I have no interest in dance acts normally, but 2 or 3 of the dance groups are really clever and doing some really imaginative stuff.

As the semi-finals run this week it's surprising how intense the process is. This is because of two dynamics: (1) the number and quality of the acts and (2) the need to provide 'varied entertainment'. The number and quality means good acts fall by the wayside all the time, they culled lots of them in in order to get those that qualified from 200 or more to 40. Then you have the semi-finals which invariably have more than two good acts in but only two go through. It just feels more brutal than X Factor, in a strange sort of way. This brings me to the second issue, they pick acts for variety and entertainment, this means novelty acts that stand no chance of winning are in the semi-final process when good acts lost out due to being another dance act or the need for some 'comedy'. This is probably the one element that is an unfortunate negative of the shows structure. I mean, come on, a guy who dances badly like Michael Jackson in a Darth Vader outfit?

Of course, there is a sense of inevitability that Susan Boyle is going to win. The fact she's been made famous across the UK, US and YouTube pretty must guarantees her the votes. This is a pity as a part of me thinks one of those dance acts should win. Have to admit, I also think Susan Boyle isn't all there.

It's finished. At last. It was like a herculean effort getting through season seven of 24. I know, I could have just stopped, but Louise likes to see them through and I'm prone to not cut out once I've started. I really did lose interest in whether Tony was a good guy or a bad guy. The switches on that front just got a bit boring. Okay, in the end, it wasn't that bad, he was a man obsessed with the death of his wife, driven to that obsession by the 'world' Jack and him lived in. The final scene of him crawling along the floor to get his gun to deliver the death blow to his target was quite strong, but the journey to it was damned tiring. It didn't help that it was a prodigious leap of narrative logic for him to be alive in the first place. This is a bit of a pity as the new, harder Tony, signified by his shaven head and amazing scowl, isn't a bad addition.

As for the whole moral argument over torture? Jeez, did that ramble in a whole pointless way. The 'world of 24' has always had torture in it. I just accepted it as the narrative framework of the show in the same way I accepted the secret meetings in CTU corridors, and the constant ringing of the phones, etc. Heartless? Possibly, but the things a damned TV show not real life. So, they choose to deal with it? Well, they sort of do, but not really. The question isn't resolved at the end and the final episode even leaves us wondering if our 'moral questioner' character is going to do a Jack. Not sure what the point was. Either change the dynamic of the show so torture never becomes necessary within the narrative or keep it. At the end of series seven nothing had really moved on, leaving us in that horrible middle ground. It's not like they adequately deal with the issues of personal moral decay, which is the other option (Tony came closest).

I was really looking forward to the show being set in Washington. A change of place was a good thing. Well, that's true if you ever got any sense you were in Washington. The series could have been set anywhere to be honest. It had no sense of place. It certainly didn't mine the richness of its location. It rarely matters where 24 is set as it's really set in generic US city-ville.

CTU. I really miss CTU. I'm always one to embrace change so I was quite looking forward to seeing what they'd do once the crutch of CTU was gone. Oh, how I now miss the familiar corridors, bleeping phones and operational politics. They didn't really achieve anything with respect to the loss of CTU. The possibilities in Jack and friends becoming a sort of independent A-Team or Sneakers team, but harder, had potential but this got dropped. It was great while it lasted though. Then we had Jack working for the FBI as well as being independent in a few twists that had the FBI looking for him. I'm not sure the FBI connection works as it carries on the murky and badly done debates over 'breaking the rules for the good of the many' that got boring in this season never mind the next. The other issue was the show lost a lot of its visual look, as they stylised CTU got replaced with 'generic office location' for the FBI. They need to bring back a consistent dramatic crucible that works.

The presidential part of the series was really boring. Well, it started off well and then went downhill quickly. Not interested in the female president or her family issues. This side of the show has only worked half of the time, but they keep doing it. Strangely, this time the presidential drama seemed to separate from the Jack story and take on a life of its own, updates about the mission and getting a basic decision aside. Once this happened it seriously went into banality. I had no interest in the mother and daughter relationship and how that played out. None at all. The hole left by President Palmer continues to be felt.

Apparently, we have a series eight. It's going to be the last one. It's going to be set in New York, which would be quite cool if I had any faith you'd ever get any sense it was actually set in New York. The distinct, cramped nature of that city might mean you do, but I'll not hold my breath. The change in city also suggests the structure of Jack being an independent pulled into events via narrative excuses may also continue, along with the awkward, laboured relationship with the FBI.

Still, I'm betting series eight ends up on our TV.

I'll admit it. I started watching Dollhouse this week largely as an excuse to feed a mild obsession with Eliza Dushku. I'd signed up to her Twitter feed, found her trip around Africa interesting and in a prodigious leap of logic this reminded me that I'd been remiss in giving Dollhouse a shot. That's the immediate back story. While the first episode didn't disappoint, in that within the first ten minutes it had Miss Dushku dancing around in a ridiculously short, white dress the show progress from there and it is intriguing. I've watched two episodes so far.

The premise of Dollhouse is focused on memory wipes and implanting memories and skills. It has influences in The Matrix, Le Femme Nikita and Strange Days while not being like any of them. A mysterious research group known as the Rossum Corporation runs the The Dollhouse, they take on volunteers, in a Le Femme Nikita way of people being in trouble (eluded to in the pilot), wipe their memory so they become docile cyphers and then implant new memories and skills as required for various tasks known as engagements. Eliza Dushku's character is such an Active, named 'Echo', that's pretty much all we know about her other than hints that get woven through the episodes, she spends most of her time with imprinted memories. The predominant type of engagement seems to as the 'perfect girlfriend', essentially a better prostitute. At the same time, they do get put to other uses, in the pilot a client of The Dollhouse has Echo become a skilled hostage negotiator to get his daughter back. In the same episode another Active obviously has the skills of a lethal assassin imprinted.

The dramatic crucible of the series is a very good one. You obviously have the whole issue of implanting memories and the potential for questions as to what constitutes self? How body relates to the mind? And the whole moral arena of what Echo is used for. You have the mystery of Echo, who she is and why she became a member of The Dollhouse, because she can't remember, of course. We also have Alpha, obviously 'patient zero', and the fact he has escaped and seems to be some sort of lethal killer with a grudge along with lots of imprints in his head and a connection to Echo. One of the best elements is each Active is given a handler, and even in the first two episodes the relationship with Echo and her handler, Boyd Langton (played by Harry J Lennix) is very good. Even though it might be thematically similar to the Watcher and Slayer relationship in Buffy, it's suitable different to still be interesting. An effective set of scenes had Echo talking about how she'd found the love of her life (in the opening sequence to the first episode), only to have the engagement wiped, and then for her to say the exact same thing again in a flashback in the second episode, thus revealing her handler sees that emotional joy after most engagements. The characters of Topher Brink (Fran Kranz), the scientist doing the wiping, and Whiskey (played by Amy Acker), the physician for the Actives, are also intriguing, but need to be mined in future episodes.

We shall see how the show progresses, even in the worst case scenario it'll probably still work on the basis of watching Eliza Dushku go through a ridiculous amount of costume changes, some of them involving short skirts. I suspect it'll deliver more as it is a clever set-up. It also has the usual staple of Joss Whedon shows of just making the most simplest of dynamics and scenes between characters a joy to watch, in my view anyway.

When I watch Lost I think of Twin Peaks, and to some extent The Prisoner. I think of these shows together for two reasons, especially with respect to Twin Peaks and Lost.

In the first case all three shows are slightly odd, not the easiest to follow, and don't necessarily hang together 100% if you analyse them too much. On the hang together front I don't really care, with shows like Lost, genre shows especially, it's about hanging together enough. Complex, serial science fiction shows rarely hang together 100% due to elements of them being made up in the moment, just look at Battlestar Galactica. People have different expectations when it comes to consistency and 'plot hole' quotas so I can understand this.

The second similarity, especially with Lost and Twin Peaks is the bait and switch effect, in that people didn't start watching it on the principle it was a genre show. They started watching it on the principle of it being a character study of survivors of a plane crash on an island. In fairness it still is a character study, and it's been a very good one, and how people didn't realise they weren't getting a genre show when in the third episode Locke was walking on the island despite getting on the plane in a wheelchair I don't know. Still, when it got a bit more science fiction it put a lot of people off. This happened in Twin Peaks, as the surreal elements of the show ramped up and the killer was proven to be an ancient, evil spirit (albeit possessing her father).

Needless to say, the fact the show is now focusing on the core cast, who are now back in time living with the Dharma Initiative in 1977, has probably ejected any of the non-genre fans if they haven't left already.

Personally, I still love Lost. As a series about character relationships its really good, though I am missing the way they used to use flashbacks (and forwards) to do these character studies, which aren't present in series four. I'm also loving the larger background of the cast being stuck in a titanic struggle between two men over the fate of the island: Benjamin Linus and Charles Widmore. This has came more into focus in series three and as we learn more about the history of the island due to characters moving through it in the early episodes of series four (Charles Widmore was part of the group that would become the hostiles back in the fifties), it's got even better as a backdrop. Benjamin Linus is also one of the most fascinating characters on TV.

What's fascinating about the characters being back in time is it changes the dynamic between the usual leaders, with Locke not being back in time the usual leader would be Jack (they battled for the position constantly representing opposing views between faith and science), but instead it seems to be Sawyer who has carved a life within the Dharma Initiative over the three years they've spent there. Don't even get me started on the 'love square' between Jack, Sawyer, Kate and Juliet. More fascinating, is the core Lost cast will encounter the young Benjamin Linus, who will betray the Dharma Initiative to the hostiles (thus becoming 'The Others' the Lost cast meet when they crash). Not only that it begins to explain why Benjamin Linus is often so far ahead in the political games, he has in his head memories of meeting the Lost cast in 1977.

It's good stuff so far, and the whole realisation of the Dharma initiative in terms of time and place is really clever, especially since you've been seeing images of it through orientation videos (in the present) for a while.

After four series, Battlestar Galactica, one of the finest genre shows ever to hit our TV screens, has finally aired its concluding episode. It was never going to be perfect, mostly due to the way the show started to break down through series four, just like the Galactica itself, but it was inevitable it would go out with a bang and leave controversy in its wake.

Despite its imperfections, born of the need to wrestle certain 'out of control' or 'ill considered' plot threads back into the box, I liked it.

Warning: The following contains spoilers.

The first thing that has to be said is the military awesome of the finale is...awesome. The special effects budget was obviously saved for this episode, as we have lots of external special effects shots and even Cylon Centurions fighting in large numbers. It must have cost a fortune. Does it beat the sheer audacity of the liberation of New Caprica? Probably not, that just had something due to the stakes involved and the build up to it, plus the 'oh shit' moment wasn't really telegraphed, so the Galactica dropping into orbit was more of a surprise than the ramming move featured in the finale. It does have a pure destruction thing going on though. Still, it is hi-octane stuff, and delivers with respect to the military science fiction element of the show.

As for the miraculous discovery of our Earth? I was surprised by it more than anything else. I had conflicting views of whether the show would have a positive or negative ending. I felt it would have a positive ending, as despite the trials and mistakes the people of the colonies made, they often made the right decisions eventually, or the institutions meant to maintain order and justice actually worked despite being put under stress. At the same time, the second half of series four was so depressing, and they'd already found 'Earth in their setting' to be a nuclear wasteland, I was having trouble imagining how it could end positively. Peace with the Cylons yes, but a world to live on? Personally I though it was a good way for the show to end all things considered, but it doesn't feel as powerful as it should due to the time limits in rounding up the plots and the way it interacts with the devastating discovery of the 'real Earth'.

Everything else is pretty much an exercise in cramming everything that needs resolving into three episodes. This has the usual problems of things being resolved too quickly or not as strongly as one would suspect, some of that is driven by the fact ideas got introduced earlier in the series that have been dropped. There is some good stuff, such as Baltar's personal story and some rather bland stuff, such as the very weak resolution of what the 'Opera House' predicts. The influence of Baltar and Six was also watered down significantly, despite the 'beings in their heads' proving to actually be angels, which makes it a bit odd. I did like the flashbacks to New Caprica. Starbuck just vanishing was probably one of the few ways they could have handled it. Overall it works, but it's probably helped by the speed of it all.

Ultimately, I think Battlestar Galactica suffered due to its 24 episode format, it would have been better utilising shorter runs like the first season or HBO shows like The Wire. This is because the series was at its best as a series of mini-series, always being its most awesome during runs of episodes concerning Kobol, The Pegasus, The Presidential Election, New Caprica, Baltar's Trial and so on. During these mini-series within a series we got to see humanity under pressure, trying its best in great adversity and studying issues such as military power, democracy, human weakness, the nature of freedom and hope, religion, faith and how these things interact under extreme pressure to survive. A 12-episode run would have focused the series as a whole on 2-3 such miniseries a season, and saved us a lot of the significantly less important and powerful single episodes. No serial show should have to fill 24 episodes.

Whatever its failings it's still a very good show, and in its best moments one of the best aired. I do feel that most of them happened in the first three seasons though.

..because it's boring me stupid. It seems the strategy adopted by the writers of Battlestar Galactica is to make season four such a turgid, miasma of misery that you come to not actually care how the series concludes and just want someone to put a bullet in the head of the show so the pain can stop. It's an 'interesting' approach, but I can't say it's one I'm enjoying.

I realise Battlestar Galactica is, to a large extent, about our flaws as a race, and that's what makes it good, but it wasn't just about that. It was also about our ability to rise above those flaws despite being under extreme pressure to survive. The series actually felt more heroic because we, seen through the eyes of the fleet, persevered, survived and ultimately dealt with our problems. Now we just get the negatives. It's lost the moments of brilliance, the inspirational actions and the decisions that ultimately stand for what's right. It's logical why, the whole 'leap of faith' that was keeping them together has proved to be a mirage. Earth is a nuclear wasteland and was a Cylon world to boot, due to the thirteenth colony being Cylons created by the twelve tribes on Kobol. It's bit like seeing the end of Planet of the Apes and then getting three more films of Charlton Heston crying about the end of all things. They even rub it all in by having the Galactica fall to bits, just in case characters committing suicide and lying around in drugged out states in the corridors wasn't enough.

How pathetic and depressing do they want to go, abandoning the Galactica before the end? They seem to be doing everything they can to say this is going to end badly, and we are not even going to let the Galactica go out with a bang.

If it does have an overbearingly negative, nothing positive to be pulled from it ending, I just don't see the point, because that isn't really how the series has gone until season four. The institutions that have been clung to and the decisions by individuals have always balanced out the propensity for humanities faults to a degree that at least gave hope.

We shall see, all that's left is the 3-part final episode.

A while back I found The Guild on the internet. It's a TV show, delivered in five or so minute episodes, about a group of six MMO players in a guild. It's very well done, very professional and very funny. The amazing thing is, the show is now available in its entirety on Xbox Live, and in HD to boot. Myself and Louise have watched series two over the last two or three days and its excellent. Louise doesn't play MMO games, it transfers that well. It had us in stitches anyway. It truly is a work of 5-minute per episode genius.

You can get it on the internet, or watch it in HD on Xbox Live if you have it.

The Wire was one of those shows I was aware of, but never actually watched. Why? Simply because it hasn't been aired on terrestrial TV, as far as I know, and if it's been aired on a satellite channel (FX, I believe) it either wasn't very well advertised to draw you to FX or I've just not had satellite TV at the time. It's also true to say, despite plaudits being quite loud across the internet, it's ratings haven't been fantastically high and neither has it been lauded with awards. If anything can be called a 'hidden' work of genius, then The Wire is it.

I've recently watched series one on Virgin on-demand. Well, I've watched series one apart from the final episode, due to Virgin's strange choice to only make 12 episodes available.

The Wire is hard to describe, and I'm sure there are descriptions available on the internet that do it better than I'm about to do, but it is a very good show. The main reason it's good can be summed up by the fact it drops most of the accepted norms of TV and embraces about everything that is seen as a death sentence under 'conventional wisdom'. It is serialised. It doesn't hold the audiences hand, it's particularly brutal on that front. It has a ridiculously large cast. A core of the time it's like a treatise on dysfunctional organisational behaviour in action. All these things added together do produce something that is a work of genius, fascinating on a number of levels.

To call The Wire a police drama is a bit insulting, but the main locus for the drama is the set-up of a task force to bring down the Barksdale organisation in the projects of Baltimore. I say the task force is a locus but in reality The Wire covers not just the task force, but the organisational dysfunction of various institutions (even to the extent of the task force's set-up and acceptance), the people living in the projects and those involved in the Barksdale organisation. It weaves all this together and shows how they interact What results is a brilliant and fantastic mosaic that is almost documentary in nature. It's not. It is a drama. It's real people, living lives within these institutions and environments. It's not perfect, despite this approach, with supposedly non-stereotypical characters you can still find a drunk cop, a stripper with a heart and the up and coming drugs 'lieutenant' who you just know is going to rebel due to his morals (and it looks like he might, unless things take a drastic turn in the final episode). At the same time, this is me finding some 'common ground' with other shows, the fabric weaved is fantastic.

I've said the series is brutal on the audience, and it is, as it just doesn't do anything, no narrative tricks, or scriptwriting conceits, to make the network of characters and institutions easier to understand. It's not that it's hard to understand, which is a testament to the brilliant writing, it just doesn't explain anything. It just happens. Quite often things happen based on something that just happened two episodes ago without flashbacks or scenes re-capping. This includes critical character narratives as things aren't laboured in anyway. An inept cop becomes one of the assets of the team, but no scene focuses on this, the audience is left to understand this due to events, and subsequently when politics removes team members with the intent of leaving incompetents in the task force, the audience is left to understand the institutional stupidity meant the best team members had been left behind. That's a simple example.

One of the elements that I found fascinating is the effect of institutions on individuals. It is pretty much organisational behaviour 101 and it should be recommended viewing for such courses. This makes it sound dry and boring, but it isn't as it's woven into the overall fabric. The decisions made by individuals in organisations due to incorrect targets, political pressures and the protection of their own careers (as well as jobs worths) is fantastically done and scarily realistic.

At the moment it's safe to say I wish I could 'series link' the whole of The Wire, currently being repeated on FX, or order the boxed set of all five series.

So, I'm watching Skins series three, and initially it wasn't working for me. Skins made an inevitable, but no less brave decision, to completely change the core cast for series three. It was inevitable because the format of the series is 16 -17 year old teenagers, so on the assumption each series is a year the core cast can only ever be the same for two series. Brave because one of the strengths of Skins was the very strong characters. It's what drove the series and was pivotal to its format. Each series opens with a story about all of the teenage group and then moves forward with episodes, named after the characters, focusing on each character. It's safe to say, changing the cast is a major deal and everything was on the line.

It wasn't fully working for me until episode four which focused on Pandora.

In truth, the second episode wasn't too bad either, focusing on Cook, but it certainly hit its stride with episode four which is probably my favourite Skins episode so far. It was funny, odd, sexy and dramatic while at times verging on the surreal. It was just an excellently delivered package.

As of episode five though, the main question is: Effy, what the hell are you doing? Okay, I realise she has the whole self-destructive thing going on. This means she'll always choose the wrong guy based on the fact she persuades herself she'll only screw up the relationship with the good one, as well as a strong belief she's not worth it. Still, Cook? I admit it, characters like Cook will inevitably get a reaction from me. They get a reaction not so much because of their existence, but more because it takes so long for someone to actually stand up to them and put them in their place. Cook needs to get a good kicking. If not literally, then he needs to have his life become meaningless and pointless and go and metaphorically dies somewhere...alone. That's a bit, harsh maybe he'll have an epiphany and discover the error of his ways, but what I really want is for people to stop taking his shit. Stand up to the little shit, to put it bluntly. Freddie went a small step towards that, but he should have taken a giant leap.

One of the funniest things about episode five was the grand 'coming together' of Freddie and Effy, more Freddie's declaration of intent anyway. Effy was supposed to be in a water park but it looked more like a lake. Anyway, the whole scene had obviously been digitally altered to make the sky more blue, but in truth it looked very cold. They look at each other, Freddie dives in from the edge, Effy from her place at the centre and they kiss when they meet. Needless to say they looked bloody freezing.

I am eagerly awaiting the fall of Cook. In the meantime, Effy? Sort yourself out.

For a while now there has been a bit of an anti-hero thing going on in TV-land. We've obviously had 24 and Jack Bauer for a while now, the man willing to do anything to stop the terrorists and save the country, but in the last couple of years we've had the serial killer hero of Dexter. I'm not saying I fully agree with the philosophy of 24, though it makes good drama when it works, but I must admit I don't really gel with Dexter. Whatever he does, I can't escape the fact he's a serial killer. Anyway, we're talking about Jack Bauer.

There wasn't a series of 24 in 2008, due to the writers' strike, instead they squeezed in a TV movie called 24: Redemption. The point of the film seems to have been to establish some groundwork for series seven, probably critical after the weak series six and the series being off air a whole year, and to provide some transition and growth for the character of Jack Bauer.

The plot is quite simple. Jack has been wondering the world all Grasshopper-style trying to find some meaning in his life. He's also been dodging a summons to a grand jury hearing who are investigating law breaking and torture at CTU. A bit strange at first since it seemed to be the modus operandi of the show and business as usual for the intelligence services. A regime change must have occurred in the fictional Washington and, I suspect, the real one thus influencing the philosophy of the show. Anyway, he finds himself in the fake South African country of Sengala, at an orphanage run by an old friend who is played by Robert Carlyle. Needless to say a bloodthirsty general is using kids as soldiers and starts to take over the county. Jack is drawn into getting the orphanage kids to the capital city and out via the embassy. We also get the usual politics back home with John Voight supplying weapons to Sengala and the transition of power to a female American President.

What 24: Redemption delivers is a pretty standard Rambo-style story about an action hero trying to get the prisoners, missionaries or orphans from one place to another while being pursued by the bad guys. We even get the 'hero diving a away from a hastily produced RPG shot'. It's acted professionally, but it's nothing outstanding. I certainly don't understand the various award nominations it's received in this area. The action is competent, but again nothing special. If the film has anything going for it it's the fact it was filmed in Africa, which does give the whole thing a strong authentic, atmospheric and different feel, but that doesn't carry the film alone. As TV movies go, it's good, but when 24 is good it's very exciting, tense and has a certain level of scale and pace and 24: Redemption is just a bit pedestrian and by the numbers. It doesn't even feel like 24 as they have kept the clock at the adverts but in every other way the narrative is filmed very conventionally.

I'm also a bit lost regarding the whole point of it. Jack seems to be trying to find himself, which is fair enough, as he was a bit lost at the end of series six. I'm not sure he finds anything, it's certainly not clear that he did. In fact, his friend dies and he ultimately gets played and has to return to the US in handcuffs in order to be 'betrayed as he would see it' by the people he 'performed his actions for'. I'm not sure what the character growth or change is for Jack Bauer. It may have ramifications in series seven, but within the film itself it's a bit lightweight. When you do this sort of thing, it needs be an event, bigger in scale and offering something new. I'm not sure 24: Redemption meets that criteria.

It's not a significant event. It doesn't do anything transformational with the character. It's all down to series seven.

I'm a bit behind as usual, but I've finally progressed beyond the pilot of Fringe and I've now watched the first five episodes (inclusive of pilot). It's a very slick show, and really is a modern day take on the X-Files, and that isn't meant as a derogatory comment. Broadly, the show serves the same purpose as the X-Files, but instead of it being UFO conspiracies it swaps it for the weird inventions and technology of cutting edge scientists, some might even say mad scientists, and the mysteries surrounding the nebulous patten.

The fact the mysteries of the show are essentially science on the edge, on the fringe, some might even say pulp science, is brilliant. It's brilliant because it allows for almost any type of mystery as almost anything can be given a suitable pseudo-science explanation and sound plausible enough and even consistent. They've done a very good job of making the madness feel real so far. It also provides us with Dr Walter Bishop, who is just an excellent character and brilliantly portrayed by John Noble. He's a contemporary pulp 'mad scientists' always living on the edge of brilliance and madness and compassion and cold-hearted progress. He's even spent time in a mental institution, though thankfully it's far removed from a stereotypical 'Hannible Lector' experience. Good stuff. While you're pretty sure he's a compassionate guy whose just a bit over the edge, you're never completely sure exactly what he'd do, or has done, in order to push the boundaries of science. He even manages to portray an 'off the wall' personality without it feeling trite and boring. The writing is also very good, as his character does consistently manage to come with things from left field, whether it be discoveries or just his brain making strange observations.

The best episode I've seen so far has been The Arrival, which concentrated on a strange metallic pod that seemed to burrowing through the ground resurfacing years apart. This episode even had a 'Man in Black' in it. Not Air Force agents in black suites Men in Black, but the proper wacky ones who wonder around in Fedoras, black suites and seem ageless, bald and hairless. In truth it seems to be only one person, but he is known to appear at strange events related to The Pattern. The link with the past of Dr Walter Bishop and his son was also well done, hinting at something larger and more prophetic. The presence of this Man in Black, complete with mysterious origin, and it actually working fine in such a contemporary show is a sign of how well it's written. It just works, and feels part of the fabric rather than an oddity. It pays tribute to the theory of film and act everything completely straight, and surround it with real character issues, and you can get away with murder.

I'm going to continue watching it. It's a great investigative show, with excellent characters and really good pulp science mysteries. The overall story could also be quite interesting, but how much they'll deliver on that is yet to be seen. They haven't really touched upon the fact Dr Walter Bishop had an equal partner during his 'pioneering' work since the pilot, and that man set-up Massive Dynamics, a company with an elusive mad scientist at its helm. I'm hoping they are going to take the route of two 'mad geniuses' in conflict somewhere along the line.

At six seasons 24 is showing its age. Most TV series begin to show their age by this point, assuming they even survive the initial burst of creativity often seen over the first three seasons. 24 has particular problems due to its structure, which tends to leave it less flexibility for changing things and re-inventing itself as it always has to be in real-time or you lose the point. I was very surprised by season five, which gave series two a run as the best one so far. Season six brings things crashing down to earth, as it's pretty wild, random and badly structured stuff.

Season six felt like a slog to get through.

Warning: The following contains spoilers.

Over the whole tangled mess of day six the only real great bit was the opening four episodes. The return of Jack from China to be used as a pawn to end a series of terrorist attacks and the shocking ending of episode four which saw a suitcase nuclear weapon go off in Los Angeles all worked well. The nuclear weapon was particularly well done, as it was set-up as possible but was still unexpected. You expect something pretty big if the writers have allowed a nuclear weapon to actually go off in a populated area so early on? Regrettably what follows is a very random story structure that never really reaches that high point again.

The structure of the day was just too random and chaotic. It shot off in different directions. At times it seemed to be doing this to conclude strands of narrative and characters from the various series. We even get elements that introduced an extended epilogue to the stories of President Logan, his wife and Aaron Pierce. It had a bit of a last series vibe about, though I have no idea if this was the intention. We had the mastermind behind the unexplained final layer of the onion from series five passed on to us as Jack Bauer's family, the ginger bloke who melts in Robocop was apparently his brother. Whether they intended this from the inception or not, if felt forced and ridiculous. The whole terrorist plot is also completed by episode seventeen like it just ran out of steam a whole seven episodes from the end. We than get the whole hunt for the 'essential circuit board', Jack's father coming back into it, the Chinese re-appearing and the quintessential destruction of or raid on CTU and so many forced 'alliance' changes it gets ridiculous. While all the elements are standard 24 fair, they just didn't work together and seemed thrown together hastily to keep the rails in front of the train.

A core of the material had been covered before as well. While the presidential side of the story with President Wayne Palmer was well acted and presented, the whole idea of the Vice President trying to remove the President due to differences on how the crises should be handled (with the Vice President obviously being the hawk in the situation) had been done very well in series two and didn't really need re-treading. It had difference nuances and details but it was similar enough. It also suffered from the very chaotic structure, with Wayne Palmer being victorious in this battle, after dragging himself from hospital, only then to collapse and the Vice President gain control anyway. 24 always pushes things close to 'roll your eyes' territory, this went past it.

The main plot with the nuclear suitcase bombs, wasn't a direct re-tread, but we'd had the terrorists with nuclear weapons set-up before in series two, and again it was done very well in that season. They even released a nuclear weapon in series two, albeit a character sacrificed themselves to ensure it went off harmlessly in the desert. This was probably why the mushroom cloud had to be seen over Los Angeles this time, as the cloud itself wasn't dramatic enough due to series two.

We also got too many superfluous relationships with characters introduced this season or halfway through it and as a result the audience just doesn't care. I didn't care about Milo loving Nadia and I certainly don't care about her strange 'attraction out of nowhere' with Doyle the very strange looking head of field operations. The relationship between Chloe and her ex-husband is only remotely more interesting. To be fair, a lot of these elements are script padding and drama generators that don't work.

The series was also very brutal. The use of torture and the anti-hero nature of 24 can get a bit much over the course of six series. What was once fresh, new and pushing the envelope just becomes a standard trope. This is in itself a bit scary. I have no idea whether it was by design or by accident but the torture scenes seemed less perfunctory and much more brutal, intense and personal this season. It didn't really work. It crossed a line and it became uncomfortable rather than a necessary evil that moves the story along. You could say the latter is worse, but it isn't for me.

It's probably the worst season so far. It was certainly the one that engendered the most feeling of having to slog through it rather than slamming each disk in to see what happened next. Ultimately, it became a bit of a trial.

I am mildly interested to see if the show just continues on as normal or tries to re-invent itself in some way for series seven. I think it needs to. While the nature of the show means it has to keep the real-time format and Jack Bauer, I'd suggest everything else is up for grabs. I understand CTU doesn't exist and the series is set in Washington, which is a good start, but I also know one of the main characters from series one to five, who died in series five, has been brought back, so I'm in two minds about series seven.

Recently we watched the fifth series of 24 and we watched the fourth series some time back. What these two series showed was two extremes of the way the show is written. The majority of US shows aren't written to some great, grand plan. 24 is a special case due to its real-time nature and the fact it covers only 24 hours. This means that the show can radically change over time and pretty much everyone doesn't know the final creation until the very end. This method created something pretty good in series five, but resulted in the worst season in series four.

Both series are dealt with here due to the elapsed time since watching series four and due to the fact a narrative arc of sorts connects them due to President Charles Logan and Jack's relationship with Audrey Raines.

If you don't want to read any further series four is probably the worst of all of them so far (series 1-5) and series five is pushing very close to series two for being the best one.

Warning: The following contains spoilers.

The main problem with series four is the structure, it has too many escalating parts. A terrorist known as Marwan kidnaps the Secretary of Defence but this turns out to be a cover for the plan to meltdown all the nuclear power plants across the United States. This wasn't the end of it and Marwan also had in play a plot to shoot down Air Force One, which succeeded. Not satisfied with that Marwan played out his plan to steal the nuclear football so he can launch a nuclear missile at a US city. The whole thing was more preposterous than a Matthew Reilly novel, which is saying something. Apparently, Marwan was intended to be in a handful of episodes but they liked the actor so much they turned him into the main villain. The unfortunate consequence of this was the ever escalating, ridiculous plots of a single terrorist mastermind as the writers tried to build the bridge fast enough in front of the runaway train. It didn't really work. 24 always exists on the edge of credibility, but series four lost the plot. This cast a shadow over the whole of the series as the ability to take it seriously was completely lost.

The opposite is true of season five, as the fact the writers and actors don't know how things are going to go really worked. This is because as the acts revealed additional layers of the plot the actors had performed the previous act on a different understanding. While this could be said to be a 'cheap trick', it worked really well in terms of the dramatic revelations, which is part of the point of 24. As an example, the revelation of the fact President Charles Logan is a villain is a complete surprise because the actor believed it was one of his staff when that layer was revealed (as the fact his staff member was his patsy wasn't known by anyone at the time). The structure of series five was well paced and while Logan is no President Palmer, he did put the Presidential side of 24 back on the map, albeit as a villain. It also helped that season five was very well paced.

Series five also manages to route Jack through a series of great high profile sequences without falling into the faults of series four. It manages to feel believable and fantastically audacious. He becomes embroiled in a hostage sequence at an airport (a cover to retrieve lethal gas) as well having to hijack a plane which he is ultimately forced to land on a highway so it isn't shot down by the US Air Force. Then you have the final sequence on a Russian Nuclear Submarine. All great cinematic stuff while just pushing, but not breaking, the weird envelope of '24 plausibility'. The whole piece had a great cinematic scale.

The character relationships are the same, as they work in series five, but don't work in series four. This is even true for relationships with characters that span the two series. Jack's relationship with Audrey Raines just doesn't seem to work in series four, the most you can say is it's serviceable. It really comes into its own in series five providing a great heart to the series and it's actually quite sad when they are separated again at the end after briefly thinking things had all worked out. Some of this is due to the framing of the relationship as the series five starts. President Logan is annoying, ineffectual and while being weak and whining was the role he was meant to play in series four it's does pale in comparison with his excellent performance in series five as pretty much the main villain. One of the few saving graces of season four was the relationship between Tony Almeida and Michelle Dressler, both of them having gone in different ways at the end of season three, and them finding a way to be together again was one of the strands in series four that kept you watching.

Another very well executed element of series five is the relationship between Jack Bauer and Christopher Henderson, played by Peter Weller. Henderson is set-up as Jack's ex-boss which he busted for conducting illegal activities, this establishes a situation in which Jack meets his equal for ingenuity and 'always having a new option' and it works really well.

The five series even managed to find time to provide a conclusion of sorts to Jack's relationship with his daughter, probably in acknowledgement that it was getting a bit ridiculous she was being mentioned but never seen after exiting the series in season three.

After series three, which was pretty good, but hardly consistent, I was expecting things to get progressively worse. While this was true of series four, which is probably the weakest so far, series five was really impressive and came as a bit of a surprise. It's just a pity you do have to suffer series three to get maximum benefit out of it.

Interestingly, the speculation around the new Doctor Who actor seems to be coalescing around black actors, and to a lesser extent female actors. While some white male actors have been mentioned they seem to be running behind now with the exception of David Morrissey. The trouble with the David Morissey option is I'm expecting his portrayal in the Christmas special to be some sort of 'special situation' or a future regeneration we never get to see. Why? Simply because a number of good rumours have surfaced now that describe Morissey's Doctor having to have all his other regenerations explained to him (complete with actually seeing the previous actors) in the Christmas special. This indicates some sort of special status.

Personally, I have no problem if the next Doctor is black. If he can radically change appearance to the degrees he has, even to the point of gaining a northern accent, there isn't really that much to suggest he can't change skin colour. It always raises the same old questions about whether it should be done just for diversity, or whether the concept of black Time Lords even makes sense, but my view on this is none of it overly makes sense so anything goes. The same thing happened to a degree when the first black Vulcan showed up on Star Trek, with lots of people debating for way too many hours and with way too much vigour that it didn't make sense due to the nature of the planet Vulcan for their to be black and white Vulcans.

As for The Doctor regenerating and becoming a woman? I can't find myself being overly bothered about this either, and like most things it'll purely come down to how it is written and performed. I think it throws up a few more wrinkles in that The Doctor has been a male protagonist for so long it would seem odd, and not exactly precedented for him to change sex. I believe they did it briefly during a comic relief sketch during which numerous actors took on the role momentarily, including Joanna Lumley. The only thing I am sure of it can't be Catherine Tate. It just can't. I didn't mind her as a companion for one season, but I suspect I might have got a bit sick of her for two, and any thought of her playing The Doctor would just irritate me. Besides, it would take some odd, left field sort of madness to explain it all, while I'm sure such babble could be summoned considering the end of season four, I'd still rather not see it. Now, Catherine Tate as a future villain I'd be all for.

If I was really pushed I'd probably put my support in for the character remaining male, not out of some strange sense of continuity or a need to analyse what is realistic, but just because I can't help but think that in this day and age it's young males who lack good fictional role models not the other way around, so let's just keep one of them. I may be wrong though. It would be interesting to see whether a change to a female Doctor would be viewed as a positive move by female fans and by what age groups? Though not that interesting to go and 'look'.

The X Factor semi-final was amazing, probably the best semi-final for some time. This is a testament to the quality of the contestants this year. I can't even contemplate how fantastic it would have been if Laura White and Austin Drage had been in the final instead of Diana Vickers and the diminutive little Irish lad. People knock shows like the X Factor, and that is their right, but no one can really argue about the talent they produce in a general sense. It certainly spotlights the myth that great talent gets discovered anyway. The contestants have proved to be significantly better than the established talent appearing on the show for a number of weeks now.

Anyway, thankfully the correct people went through to the final in that Alexandria and JLS didn't get voted out. The risk now is that the diminutive Irish guy pulls through to win on the likeability factor and the fact he was crying like a girl because his girl friend was knocked out last night. People might just love that and vote for him out of some sense of narrative correctness. If there is any justice in the world Alexandria should win, she has been putting performances in week after week, and not just the typical ballads either, that give the best in the world a run for their money. At the same time, I'd be fine with JLS winning, as it's highly unlikely Alexandria will be left to rot without a record contract if she doesn't win. JLS were very good this week and are certainly the first band who might just clinch it. Of course, I'll not be buying any of their albums, I'm in it just for the thrill of the competition.

What did we do for the half an hour between the main show and the results show? We half watched the Extra Factor and played Top Trumps. A bit old school, but who could resist Mullet Power Top Trumps? Are you bored with the old classics of planes and cars? Even getting a bit sick of the Fandom-friendly options like Marvel and Buffy Top Trumps? If you are, there is nothing better than basing the game around top mullets. It'll get old very quick, but it was very funny the first time around just because of the pictures and the categories consisting of classics like Strength in Length and Mullet Power, rounded out with Colour, Style and Special Skill all with humorous sub-headings.

You can also get Minger Power Top Trumps apparently, but they've not crossed our path.

Season two of The Big Bang Theory has hit the UK airwaves again, and it's as good as usual. I think it's often really funny, but mostly just fascinating for its mixture of pop culture references and its unerringly accurate, if slightly over the top, portrayal of a certain brand of geek social norms and culture. It's slightly heightened for effect, but anyone who doesn't think there isn't a strong vein of truth in how the characters in The Big Bang Theory approach things, interact and discuss topics, hasn't embedded themselves in an IT environment (there is always one) or been to science fiction conventions (there is always quite a few).

The best line in the series so far is 'what happens in costume at Comic Con stays at Comic Con', which is hilarious because of its frightening accuracy. I've not been to Comic Con, but in my younger years I've been to plenty of the UK equivalents: Star Trek and Science Fiction media conventions. Everyone has an image of such events, and they are quite often both very accurate and very wrong. The reason for this is their was always two stories to such events. One conforms to the expected norms of socially challenged people getting together to have anal conversations about their favourite TV shows, watching ridiculous amounts of episodes (this was at a time when getting them from the states was a major deal) and dressing up as their favourite characters. The other side of was quite different to what most people suspect, in that it was groups of people coming together, with surprisingly low inhibitions levels, once they get away from the confining standards of banal modern life, and just having a right good party. What both these views often shared was the fancy dress element. On one side it was very socially challenged people being a bit anal, the other side to it was people just enjoying having a grand Halloween party four times a year rather than once. After all, most people have such high inhibition levels they won't even do it once.

Costumes have a strange effect. Why do you think people used to have masked balls? They tend to reduce inhibitions even further. They can take on a sexual angle, with even the most mild-mannered geek woman suddenly deciding to ware the skimpiest outfits known to man, either due to walking around in a towel (don't ask, it's a Dax thing on Deep Space Nine) or as a Xena Amazon or even as a slave girl, even it did mean being painted green if going for the Orion option. There was always Princess Leia. A core should have kept themselves covered, but it wasn't by far the case for all. Then you have the small minority of cross-dressing folk. Hence the comment on The Big Bang Theory. It happens. In the semi-darkness it's all too easy to mistake that 80's Madonna wannabe for a woman, when in fact he's male. Luckily, in real life, most of these mistakes are discovered pretty early on.

Still, 'what happens in Comic Con stays at Comic Con' is pretty damned funny. Honest, but maybe you have to have 'been there'.

It's long been the wisdom that big fantasy productions cost too much to put on TV. Well, that's the excuse they often roll out anyway. I'm just not sure I agree with it. Let's get some context first. I'm not suggesting the BBC could produce something like the three Lord of the Rings films in all their glory and put them on our televisions screens. What I am suggesting is there is a scale here and it's not Lord of the Rings movies or nothing, and British TV comes surprisingly close to it already, it's just no one wants to make the not so large leap.

Look at what the British TV does very well: the costume drama?

There is innumerable examples of great, epic and damn costly costume dramas produced for British television over the years. We have the usual BBC fair adapting Dickens and other period pieces, and then we have the grand action productions like Sharpe and Hornblower. These are significant productions involving lots of actors, sometimes epic location shoots and amazingly detailed costumes and period work. They don't come cheap. Did you watch the making of documentary for the last Sharpe instalment? They filmed the damned thing in numerous locations in India. If you then throw in the joint efforts with US cable channels and you have even better examples like Rome and The Tudors, these are particularly fine in their production values and intensity of the drama and acting.

My question is this: how much of a leap is it to turn one of those costume drama efforts into a fantasy production? If you ignore the lack of understanding in available writing staff, or any bias that might exist about the inherent quality of 'historic' over 'fantasy', I don't think there is much difference?

This is one of the big mistakes that is often made, an assumption that fantasy is that much different from historic drama. It's not, even in the most extreme case like Lord of the Rings what you had was a historic costume drama about a war, it just happened to be a history that never happened. How much difference is there really between producing regular TV films of Hornblower compared to one about a pirate crew encountering mysterious locations and other shenanigans? Nothing much in terms of location work and costumes. True, you'd need a special effects budget, but it has been repeatedly shown that massive, high concept CGI work isn't necessary to be successful here, the subtle and the scary can work just as well if everything else is in order.

Take The Tudors as another example. Very well produced and acted and the intensity of the story based on passions, power-plays and rivalries is fantastic. It's not that great a leap to see how that could be transferred to a fantasy setting and be just as engaging without necessarily having to cost a great deal more. How different is The Tudors to a fantasy series set in a Warhammer Fantasy-style setting, really? Especially since it it is a 'fantasy' version of Europe anyway. I don't mean literally Warhammer Fantasy, but you get my drift. The Tudors could be given a fantasy spin quite easily turning the rivalries around to be about rulers, wizards, princesses and whatever loyalties, loves, power-plays or foul pacts they've made. You could still keep the fantasy elements relatively subtle while still keeping them powerful and integral. Look at something that is currently airing, The Devil's Whore, turning that into a fantasy production, even keeping the English Civil War as a setting, would be amazingly easy. It has a lot of the styling already, especially with John Simm cutting a good image as the edgy, swashbuckling hero in a great costume. I'm pretty sure it could be done in a way that adds fantasy elements (it has some already in a way) and makes it feel even more authentic. While not period works, you can look at contemporary pieces like Ultraviolet and Apparitions, for how 'fantasy' elements can be put on the screen very well without blowing the budget while enhancing them through the directing, writing and acting.

I'm not saying it's really easy. I'm not even making an argument there is an audience for it, as that's another problem. I am making the case that British TV regularly undertakes endeavours that are on the scale of a fantasy production and in many ways aren't that far removed from a fantasy production. Let's face it, Sharpe films have all the elements of a grand fantasy production already in terms of the story elements they deal with. The other thing to consider is Robin of Sherwood did it about two decades ago, and it serves as a pretty good model. We just need someone to come along and merge the period piece production skills with fantasy elements and bring modern production and writing talent along with it.

It could be done.

It's a bit of a vintage year on the X Factor this year, as despite being the fifth series in as many years they've managed to find some talented people each year, specifically this year. There has been ups and downs, but this year there is 4 people (Austin Drage, Alexandra Burke, Diana Vickers, Laura White) who would have quite easily won the show in other years, but they find themselves all competing together.

Like all years it started off simply enough, with the female artists and the groups getting voted off first. This year it was two girl bands, who had the unfortunate stigma of being female and groups and thus being totally doomed. In as many weeks Louis Walsh, mentor of the groups, lost two of his acts. In both cases, Louis was forced to equalise the judges vote and put the situation into deadlock, ensuring the act with the least votes from the public got the boot. Louis is in a great position, because he sits on the far right of the four judges, meaning his decision on who to save in the final two is often the deciding vote.

The fact the show seemed to be heading towards some brutal culling was first indicated in the third week. Yes, Scott Bruton and Daniel Evans deserved to be in the bottom two. But it was odd to see Daniel voted in by the judges, especially since Louis Walsh had the deciding vote and he'd been questioning why he was in the show for the previous two weeks. They saved him though and the mediocre pub singer survived another week. The public got it right that week, but the judges decided to play some games. The game is simple, if one of your good acts is in the bottom two you want a chump to vote off as an easy target. I'm betting Louis thought he'd get rid of the guy with the good looks and well, Daniel would be there again to vote off later?

It started to go wrong in show four, as Austin Drage and Rachel Hylton found themselves in the bottom two. Truth be told, neither of them were the worst act in that show. Louis chose to save Rachel Hylton thus booting Austin Drage off the show. Despite having a name like some straight-to-video action hero, Austin was one of the big four, who could have clearly won it in any other year. Hell, his re-arranged version of Billie Jean was probably one of the best performances on the X Factor period. More importantly, he has delivered an excellent performance every week. Rachel Hylton is one of those acts who the judges keep saying is fantastic, but she never delivers. Once that happens so many times the audience begins to question it all. She's also a Chav with a big mouth and a criminal record. She's damaged goods. She's really annoying.

The fourth show was even more brutal, with Laura White and Ruth Lorenzo being in the bottom two. Neither act came close to being the worst act that week, that credit belonged to Daniel Evans and Rachel Hylton, both of which could have been out of the competition by now. Again we find an amazingly talented person, who would have been clearly ahead of anyone else in any other year, in the bottom two. We find Louis Walsh again swinging the axe of doom and removing Laura White, one of the most talented people from the competition. If he believed what he said about both acts not deserving to be there he could have sent it do deadlock.

The best acts in the competition, really talented people, are dropping like flies. It's not that it doesn't make sense, a large part of the X Factor is decided by who people like, rather than who is the most talented, and all you can hope for is you are liked and talented. This is why they try so hard to 'tell the contestants story'. The first series was dominated by this issue, with the winner actually being someone with the strongest story rather than the strongest talent and, as can be expected, he didn't have a career. Throw in things like radio shows organising campaigns to keep Daniel Evans in for the fun of it and it's easy to see how the voting occurs. As for the judges? Well, Louis is in a powerful position as he gets the last vote, so it makes sense for him to get rid of strong contenders. He has one act left in the game, and no matter how good they are, they are a group and they never win (though they might come second or third). Why not clear the playing field? He soon forgot his power to initiate deadlock once it wasn't his act in the firing line, he chose to control the situation instead. Simon can't moan too much this week either as he voted for Ruth over Laura as well, so if he sees his lucrative record numbers going out the window it's his own fault.

It is a brutal year. It'll be interesting to see who the crap Daniel Evans effectively kicks out next due to failing to be in the bottom two or how long Rachel Hylton fails to deliver for. The irony is both these contestants could have been out of the competition by now, instead they are still assaulting my senses. This is the judges fault, not the public's.

The public vote has always been a bit of a lottery, but it's the first year the judges vote has resulted in the talented people going, people who have delivered series winning performances week on week, while those who are mediocre or who have failed to deliver still grace the stage. The judges are moaning about the public vote a bit, but they've designed it so they have the final power, so they can't complain that much.

We watched Dead Set last week and it was pretty good. I would like it though, as I thought the idea was clever. Take the typical Zombie outbreak plot, the whole concept of a group of survivors holing up in a relatively secure location, just give it the unique twist that the secure location is the Big Brother house and the majority of the survivors are the contestants from the current series. I thought it was a great idea anyway, as it seemed a good way to ensure an interesting and diverse set of survivors without having to actually bring them together. Throw in the fact the Zombie situation is just a more extreme and dangerous 'boiler room' than the one they had already volunteered for and you have a good concept.

What you actually got was something that was pretty good, just not outstanding. I suspect it didn't really add anything to the genre, but it wasn't an embarrassment either. I thought the lead character, played by Jaime Winston, had a certain allure that pulled you in. The obnoxious Big Brother producer played by Andy Nyman played his part excellently, to the point you really wanted someone to punch him in the face. As the inevitable 'Dr Smith' character he was probably the most unique element, as he was a very good one and added something different to what is a tried and tested concept. The scenes with him in the Big Brother house also worked really well in ramping up the tension and imparting the feeling it was all going to go tits up. It did really start making you think how you'd handle someone dead set on going against the group and their decisions could kill you. The parallels with just voting someone off the show being the same as voting to shoot him was also effective.

The production values were also pretty solid, certainly close enough to films like 28 Days Later. In fact, one thing that did surprise me is how close to the bone it was. I thought it might end up being Zombie-lite, but there was plenty of them and the whole thing was quite bloody. One character took quite a long time to die while being eaten alive even if he was the one designed for the audience to hate. They certainly didn't save the audience from the 'Zombies chewing on human innards' shots that's for sure.

If Dead Set suffered from anything it was that it was a slave to the genre too much. At times it was like joining the dots. The survivor who gets bit who they subsequently refuse to kill and so doomed some of their number to being killed by the victim when she turns? Check. The need to make a sojourn out of the safe environment for supplies of some sort? Check. An encounter with some well-armed, survivalist, mad people? Check, in this case two police offers. The inevitable death of everyone driven by the dysfunctional relationships in the group? Check. The group's Big Brother dynamics driving that downfall was a slightly unique element. The final assault by the Zombies on the Big Brother house was quite tense as the occupants found themselves pushed back into an ever decreasing amount of space with Zombies baying on all sides. That was well done, and the familiar environment of the Big Brother house helped in that regard.

Looking back on it, it was a good idea, as the way the survivor group came together was relatively unique and brings with it relatively unique baggage. It possibly could have been used better.

There was also a certain level of satisfaction in seeing Davina McCall and previous Big Brother contestants being turned into Zombies. If you're a survivor in a Zombie film the last way you'd want to be taken out is to be eaten by a Zombie Brian Belo, as his IQ would probably increase once he turned.

There are certain TV shows, when you hear the tag line, that make you audibly groan and internally say 'no thanks'. One of those shows was True Blood, the pitch being that a form of synthetic blood has been invented by the Japanese and one of the results of that is Vampires have now come out looking for equal rights and integration into society. Have to admit, it just sounded like it would be cheesy and stupid or have heavy-handed parallels with other marginalised groups and racism at worst.

How wrong could I be, the series is very good.

The key thing is the series is very different from what its tag line would suggest. Yes, it's true that the product True Blood has been invented and there is a background element of vampires seeking (or not as the case may be) to be integrated into society, but the show touches upon this through a very unexpected lens. In truth, the show is about a very small, southern state town, essentially a complete 'hicksville' full of white and black trash. Let's be honest, it's a romanticised version of such a town, in which most of the people are relatively nice, spend a lot of time in a bar full of white trash or talking to each other in lush 'Everglades' type environments. Still, it does allow you to watch Anna Paquin flounce around in particularly sexy white trash outfits. I'm taking the piss a bit, it's hardly a Sex in the City or a Friends view of New York life, it's more realistic than that, but it does have a veneer of likeability that I suspect most such places don't. Still, the place is populated by poor, white trash, trailer park sorts working hard, falling in love, longing after people they can't have, trading drugs, playing hard and, in the case of one character, shagging hard to.

Into this great environment comes a vampire who is returning to his family home from the American Civil War. As those familiar with TV will know, what happens is the vampire and Anna Paquin's character start a relationship which sits at the centre of a web of relationships which sends the story shooting of in all sorts of directions, including learning about the vampires, touching upon the integration movement but exploring it all within the intimate context of the relationships of the two leads and their relationship with the occupants of the town and its culture. It's great because it allows for the central relationship to be romantic, without failing to make it complex. It's romantic, mysterious, slightly surreal, intimate, rich, funny and contemporary. It manages to do the vampires in modern society thing well, and it's probably not been done this well in an on-going TV series since Ultraviolet (though the two takes on vampires are a bit different). It's just brilliant, and excellently acted by both Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer (ironically a vampire in Ultraviolet, briefly), along with the rest of the cast.

Put it this way, I've watched the first three episodes of True Blood as well as the first two episodes of Heroes season three in the last couple of days. True Blood was better.