"The king stay the king".

Just a note to let you know that FX are screening The Wire, in its entirety from the first episode, starting on Monday 23rd July (10pm). You have absolutely no excuse not to watch it now. Regular readers will know how much I love it - a love that will become more apparent once I start reviewing each episode pretty soon (seriously, I'm going to do it!) - so I don't need to go on about it here.

If you don't want to wait until Monday, The Guardian have the first episode streaming right now for your viewing pleasure. Just watch it alright?

JMx

TVOD (2.7.07.)

Your sometimes-weekly guide to what's worth gawping at on the small screen is back. So what is worth gawping at? Let's take a look, shall we?


MONDAY: As always on a Monday, you have Heroes (10pm, Sci-Fi). Last week's was another excellent episode, this time flashing-forward into the future to give us a glimpse of what is to become of our cast (Peter's hooked up with Niki/Jessica! Hiro's lost his sense of fun! (gasp) Nathan's really Sylar!), showing us that it probably isn't going to be a happy ending. This show just keeps getting better and while I've heard murmurs from the States about the disappointing season finale, I'm willing to keep an open mind in the hope that the Yanks are wrong.

Also tonight, More4 are showing the brilliant doc, End Of The Century: The Story Of The Ramones (10.30pm). This one actually made me cry, but I'm a sentimental fool when it comes to music, especially the tragic stories of Johnny, Dee Dee and Joey, all of whom are interviewed here but are now sadly not with us anymore. Watch it or else.

TUESDAY: The big draw tonight, for me at least and, well, anyone else who likes their comedy with a bit of bite and bile thrown in for good measure is The Thick Of It: Spinners And Losers (9pm, BBC4). After the exceptional Christmas special in which the PM resigned and Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi, excellent as ever) seemed to be losing his vice-like grip on parliamentary machinations, the focus this time around is on who is to take over at Number 10 and, more importantly of course, who's side he/she will be on. Expect lots of dazzlingly inventive swearing plenty of allusions to our own real-life government.

Secondly, I'd like to highlight just how deplorable Gillian McKeith's new programme is. 3 Fat Brides, 1 Thin Dress (8pm, Channel 4) is another excuse for the fish-lipped harridan to harangue people into losing weight, but this time there's the added carrot of winning a beautiful wedding dress, should they be able to get into it by the day of their nuptials. Now, I don't think I need to point out that this kind of crash dieting is both dangerous and super-stressful, anyone can see that, but this evil bitch, McKeith, supposedly a qualified dietician, is making a fortune out of making people miserable. Fine, if they lose the weight in the end, then it can only be beneficial to that person, but turning it into a competition is just mean-spirited and grotesque. As for the people out there who find this kind of filmed torture 'entertaining', well then I know a guy who sells bestiality snuff films out of the back of his car that you could probably get your rocks off to as well.

WEDNESDAY: Tonight, another show that just keeps getting better, not that anyone watches it, continues its run. Friday Night Lights (8pm, ITV4) hit a graceful high note the other week with Smash (Gaius Charles) leading a strike with the team's other black players after Offensive (in more ways than one) Coach Mac MacGill's ill-advised comments about the differences between the Panthers' white players and black players. The way the story dovetailed after a highly-charged play-off game was riveting, tense and massively satisfying. For a drama that deals in universal themes to have not descended into soapy melodrama even once yet is astonishing. Long may it continue to surprise and break your heart week-after-week.

Damon Albarn's on Imagine tonight (10.40pm, BBC1), no doubt giving himself a pat on the back for his new venture, the circus-opera, Monkey: Journey To The West. I don't think I'll be watching this one as I can't stand the pompous, self-aggrandising prick but I do believe there are a lot of people out there who disagree.

THURSDAY: Not much on tonight really, other than My Name Is Earl (10pm, Channel 4), in which Earl (Jason Lee) tries to find a cat he once stole. Should be good-natured fun.

Over on Sky One, there's the return of the camper-than-a-row-of-tents, glitz and glam comedy-thriller-drama serial, Las Vegas (9pm). Word is that this series is the last chance we'll get to see Jimmy Caan acting all stoical (or constipated) as President Of Operations, Ed Deline and Nikki Cox' marvellous breasts, ahem, I mean acting talents as buxom and flirty Mary Connell. Don't worry though as it's been picked up for another season at least with Tom Selleck taking over the Caan-shaped void and eye candy, for the ladies at least, and professional boyfriend of Fergie from Black Eyed Peas (how do I know this crap?), Josh Duhamel will continue struggling to act his way out of a wet paper bag for our enjoyment.

FRIDAY: If you didn't get your fill of music festivals with Glastonbury last week, then you can look forward to BBC3's coverage of T In The Park tonight from 7pm. From what I can gather, only the main stage is open today, so there's sets from Bloc Party, Lily Allen, The Coral and Arctic Monkeys tonight. Basically everyone who's at every other festival then? Great.

Elsewhere, Marcus Brigstocke (way too over-exposed for my liking these days) filmed something at Glastonbury in his Giles Wemmbley-Hogg old-Etonian guise and they're showing it on BBC4 at 10pm. Also, Sean Lock does his best to save the increasingly unfunny 8 Out Of 10 Cats on Channel 4 at 9.30pm. Lock's always worth a chuckle or three but Jason Manford hasn't brought anything new to the table in place of Dave Spikey at all. They should have been a bit adventurous and asked Reginald D. Hunter or Rich Hall or Phil Nichol to take his place, not this Peter Kay clone.

SATURDAY: Well, today it's the big Live Earth gig from Wembley, New York, Sydney, Rio, Johannesburg, Hamburg, Tokyo and Shanghai and it's being shown on BBC1 from 5.30pm. It's for a worthy cause, saving the planet and all, but you just know that it's going to be a bit shit. It'll be interesting to see what the Beastie Boys do though, I guess.

On T In The Park tonight, there's sets from The Killers, Amy Winehouse, Babyshambles, Razorlight and, oh you can probably guess the rest. It's on from 7 again on BBC3.

SUNDAY: After trailing it since late last year, FX finally get around to showing Dexter (9pm), the first post-Six Feet Under vehicle for Michael C. Hall. In it, he plays Dexter Morgan, a forensic blood splatter analyst who also happens to be a serial killer. He only kills bad-'uns, mind, so we'll be rooting for him like we did the Krays in the 60s. Seriously though, this was one of the most critically-acclaimed new series in America last year and it's certainly one that I've been looking forward to. With a concept like that, it can't possibly fail.

Also tonight, there's more sex, swords and sandals in Rome (9pm, BBC2) and T In The Park has footage of Snow Patrol, Scissor Sisters, The Fratell-zzzz..... Sorry, dozed off there for a minute.

TV ON THE INTERNET

John From Cincinnati is the brand new HBO show from David Milch (NYPD Blue, Deadwood) and it's fantastic. See lots of promos and stuff about it here and get excited. I'll be writing something about it myself very soon.

Take a look at how you perform at a festival by watching Iggy and The Stooges get loads of people up on stage during 'Real Cool Time' at Glastonbury last week.

And watch him freak out the squares on Tonight With Jonathon Ross too.

That's all folks!

JMx

TVOD (18.6.07.)

Haven't done one of these for a while. Let's see if I remember how to do it...


MONDAY: Well, now that Five have a Prison Break-sized hole in their schedules (plugged tonight at least by none other than Steven Seagal, with the showing of Out Of Reach at 10pm. Apparently, he goes toe-to-toe with a human trafficking network in this one. My money's on Seagal), we can all start watching Heroes at 10, instead of watching it on Sci-Fi's time-lapse channel an hour later. Tonight's episode will show us the outcome of Peter's (Milo Ventimiglia) run-in with Sylar (Zachary Quinto, evil incarnate with a monobrow), that we already know turns quickly in Peter's favour due to last week's "Next week on Heroes" montage.

Peter is rapidly becoming my favourite character which is in distinct contrast with my original thoughts on him. Ventimiglia has somehow turned Peter from mopey wet lettuce to troubled dark avenger in just a few episodes, with a little help from jobbing star turn, Chris Eccleston. It's just another string to the bow of an increasingly impressive mainstream television series that refuses to let up in the action and intrigue stakes but never feels like its straining the viewer's capacity for investing in the characters. Basically, it's done everything that Lost didn't do in the first series. Outside of Battlestar Galactica, Heroes is easily the most consistently entertaining and engaging television series that the American networks have to offer.

Elsewhere tonight, ITV have another new homegrown drama serial starting in the form of The Time Of Your Life (9pm). This one looks like it might be a little different from the rest, coming as it does from the creator of Teachers and imbued with an impressive cast (Geraldine James, Robert Pugh, Olivia Colman and rising star, Jemima Rooper among them). The story even looks interesting for once (girl wakes up from eighteen year coma, having missed out on everything past her school leaving do). It's a six-parter, so you know that ITV, the most attention-deficient of all TV channels, have a lot of faith in it. Just don't expect it to be mind-blowing, although I don't think anyone expects that of ITV anymore.

TUESDAY: Why, oh why, oh why have Sky One given that smug twat from the last series of The Apprentice, Syed Ahmed, his own fucking television programme?! It shouldn't beggar belief as much as it does from the channel who have been shoving Pirate fucking Master down our throats for the past three weeks, but it makes you wonder if the likes of Syed Ahmed - Hot Air? (10pm) is really the type of programming they should be spending our subscription fees on. In the show, the unjustifiably self-assured oily prick is trying to sell his idea for a 'body drier', which he hopes will make towels a thing of the past, to businessmen like Duncan Bannatyne (a man who I like, yet I have no idea why). Any idiot can see that this is yet another instance of someone trying to make money by solving a problem that doesn't exist (what is the problem with towels, exactly, Mr Ahmed?), but it's just going to be either an exercise in schadenfreude or an attempt to make this annoying cunt more likeable in the eyes of the British public. I'm willing to bet that it fails on both counts.

Seeing as though ITV have already ripped off Dragon's Den with the surprisingly watchable, yet for all the wrong reasons, Fortune: The Million Pound Giveaway, they have now decided to pick up some residuals from Apprentice fans now that that series has finished, with Tycoon (9pm). Dragon's Den mainstay, Peter Jones (there must be some other willing entrepreneurs who haven't been all over television already) has taken it upon himself - read: been commissioned by ITV - to help six small business ventures get off the ground. Cue knuckle-gnawing excrutiation as each of them prove that a 2:1 in Business Studies prepares you for life in the big wide world just about as much as a C in R.E. at GCSE level does, no doubt.

WEDNESDAY: A good night to stay in tonight, all told, with the premiere of one hot new US drama and the return to our screens of another. First up, Rome is back (9pm, BBC2) for the second and, sadly, final season. In its first run, the sword and sandals soap managed to strike a winning balance between histrionic melodrama and blood-pumping, yet intelligent, thrills and reports from the States suggest that this is the case second time around too. The first episode is sure to deal with the fallout from Julius Caesar's assassination and Vorenus' (Kevin McKidd) wife, Niobe offing herself in dramatic fashion. Ray Stevenson's Titus Pullo was the standout from the first season for me, so here's hoping that he survives the incessant backstabbing (both literally and metaphorically) that this absorbing drama has to offer.

Channel 4 are running the ABC hit show, Brothers And Sisters from tonight (8.30pm, with the second episode at 10pm and the third following at 11pm on E4), which looks to me to be a watered-down Six Feet Under. The similarities couldn't be more glaring on first look with the first post-SFU TV job for Rachael Griffiths, the series' family-with-skeletons-in-every-closet focus and the first episode death of the patriarch (Tom Skerritt) leading to hitherto-buried secrets being unearthed. Here's hoping that the similarities are merely superficial as the cast deserves better than to be involved in a second-rate knock-off. Sally Field, Calista Flockhart, Ron Rifkin, Balthazar Getty and the aforementioned Griffiths and Skerritt have all proved themselves to be more than capable actors in the past so fingers crossed that Brothers And Sisters delivers on the promise of its healthy ensemble.

Also tonight, there's Friday Night Lights (8pm, ITV4), the best programme on television that nobody watches. ITV don't help matters though, with its one showing per week policy. To be honest, if you started watching it now, you'd probably just be perplexed as to why everyone who's seen it raves about it so. Wait for the DVDs, should they ever make an appearance.

THURSDAY: Burt Reynolds guest stars in My Name Is Earl (10pm, Channel 4) tonight, obviously trying to prove that he isn't the humourless arse he is often painted to be. Jason Lee is obviously a big fan, seeing as though he tries to sneak a Reynolds reference into nearly every film he's in ("How many times do you get to see Smokey fuck The Bandit?" - Mallrats). The only question is, is Burt a closet scientologist? This article, from last week's Guardian Guide suggests that Scientology doctrines run through the heart of the show, leading to an all-too-clear jobs for the boys scenario (Lee, Ethan Suplee, show creator, Greg Garcia and previous guest stars, Giovanni Ribisi and Juliette Lewis are all known devotees of the writings of L. Ron Hubbard). It's enough to make you reassess your feelings about the show but, hey, funny's funny whether you believe that you're an immortal alien or not.

Other than that, there's not a lot on tonight. Keith Allen has his own Louis Theroux-style documentary on Channel 4. Keith Allen Will Burn In Hell (10.30pm) has the Groucho Club emeritus travelling to Westboro Baptist Church, Kansas, in order to meet those foul god-botherers who picket the funerals of dead soldiers with "God Hates Fags" placards. Looks interesting at least.

FRIDAY: If you're not actually going, then BBC is the only place to watch Glastonbury (8pm and 11pm, BBC2, with blanket coverage from 7 'til 11 on BBC3). The usual suspects of Phill Jupitus, Jo Whiley, Lauren Laverne and Mark Radcliffe all sit there on hay bales, wearing wellies you know will never get dirty (in the case of Whiley at least anyway) and looking smugger than all-get-out that they're there and you aren't. 'Highlights' tonight look set to include Arctic Monkeys, Amy Winehouse, Kasabian, Bjork, Arcade Fire, Bloc Party, Rufus Wainwright, Super Furry Animals, The Magic Numbers, The Coral and The Fucking Fratellis. Actually, I'm glad I'm not going now.

Have I mentioned how good [adult swim] (from Midnight, Bravo) has been lately? After a few months' lull where there wasn't any new programming at all, they've gone nuts and have been treating us to Afro Samurai, Assy McGee and the patchy-but-occasionally-brilliant, Modern Toss (previously shown on Channel 4). We've also been getting brand new episodes of Robot Chicken, The Venture Bros. (both on tonight), Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Tom Goes To The Mayor, Squidbillies and 12oz. Mouse (Monday and Tuesday). By far my favourite of the new shows has to be Assy McGee (1am), the adventures of a rogue, trigger happy American cop who also happens to be just an arse on legs. A lot funnier than that sounds, Assy McGee has a lot of fun at the expense of the conventions of cop shows and movies (NYPD Blue's Sipowicz and Dirty Harry Callaghan are clear inspirations) and is just plain, laugh-out-loud hilarious. Anyone with any interest in smart, funny animation needs to watch this.

SATURDAY: The sixth instalment of BBC2's outstanding documentary series, Seven Ages Of Rock (9.30pm) airs tonight with a look at the US alternative scene of the 80s and 90s. While it's reductive to look at such an expansive movement in just an hour, the spotlit bands are the most obviously influential ones. Black Flag, R.E.M., Pixies and Nirvana are all under the microscope tonight, so expect insightful musings from the likes of Henry Rollins (always an effusive, entertaining talker), Michael Stipe, Mike Mills, Frank Black, Kim Deal, Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic and an impeccable, familiar soundtrack. Wouldn't kill them to talk to Sonic Youth and Husker Du too, but we'll see.

Earlier on BBC2, there's a shortened The Culture Show (8pm), which sees the culmination of their search for Britain's most iconic film locations, via the conduit of a mock road movie starring the ubiquitous (this weekend anyway) Lauren Laverne and Mark Kermode. Should be fun. Can't get enough of that chirpy, loveable Mackem? Then, Laverne is back on our screens for more Glasto coverage (4.45pm and 10.30pm on BBC2, with the usual stuff on BBC3 and BBC4), with music from The Killers, Lily Allen, The Stooges, Editors, Paul Weller, Maximo Park, Klaxons, Babyshambles, The Good, The Bad & The Queen and The Fucking Kooks. Seriously, you wouldn't want to get trench foot for that shower now, would you?

SUNDAY: There's yet another new episode of The Simpsons (6.30pm, Sky One), with Bart getting hitched to Natalie Portman. Last week's newie was killer, so here's hoping that the wacky premise of tonight's throws up some decent laughs along the way, which is all you can really hope for from a show that's ran for over 400 episodes now.

Glasto today (5.15pm and 10.30pm, BBC2, with, y'know, shitloads on 3 and 4) promises sets from the likes of The Who, The Chemical Brothers, Kaiser Fucking Chiefs, Manic Street Preachers, Dame Shirley Bassey (honest!), The Go! Team, The Fucking View, The Rakes, Modest Mouse, James Fucking Morrison and Mi-fucking-ka. Pilton seems like a cold, dead place to me this weekend.

TV ON THE INTERNET

Binary solo! Formerly of BBC Radio 4, Flight Of The Conchords, New Zealand's premier digi-folk duo now have their own TV show on HBO in the States. Ingeniously entitled, Flight Of The Conchords, it follows the guys trying to 'make it' in New York. Jimmy Carr isn't in it anymore but Rob Brydon still is and you can watch the first episode online right now. It's really funny, although don't look out for Brydon as he doesn't come into it until later. Do, however, look out for a very funny cameo from upcoming NY comic, Eugene Mirman.

"We went for that like thirsty people in the desert seeing a Coke machine". Watch clips from this week's Seven Ages Of Rock online. Rollins is always worth listening to, but I was surprised at how nice Kim Deal came over as.

"I'm going... to shoot you". Watch a full episode of Assy McGee while you can.

Think that went alright,

JMx

TVOD (2.4.07.)

MONDAY: Well, as always on Monday, you've got The Sopranos (11.10pm, Channel 4). Tonight's episode sees this season back on track, with Johnny Sack out of prison briefly to watch his daughter get married and humiliate himself in front of the rest of 'the family'. Elsewhere, a run-in between Vito and some money-collecting goons has far-reaching consequences. Watch it!

Also tonight, Chris Addison goes on The Hunt For Middle England (11.20pm, BBC2), an irreverent, sideways look at the fabled destination that was shown on BBC4 a couple of months ago. Oh and there's Prison Break (10pm, Five), in which we are sure to learn whether Sara escapes from Kellerman's clutches, and Heroes (10pm, Sci-Fi), which is a little too Mohinder-heavy but sheds some light on Claire's shady dad and introduces a perky waitress, gifted with the power to remember anything she learns really well like. God, that's a crap power! I mean, some of the others can, like, see the future, fly, even travel through time and all she gets is the ability to be really handy in pub quizzes! What a rip-off!

TUESDAY: The Wire, The Wire, The Wire! (10pm, FX) Other than that, Channel 4 have bumped Kidnapped back in the schedules in order to show what looks like one of their patented sensationalist, prurient attempts at reportage in the form of Eunuchs (10pm); a documentary about, y'know, guys who've had their balls cut off.

There's football on too, as Liverpool take on PSV Eindhoven in the quarter-finals of the Champion's League (7.45pm, ITV1). If you don't fancy that, Film4 are showing Planes, Trains And Automobiles (9pm), so you can see John Candy's big pants and Steve Martin's foul-mouthed rant all over again.

WEDNESDAY: The big news in the TV world today is that Sky is completely revamping its movie channels. They're going all genre-specific on our arses, with a channel that will be solely dedicated to premieres (then showing them every frickin' night for a week), one for comedies, one for action movies/thrillers, one for indie-fare, you get the jist. Sounds like one of those ideas that they've just decided to do for shits and giggles and haven't really thought it through. I mean, for instance, what channel can house Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind? Maybe they should have kept a channel aside and called it Sky Movies: Weird Shit.

Also tonight, ITV1 launch a new comedy show, entitled Get A Grip (10pm), which is hosted by Ben "Oh, just fuck off" Elton and Alexa "Who?" Chung. Looks like she's going to be the eye candy for the boys, while the girls get a rough ride by having to look at ol' rat-features. I'm not sure whether it's supposed to be a topical satire show or what it is supposed to be exactly, but one thing's for sure, it must be stopped! Anything involving the man who inflicted the Queen musical on the world must be removed from the air before it has a chance to find an audience. ITV do comedy about as well as Men & Motors does female empowerment though, so I guess it's only a matter of time.

THURSDAY: Channel 4 may or may not air Iraq drama, The Mark Of Cain (9pm), in light of recent events in Iran. If they do, however, that's tonight's must-see TV. Elsewhere, there's Lucky Louie and Chappelle's Show on FX (from 10.30pm) and those two are always good for a laugh.

STOP PRESS! Channel 4 will not be showing The Mark Of Cain tonight and will keep it on ice until there is a resolution to the Iran hostage situation.

Tonight, UKTV Gold are re-animating the corpse of Sir Jimmy Saville for a new show called Jim'll Fix It Strikes Again (9pm). It features all-new fix-its but the main reason to watch will be to see people, now all grown up, revisiting the things that Jim'll fixed it for them to do (Christ, what a clumsy sentence!). Cue grown up men trying to eat on rollercoasters and such like. Weren't they a scout troop? They'll just be trying to suppress the remembrances of the times that Akela tried to touch their special areas then.

FRIDAY: It's Soul Night on BBC4 (programmes begin 8pm), which means an excuse to show the late, great James Brown from last year's Electric Proms. There's also a performance from 1979 from Average White Band, followed by an episode of the recent fantastic documentary series, Soul Britannia. There are other soulful gubbins going on, but the real draw is Standing In The Shadows Of Motown, a brilliant documentary about Motown's house band, The Funk Brothers at midnight. Worth staying up for, indeed.

Elsewhere, there's pretty much fuck-all on, unless you like Golf (The US Masters, from 9pm, BBC2) or My Family (8.30pm, BBC1) and if you do, then god help you.

SATURDAY: Well, obviously there's TV Burp (7.10pm, ITV1), which is followed by Vernon Kay's Gameshow Marathon (7.40pm), which begs the question of how the fuck Vernon Kay keeps on getting work?! How?! I can understand the appeal of most things that are seen to be popular but alongside listening to ultra-compressed mp3s through your mobile's speakers on the bus, the enduring love affair of the British TV-consuming public with Vernon fucking Kay continues to baffle me. Having a strong regional accent that you're willing to play on like a vowel-elongating performing seal, whilst mugging mercilessly for the camera like an ADD-addled pre-pubescent on school photo day does not equal personality.

Over on Channel 4, they're running through the 100 Greatest Tearjerkers (9pm). Your guess is as good as mine as to the winner. Continuing with the soul theme, BBC4 has Urban Soul at 10.10pm, an hour-and-a-half documentary about the rise and rise of r'n'b and hip-hop to become the biggest selling music genre in the world. Might be worth a watch. Got to be better than Vernon bastard Kay, anyway.

SUNDAY: Channel 4 cash in on this whole Easter thing that everyone's going on about by running The Passion Of The Christ (10pm), but if you like your entertainment with a side-order of torture, then 24 (9pm, Sky One) is probably a safer bet. That's followed by Lost, which has been really good lately, particularly last week's off-topic episode that followed the fortunes of the previously sidelined Niki and Paolo since they crashed on the island. The macabre ending was one of the best this season.

On the other side, there's Murder In The Outback (9pm, ITV1), a true-life drama about the murder of British tourist, Peter Falconio and the subsequent investigation, starring the always impressive Joanna Froggatt as Falconio's girlfriend and murder suspect, Joanne Lees. Fancy a laugh? The cult hit, Office Space (12midnight, BBC2) is on. Cult normally means unfunny, but trust me, this one's a keeper.

TV ON THE INTERNET

I'm probably the last person in the world to link to this in some way but... "Somebody gonna get pregnant!". American actor and comedian, Tracy Morgan in full-on, belly-out crazy mode on US TV.

Remind yourself of just how funny Brass Eye was by watching the cake segment from the Drugs episode.

And remind yourself just how fucking awesome music television can be by checking out At The Drive-In on Jools Holland in 2000.

TVOD (26.3.07.)

Yep, it's time to take a look at what's coming down your tube this week, with me acting as a kind of opinionated remote control.

MONDAY: Again with The Sopranos (11pm, Channel 4). Tonight's episode is a 'funny one', including such capers as Paulie (Tony Sirico) finding out a shocking secret from the past, Bobby Bacala (Steve R. Schirripa) shooting a wannabe gangster rapper and lots of metaphysical stuff about the interconnectivity of all things. Hilarity ensues.

Over on ITV1, there's the second part of Mobile (9pm), which I probably won't watch because I missed the first, but by all accounts, it's better than your standard ITV drama. Plus, someone I know is in it, but that's another story. Elsewhere, Michael makes a break for Panama in Prison Break (Five, 10pm) and Heroes (Sci-Fi Channel, 10pm)does one of those character development episodes, but this being Heroes, there's a lot more going on than that may suggest. Look out for Hiro (Masi Oka) and D.L. (Leonard Roberts) joining forces to save a woman from a car-wreck and the strange, incongruous, Mychael Danna-esque Eastern music that soundtracks Claire (Hayden Panettiere) chasing her brother around the front garden.

TUESDAY: Not much on tonight really. Well, there's Battlestar Galactica (Sky One, 9pm), but I'm nowhere near up-to-date with that yet. On the curiosity front, there's Marbella Belles (ITV1, 10pm), which, judging by the clips on TV Burp on Saturday, should be at the very least fist-chewingly entertaining. On Channel 4 at 11.40pm, there's a documentary called The Crippendales. One can only guess what that's about. If someone can pinpoint the exact moment that Channel 4 started to dumb down, do you reckon we could do a system restore on it?

There's always The Wire (FX, 10pm), which gets better with every passing week. Last week's was a doozy, seeing an end to the mayoral election storyline which has taken up a huge chunk of the start of the fourth season. The look on Carcetti's face when he found out he had won was less "Great, now I can start making this city a better place" and more "Holy fuck, what have I done?!". Cue the gradual erosion of Carcetti's morals as absolute power (at least in Baltimore) corrupts him absolutely.

WEDNESDAY: "You're fired!". I'll never get tired of saying that. Such a zeitgeist-nailing catchphrase. Anyway, poor-man's Donald Trump, SIR Alan Sugar launches a new series of The Apprentice tonight on BBC1 (9pm). It's mind-boggling who they give a business degree to these days, so let's all sit agog as the drones are paraded in front of us, all business 'smarts' and no common sense. Look at them! The fucking idiots!

It's either that or My Man Boobs And Me (BBC3, 9pm), as we all know that England play again tonight. I think the man boobs are a more inviting option, to be honest.

THURSDAY: BBC4 shows the first of a couple of interesting looking, music-skewing documentaries tonight, with Storyville: Screamers (10.30pm), which takes a look at the Armenian genocide by the Ottoman Empire in 1915 through the songs and actions of System Of A Down. Sounds like it might be a little tenuous but worthy and possibly engaging all the same.

Channel 4 has a humdinger of a double-bill tonight. At 9, there's Mummy's War, in which Carol Thatcher visits the Falklands on the 25th anniversary of the pointless, fruitless conflict her mother waged. Headline-grabbing stuff (it did actually make the front pages in Argentina) and sensationalist to a fault, but do we really need the offspring of arguably the most damaging PM this country has ever seen picking at her mum's old scabs?

After that, there's the Irvine Welsh-penned one-off comedy-drama, Wedding Belles (10pm), which looks as though it might actually deliver on its 'Trainspotting with women' premise. Michelle Gomez (The Book Group, Green Wing) stars.

FRIDAY: "I-I just took a ride/On a silver machine/And I'm still feeling meeean!". BBC4 are showing Hawkwind: Do Not Panic (9pm), about the legendary and enduring acid-rockers. Any programme that promises an interview with Lemmy has got to be worth watching.

Elsewhere, there's The U.S. Vs. John Lennon (BBC2, 11.35pm) and you lot going out for payday.

SATURDAY: Well, there's TV Burp (ITV1, 5.30pm), before ITV say bollocks to original programming and show a Harry Potter film instead.

Everywhere else, there's the usual substandard Saturday night fare, but Sky Arts is forging a path as a Saturday night haven for the intelligent amongst us. Tonight, they're showing Moog (10pm), which is a bit of a thin documentary, but hey, it's better than nowt.

SUNDAY: Lost (Sky One, 10pm) has really picked up the pace in the last couple of episodes, but it's hard to see where they're going to go with the whole Locke's-dad-bound-and-gagged-in-an-airing-cupboard thing. The fuck's all that about?! In 24 (Sky One, 9pm), Acting President Powers Boothe looks to continue menacing his way into a war with the Middle East over fudged information. Sound familiar?

Over on BBC2, Louis Theroux Meets The Most Hated Family In America (9pm) looks like it could be a good watch, although The Phelps', a family who picket the funerals of soldiers and gay pride events, preaching their belief that "God hates fags", might be a bit too much of an easy target. We'll see if Louis still has the cojones to tear them the new arsehole that they deserve.

TV ON THE INTERNET

One of my favourite Big Train sketches, The Artist Formerly Known As Prince hunting for jockeys.

The point where I realised that The Wire was the best TV show in the history of television, Bunk and McNulty investigate an old crime scene and communicate solely using the word "fuck" or variations thereon.

Needs no introduction; Mr Show: The Story Of Everest

TVOD (12.3.07.)

The first in what will become a weekly round-up of what you have to watch this coming week on UK TV. Plus, at the end some links to YouTube vids that you might find interesting and can actually watch, like, now.


TONIGHT: Well, tonight you have the choice of three of America's big-hitters. At 11.35pm on Channel 4, you've got The Greatest Television Drama Of All Time (according to Channel 4 themselves, nonetheless), The Sopranos. Let's be frank here, the only people who watch The Sopranos these days are people who have followed it from the start, so I'm not going to implore you to start now if you've never seen it before. There are two reasons why I'm not going to do that: 1) You will be utterly confused; 2) Tonight's episode, 'Join The Club', is, as far as Sopranos episodes go, a bit of a dog.

A large chunk of 'Join The Club' is dedicated to one of The Sopranos' interminable dream sequences. With Tony (James Gandolfini) lying in a coma after Uncle June's (Dominic Chianese) near-fatal senior moment last week, we are 'treated' to a trip through Tony's subconscious. He dreams of being a businessman leading the straight life apparently. Yeah, yeah, we get it now. In fact, we got it ages ago. The whole of the series since inception has pivoted on Tony's misgivings or 'agita' with 'the life', so we don't need half an episode detailing this in a too knowingly cryptic manner. The Sopranos is an undeniably great piece of work, but it's episodes like this that stop it from being (heresy alert!) as good as The Wire.

Before all that, at 10pm, you have the choice between Prison Break (Five) and Heroes (Sci-Fi Channel). So it's either the progressively implausible caper of the improbably rag-tag bunch of cons or the surprisingly believable adventures of a gang of disparate superhuman freaks. I don't know which one to pick. To be honest, they're both ridiculously watchable and you're all probably going to Sky+ one of them or watch Heroes on Sci-Fi+1 or something.

TUESDAY: The Wire's on! You know the drill: 10pm, FX, Sky Channel 179. Sky's programme planner doesn't really do its best to sell this undervalued show. Here's what the i button tells us we're in for tonight; Valchek leaks details of the Braddock case to Carcetti, who considers how to leak it to the press. The ensuing negative attention turns Royce against Burrell. High octane mayhem ensues! Okay, the last part was a lie and, as any fan knows, action isn't really what The Wire's all about. Just watch it, dammit!

Elsewhere tonight, there's new US import drama, Kidnapped, which looks like it could be good if a little classy-by-numbers. But hey, you've gotta love anything with Delroy Lindo in the cast and More4 and BBC4 compete to see who can lower their standards the most. More4 are screening Harrison Ford's disastrous attempt to play Russian in K-19: The Widowmaker, while BBC4 throw in a rather pointless addition to their 1997 theme week with the Melinda Messenger-presented, I Love 1997, that features such cultural highlights as the rise to fame of the Spice Girls, Mike Tyson biting a chunk out of Evander Holyfield and Ti-fuckin'-tanic. For shame, the pair of you!

WEDNESDAY: "Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose!". It's Friday Night Lights (8pm, ITV4, Sky Channel 120)! Leave all prejudice at the door and bask in its brilliance. Also, rising comedy star, Rasmus Hardiker (Saxondale, Lead Balloon) is in the latest edition of BBC4's fitfully funny comedy of manners, Tight Spot, alongside Nina Wadia, Douglas Hodge and Siobhan Redmond. Could be good.

Looking for something a little more intelligent? Well, Sky's new channel, Sky Arts (Channel 267) are showing Peter Greenaway's A Zed And Two Noughts. Or you could just watch Spurs Vs. Sporting Braga on ITV. Your choice.

THURSDAY: The best thing on tonight is FX's comedy double bill of Lucky Louie and Chappelle's Show from 10pm. I'll be writing more about these two on here pretty soon but I'll just say for now that you won't see a funnier hour-and-a-bit on telly all week.

Also tonight, Channel 4 are screening Goodfellas (10pm), ITV are showing more UEFA cup football in the form of the non-event that is Newcastle United away to Dutch team, AZ Alkmaar (maybe there'll be more Geordies in Holland this week than were at St. James' Park last week) and, in case you missed it last night (and with their complete lack of scheduling nous, I wouldn't blame you if you did), ITV2 are re-running the series finale of The Office: An American Workplace. Will Pam and Jim get together? Who will win the battle of wills between Michael and Toby from HR? Will Dwight and Angela finally come out as a couple? Why don't you tune in and find out at the unholy hour of 12.40am?

FRIDAY: It's Comic Relief night on BBC1 and 2, which means we get a mixture of the good (Borat, Mitchell And Webb), the bad (The Vicar Of Dibley, Take That) and the downright bizarre (whatever the fuck 'Top Gear Of The Pops' is supposed to be) of British comedy and light entertainment, but hey, it is all for charidee. Get your guilt and your comedy ears on from 7pm.

If you want to avoid Comic Relief, your options are a bit limited. The other three terrestrial channels are holding back on their a-game lest they get roundly savaged in the ratings stakes, which is understandable. Over on BBC4, however, they're celebrating Paddy's Day with a night of programmes dedicated to fiddle-dee-dee Irish folk music. I'd rather stick pins in my eyes although the always dangerous Shane MacGowan is listed as one of the performers. You could just watch Weird Science (10.50pm, Sci-Fi) with a warm, rose-tinted glow and realise that it's nowhere near as good as you remember it.

SATURDAY: Well, I don't think I need to tell you all to watch Harry Hill's TV Burp (6pm, ITV1), but I will anyway. If you're not going out, BBC3 are showing Fight Club (9.30pm) and Sky Arts have a Pixies acoustic set to share with us (10pm).

So much better than the post-pub fare that Bravo are misleadingly branding it as, you could do a whole lot worse than catching The Venture Bros. on the [adult swim] block at 1.45am. That is assuming that you're not asleep or too pissed to appreciate its greatness.

SUNDAY: Sky One (Channel 106) gets the nod for superior popcorn with the still heart-pumping 24 and the still fucking bewildering Lost from 9pm. BBC2 has the second part of uber-smart doc, The Trap: What Happened To Our Dreams Of Freedom (from The Power Of Nightmares creator, Adam Curtis), also from 9pm and Channel 4 have a run-down of The 100 Greatest Stand-Ups from 8pm. I'll bet Richard Pryor's number one.

TV ON THE INTERNET

This has to be one of the strangest things I've seen on YouTube in a while - eminent Slovenian sociologist and one of the greatest thinkers of our time, Slavoj Zizek, wasting his time on a Boston cable show.

A super-funny promo spot for Tom Goes To The Mayor creators, Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim's new [adult swim] show, Tim And Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! Looks very promising indeed and the more Bob Odenkirk, the better.

OMG! Bernard Manning sings The Smiths! If anyone can remember what sketch show this was on, I'd be eternally grateful.

And finally, because I never tire of seeing this and because of all the controversy surrounding TV phone-ins right now, Five Star on Going Live!