All New Top of the Pops

You wouldn’t get BBC News deciding not to cover a train crash because they’d had too many of those stories recently. And Match of the Day would never decide that all this football was getting boring, so they’d put a film on instead of the Cup Final. Read more

French Leave

And with that, they were gone. The departure of the Burton Race family from our screens will leave a poignant gap in the schedules. Derided by the critics, this show has managed to turn their petty words into straw with contemptuous ease. Read more

Room 101

Just like pop, Room 101 has finally managed to eat itself. For too long, the show has teetered on the brink of mediocrity, threatening to sink forever into that particular abyss. Read more

Robot Wars

“They tried to stop us!” yells Craig Charles as he walks out onto his balcony. “They tried to stop the destruction!” Read more

Home and Away

Here’s a blast from the past for all you Summer Bay fanatics. The last time I watched this show that scheming bitch (but utter fox) Alison Paterson was at the centre of all things mean and moody. Roo and Bobby were at loggerheads and Donald Fisher was still to attain the moniker of Flathead. Read more

Days that Shook the World

It’s the opening sentence in the commentary and already we’re immediately historically inaccurate. And as each minute passes, the inaccuracies rain down with astonishing rapidity. Whilst a degree of objectivity is only to be expected, outright falsehoods and blatant misreading of the truth are not. Read more

Countdown

It’s a pity Channel 4 seem to have forgotten that the best way to get shot of a listless, ageing programme is to dispatch it, cleanly and coldly, with one swift blow. Read more