Some killer, mostly filler

I still don't get the whole Tracy/Charlie/murder plot in Corrie. Tracy Barlow is just too clever, too good at self-preservation and, really, just not mad enough to contrive this whole plot to off Charlie in revenge for his fling with Maria. You could hand that plot to almost any of the harridans in Emmerdale and it would work perfectly but, just like the Killer Katy storyline, in the half-social realist, half-pantomime world of Coronation Street, it just feels wrong. Let's hope the arrival of the Connor and Morton families will lead to some good new plots - though the Michelle/Sean/Sonny love triangle sounds like it could be one of the worst things in the show's history.

Jack's Back-ish...

As history dictates, the even-numbered series of 24 are always a bit rubbish - and I'm very worried about season six. So far, we've seen it all before. Stupid teenagers getting involved with terrorists who require an important part of their devices to be delivered by someone of little competence. Jack's obsession with torture and willingness to kill colleagues whose three-dimensional character attributes mean they are not simply CTU robots. A fairly rubbish president seemingly at the mercy of a right-wing advisor. Petty squabbling among the CTU operatives. Many fairly dubious Middle Eastern stereotypes who all seem to be terrorists. So far, so blah.

There is some silver lining on the horizon. Finally, four hours after being released from a Chinese torture camp, Jack looks like he might just crack-up this series. One huge dirty bomb's already gone off, so perhaps anything could happen next (though this happened with the nuclear power plant explosions in season four). Regina King has taken on the mantle of Token Feisty Woman extremely well, and the more we see of her, the better. And Karen Hayes and Bill Buchannan make the loveliest couple in 24 history.

Don't get me wrong, I want season six to be every bit as fantastic as the last one - though series five was so demented, its going to take some doing. And now Heroes has arrived in the UK, there's a real danger that slow-burning dramas such as 24 and Lost are going to see rather tired. Let's hope Jack's got a few aces up his sleeve...

Random Cult Musings

Heroes really is every bit as fantastic as I've been told. It's broader than Lost, more coherent than Lost and more involving than Lost. I can't wait to see where they take it, and unlike Lost, it seems the producers might be willing to reveal what's going on sooner rather than later.

Battlestar Galactica season three is also amazing. Making sci-fi and politics both engaging and sexy is no mean feat, but Battlestar has managed it, and the way season three is so different to the previous two (and a barely veiled take on the US's role in Iraq) has made it all the more surprising. While still adjusting to the idea that Dean Stockwell is a cylon, Number Six is still the finest and funniest of the fleshy toasters. And just when you think nothing's better than Adam's new 'tache, in walks a newly fat Apollo. Smashing.

Feeling Blue About Betty

It started so well, it seemed like a hilarious weekly take on Zoolander with a tad of mystery thrown in and it looked set to transform the DMZ that is Friday-night C4. However, despite being three episodes in, we've only seen one story in Ugly Betty. Betty makes a fool of herself, Betty is bullied but then Betty saves the day. I'm hoping forthcoming episodes will deviate on this formula and give the fabulous America Ferrera more to do than smile desperately before falling over. That said, there are still a fair few laugh-out loud moments in each episode, which is far more than pretty much anything else on C4 at the moment. Bar the refreshed Desperate Housewives, of course... Come on Betty - please give us a reason to keep watching. We need more zany, egocentric characters, more suspense on the Fey Sommers mystery, and more of a sense that our heroine could actually fail one episode.

Feeling Blue About Betty

It started so well, it seemed like a hilarious weekly take on Zoolander with a tad of mystery thrown in and it looked set to transform the DMZ that is Friday-night C4. However, despite being three episodes in, we've only seen one story in Ugly Betty. Betty makes a fool of herself, Betty is bullied but then Betty saves the day. I'm hoping forthcoming episodes will deviate on this formula and give the fabulous America Ferrera more to do than smile desperately before falling over. That said, there are still a fair few laugh-out loud moments in each episode, which is far more than pretty much anything else on C4 at the moment. Bar the refreshed Desperate Housewives, of course... Come on Betty - please give us a reason to keep watching. We need more zany, egocentric characters, more suspense on the Fey Sommers mystery, and more of a sense that our heroine could actually fail one episode.

Random Soap Musings

So, Sonia's been accused of killing Pauline in EastEnders... If we're really meant to be surprised by any forthcoming twists in this storyline, could we may be have fewe shots of Joe looking rather guilty?

And ex-EastEnder Louise Lytton is joining The Bill, the natural career progression for amyone axed from Walford. Often The Bill introduced new characters with no idea what to do with them, so let's hope they give Louise a good role rather than just "inexperienced cop number 3".

The Summer Bay pyromanic was that nice-looking cop who was doing it as part of the inanely dull plot against the inanely dull Drew. And Drew and Amanda is so not a good storyline. And how many more times can Rachel and Kim's relationship be ruined by crazed stalkers?

The Timmins clan has been axed from Neighbours. Woo-hoo! Bring back Mal Kennedy or Guy Carpenter with a young family instead.

Corrie - the last thing we need is bisexual love triangle featuring planken Sean. And the new "family from hell" had better live up to their relationship.

Hollyoaks - thank you for not killing Max. But killing Becca's going to cause an upset.

That was life

Ten years ago, This Life blistered onto the screens full of swearing, drug-taking and nudity. And unsurprisingly it received plenty of attention. And it did genuinely seem to be ground-breaking TV, the first programme to bring adulthood to life so vividly.

But as the recent repeats on BBC2 demonstrated, behind all the adult content there was very little left. Now that swearing and nudity are less shocking (and done much better by HBO programmes), This Life seems far less revolutionary. In fact, the first season was just plain bad, with awkward dialogue, pointless nauseating camerawork and non-existent storylines. The second series is where the show hit gold, taking in more characters, coherent plots and developing the cast into almost likable beings.

This Life + 10 should have been a brilliant guide to what happened to those self-indulgent characters. Instead it just decided to play like an episode tagged on to the last series. Very little of what became of the young lawyers was really revealed - we just had to accept they were where they were and run with it. Where was Miles' first wife? Why was Warren mourning Ferdy when it was implied the dead courier had gone back to his wife? What killed Ferdy?

As it was written by Amy Jenkins, who wrote the not-as-good-as-the-second first series, we only got something akin to patchy opening season. The far more interesting auxiliary cast such as Kira, Jo, Nicki and Rachel were not even referenced, and the original five characters were not so much characters as blindly drawn caricatures. Milly appeared to be some sort of earth mother one minute, control freak the next. Egg was the great writer to begin with, before deciding he hates writing. Miles was just a cock and the awful stereotype of a career woman craving a child that had become was just offensive to the memory.

Perhaps there would have been no pleasing This Life fans, but this one-off did nothing to add to the series and only made the infuriatingly ambiguous character more infuriating ambiguous. But, maybe that was the whole idea?