Everybody Hates... John Barrowman

Don't they? If there's one thing guaranteed to ruin a comedy panel show, Saturday evening entertainment fest or family fantasy series, it's the appearance of the outsized, curiously accented grinning mug of Barrowman. Always one to have an opinion, just so long as he can contradict with his next sentence, Barrowman's return to ubiquity (a decade after he stunk up CBBC with his OTT performances on Live & Kicking and The Movie Game) is far from welcome. And exactly who was it who thought Doctor Who needed a bisexual Captain Birdseye romping around the Tardis anyway? Oh, that's right...

Gurning, Grinnning-ninny Vernon Kay again

Last year's Gameshow Marathon was a quirky, fun celeb-fest. Ant and Dec struck the pitch perfect tone between poking fun at gameshows of yesteryear and showing deference to the huge personalities who made the shows work. The whole idea, while being wholy unoriginal, seemed fresh and a welcome break from Saturday evening singing contests.

This year's Gameshow Marathon is just plain horrible. Instead of a group of famous faces seemingly up for a laugh, the contestants are fallen stars desperate to get a little more screentime. And the biggest horror of all is that ITV1 hasn't woken up to the fact that gurning, grinning ninny Vernon Kay is a huge turn off with his sub-Peter 'No Relation' Kay routine. Get him off the TV now and if your in need of a new presenter, why not Ricki Lake who presented the US version - and had to contend with slightly less B-List guests such as the demented Leslie Nielson. That's real watercooler TV for you.

Everybody Loves... Vicki MIchelle

With The Return of 'Allo 'Allo! hitting BBC2 next Saturday, not only have I been consumed with pointless nostalgia about the demented genious of the French restistance sitcom, but I've decided Vicki Michelle should be sent to Emmerdale imediately. Not only would she make a better superbitch than Linda Lusardi, but she'd excel at the requisite comedic antics with Viv, Val and all. In fact get Vicki into any of the soaps. Or failing that, give her her own show. And do it fast. The campaign starts here.

Lost Lost again?

Has there ever been a series so patchy as season three of Lost? There's been some great episodes but there's also been some pretty bad ones. And this week's episode, Catch-22, sadly fell into the stinker category.

Despite an exciting trailer and allegations that something huge was going to happen, the plot moved along at a snail's pace. The first five minutes were hugely promising with Charlie getting speared in the neck and a mystery woman parachuting onto the island - but in the kind of sneaky way that Lost normally avoids, it was all a trick: another of Desmond's premonitions... And we had to sit through 42 minutes of tripe to see everything that happened in the teaser play out again slowly. And the Desmond flashback was the worst of the series (though we haven't had a Charlie episode yet, and they are always the worse). No no no no no.

A couple of sparks though. Jack and Sawyer bonding over ping-pong was a nice touch, as was Kate's increasing jealousy towards Juliet. And the skydiver did arrive on the island, apparently on a mission to find Desmond, after a rather funny noise that could have been something cutting though glass...? And was there a reason why there was a photo of the jewelry shop woman from Desmond's last flashback in the office of the head priest in this flashback? We'll probably never know.

So, I couldn't wait for Sky to get around to showing the last episode of Battlestar Galactica...

...and what I've got to say may spoil it if you haven't view it yet.

Brilliant is really the only word. Considering Battlestar is supposedly a sci-fi series, the fact that the majority of an edge-of-seat season finale was made up of people mainly ruminating on politics and human nature makes this programme all the more special. Of course Baltar was never going to be found guilty, but turning the trial into an extension of the recurring father v son, old v young, Adama v Apollo theme was genius. And the final money shot, zooming away from the fleet to reveal that they are just so close to earth, was the perfect way to tease us about the next, almost certainly final series. Especially as the Cylons are once more on top of them.

And despite being a serious sci-fi juggernaut, the series ramped up the mystery quota in the final few minutes. What's with Caprica Six, Athena and Roslin all sharing the same Hera-themed visions? Is Starbuck alive after all - or is she just a figment of Apollo's imagination, some sort of angel or even the final Cylon model?

The revelation of who four of the final five Cylon skinjobs are was likewise brilliantly and creatively done. All the way through the episode, with Tigh, Tyrol, Anders and Tory all hearing a parts of a mystery tune in their heads, I just didn't want any of them to turn out to be the Cylons - but they are the right people for the job. They've got the president's office, the workers' hero and the military in their control - and seeing how they attempt to stop their Cylon lineage from destroying the fleet will make the next series unmissable. Let's hope season four manages to top this one.

Everybody Hates C-Note

The people behind Prison Break are insane. It's official. Who else would kill off a character every time they come to close to helping Michael and Lincoln save the day? Or have a deranged nutjob cosy up with a blind woman only to become obsessed with the Netherlands? Or make the show's resident one-armed paedophile an unlikely babe-magnet, attracting comely housewives or naive admin assistants with ease?

The only downside is their reluctance to axe some of the deadwood. Sure, Tweener's gone to the big prison in the sky thanks to psycho cop Mahone's over-zealous zero-tolerance policy. But why are Sucre and C-Note still alive? No one really wanted Sucre's parachute to open the other week, but open it did. And what about C-Note - why are we supposed to care about him, his lame evidence with-holding wife and his too-darn-cute daughter? In prison he was very useful, but on the run he's just useless, lurching from one disastrous plot to another. Let's hope trigger-happy Mahone catches up with him shortly...

An Open Apology to... Ugly Betty

Betty, I was wrong. Sure, you went through a bit of lame patch last month, but recent events have made me realise you were just finding your feet.

The conclusion to the Daniel and Sofia storyline was the BEST EPISODE EVER, with Betty battling the disabled, Dad with fake grey hair dealing with his immigration official, Wilhemna's brief stint at being nice, crazy strippers, Daniel's alco-mom popping up again, and Amanda and Mark just being their usual ace selves (especially Becki Newton - Amanda - playing an even uglier version of Betty). Even Ashley Jensen is less pointlessly Scottish and annoying than before. Result.

And you've pulled a blinder by making that woman who were all thought was Fey Sommers turn out not to actually be Fey Sommers. Remember: play up the laughs, play down the not-that-intriguing intrigue.

Everybody Loves... Sylar

And here are 10 reasons why...

1. He's taken quite a dislike to Heroes most yawnsome characters Mohinder and Peter - and last time we saw him, he was about to cut the brains out of them. Go Sylar!

2. Actor Zachary Quinto played Adam in series three of 24 and was part of the all-time classic 'baby in the drawer' plot, inspired by the Brittas Empire.

3. If shaving of the mono-brow to give the impression of actually having two separate eyebrows was a superpower, Sylar would now be ready to take over the world.

4. Sylar inspired this piece of Youtube madness:



5. Quinto also featured in Tori Spelling's part-genius, mainly-egocentric So NoTorious series.

6. Sylar has been pulling the wool over oh-so-smugly-supposedly-clever Mohinder's eyes for weeks now. Even if he wasn't just out for a killing spree, Sylar's devotion to making Mohinder look stoopid makes him the hero of the series.

7. A face-off between Sylar and Nicki's evil supertwin would be the BEST THING ON TV EVER. So long as the kid and the invisible husband weren't involved. Make it happen, Kring.

8. Quinto is rumoured to be dating the fantastically named, if somewhat young, Rumer Willis - daughter of Demi'n'Bruce.

9. He is a master of disguise - when he sits in cafes, with his hoodie pulled over his face, stirring a cup a tea manically, it's amazing anyone would single him out as a potential serial killer.

10. He's quite tall.

Razzle Dazzle

So - Paulo and Nicki in Lost. Admittedly, I wasn't initially a fan but this episode would have brought me round to their way of thinking. The show really does suffer from a lack of Shannon and Boone bimbo/himbo characters (and having them back this week was huge bonus) who are really just idiots struggling to come to terms with what's going on. The clever splicing of footage from episodes gone by with new clips to make Paulo and Nicki seem part of the action was excellently done and made me yearn for those old beach-based episodes, while P&N's habit of discovering stuff before the other survivors, but never mentioning it, rings true to the whole inability of anyone on the island to communicate with each other.

And what with the brilliant opening scene (which Lost is now becoming a master of) in which Nicki appeared to be a superhero stripper, but was in fact an actress playing a superhero stripper, it was a bit of a shame when the pair were inadvertently buried alive at the end of the show. In fact, as someone who hates Lost episodes which don't further the plot in anyway (ie the Hurley and the VW van ep), I actually loved Expose - a curious Tale of the Unexpected. But if we don't get some serious answers from Other Town on Sunday, I'm going to get really quite angry.

TV Hero: Karen Hayes

This season of 24 has been all over the place. Characters popping up here, not really caring about deaths that occurred several hours before there, and people disappearing into the CTU labrynth all over the shop. But one character who we're glad didn't take the five-hour flight from Washington to LA is Karen Hayes.

Karen's the silent hero of the show and it seems that she's actually been running America since vacant R Kelly clone Wayne Palmer came to power. As soon as we discovered she'd married Bill between series, it seemed likely that one of the two would meet a nasty end - and as Karen's now on the wrong side of snidey silver fox vice president Daniels, I'm still worried for her safety. But her quest to ensure the forces of good win out, using only her straight-talking, power-dressing, matriarchal ways, has earmarked her as an early forerunner for this season's number one hero.

Although the women of 24 always end up getting kidnapped by terrorists, locked in cupboards by coniving colleagues, hiding babies in the drawers ala the Brittas Empire or just letting their emotions get the better of them and stabbing their husbands while needlessly slicing kiwi fruit, a rare few feisty females do slip through the testosterone-filled net. This season, Karen Hayes, Sandra Palmer and their attempts to force drippy Wayne out of his light-to-no coma rule.

Let's hope they both make it through the day.