Radio Times

Best story so far - and I'm not just saying that because writer Steven Moffat is taking over. No, I'm saying this next bit because writer Steven Moffat is taking over: you're the greatest writer in all the land, Doctor Who is in tremendous hands, we've all put the US version of Coupling behind us, now gimme a job.

I first met him on the set of Press Gang and in the last couple of years we have disagreed on countless things, every last one of which I now completely accept I was wrong about.

That's the creeping over with, here's the slamming criticism: Silence in the Library...

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Q My HD satellite receiver says the Freesat channels I receive, including BBC HD, are coming via Astra 19.2° East, but all the set-up instructions I have seen so far say I should point my dish towards Astra 28.2° East. Please advise.
Leslie Rushbrook, Stevenage, Hertfordshire

A Freesat is using two satellites: Astra 2 at 28.2° East and Eurobird at 28.5° East. (Readers who are baffled by this needn't worry about it! But you'd be surprised how many people asked.)

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Q Does the new Freesat carry regional programming?
Michael Bates, Bristol

A Yes. When you first set up your digibox, you're asked for your postcode: that sets the correct BBC1 and ITV1 regions for your area. But all available regions are still accessible wherever you are. Just as with Sky, you can find them listed at the bottom of the channels' EPG, should you fancy watching news or other programming from a different part of the country.

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Q I currently watch digital TV via Freesat from Sky. Can I use my existing equipment to receive the new BBC/ITV Freesat service?
Andy Bowen, Manchester

A All you need is a new Freesat box: your Sky dish should work perfectly with the new service. Freesat recommends that you check, however, when you're buying the box - and you should also know that if your Sky dish is still under warranty, you'll void that by connecting different equipment to it.

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When Hollywood runs out of new ideas, it has two options: remake an old movie or update an old TV show. With the latter, audiences of a certain age are then expected to troop along to relive their childhoods, as with the 2004 revival of US buddy-cop favourite Starsky & Hutch.

Even though Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson brought the cops back to life with gusto, I thought it was sad to see a classic brand undermined by mocking irony and facile homoerotic quips. At least Mission: Impossible and The Fugitive were respectful to the spirit of the originals.

Ultimately, television...

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"I'm absolutely worn out," sighed Michael (well, nine weeks of lying, cheating and backstabbing will do that to you). And after the teams had been given their task of renting out luxury sports cars he took his Ferrari down a side street, presumably for a little snooze (he certainly wasn't going to do any business there).

Michael had already admitted he knew nothing about cars but in case we weren't convinced, his next choice of venue was a fruit and veg market on Portobello Road ("Get yer Ferraris 'ere! Just £65 an hour, yer tasty Italian Ferraris!")

Still, Michael did little to raise the hackles this week,...

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Q Are there any plans for the new Freesat to provide a broadband internet service?
Martin de Wolf, Westenhanger, Kent

A It's a nice thought, given that many Freesat customers might be in more remote areas - but no, Freesat tell us they have no such plans.

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The read-out on the spaceship that crash-lands at the beginning of Planet of the Apes helpfully informs us that the year is 3978. But in the second sequel, Escape from the Planet of the Apes, three of the simians from that distant future take a trip back to the 20th century to, frankly, mess with the fabric of time.

Film-makers love to monkey with us like this. But the trouble with the future is that it eventually becomes the present; science fiction becomes either science fact or science "that never actually came true – did it?”

George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four remains the most famous example:...

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Ever since Changing Rooms offered neighbours the chance to assault each other's houses with the help of gaudy interior designer Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, there has been a seemingly limitless demand for property-related reality shows. Our TV schedules are congested with copycat programmes on everything connected to the humble home. If property was really that exciting we'd all be estate agents. So why do we love them so?

Well, voyeurism is the obvious answer. That old parental caution "don't talk to strangers" seems to be part of our national psyche in adulthood. Thus our natural curiosity for seeing how people live is fulfilled not by knocking on the...

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Think of Bank Holiday Mondays and what comes to mind? Rotten weather (of course), visits to DIY superstores, buying sofas, pottering in the garden, maggoty dismembered corpses…er, let's back up, shall we. Yes, I realise the latter probably isn't up there with putting your slippered feet up as you watch The Sound of Music (2:50pm, BBC1) for the 10,000th time in your life, but maybe a savage serial killer drama will hit the spot after a long day doing nothing in particular? If so, then prepare to unwrap that bar of chocolate you've been keeping at the back of the cupboard (go on, you know it's there),...

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OK, hands up, who fell for it? This week, the teams were given the task of creating and advertising a brand of tissues and, admit it, when you watched the resulting TV ads, you thought Alpha had blown it.

The two schoolchildren sharing a tissue and a shy smile in Renaissance's ad were so cute, weren't they? And Alpha's effort was so naff, and garish, and laboured. It couldn’t possibly impress the watching ad executives.

That's what I thought – and then I remembered bellowing BARRY SCOTT!, the in-your-face advocate of miraculous, all-purpose cleaning product Cillit Bang! Renaissance boss Raef and his sidekick Michael had forgotten the...

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Admit it, you want to read Agatha Christie novels now. Tonight's Doctor Who was a 43-minute advert for her and I'd have said there could be no harder customer to convince than me. Miss Marple leaves me looking at my watch, the Orient Express is just a train and Poirot makes me crave slapping people. Mostly Poirot himself.

But put the woman herself into a Doctor Who comedy murder mystery with a jewel thief called the Unicorn and a ten-foot wasp and I'm sold. It's only a surprise that ITV1 didn't go the same route when it revamped random Christie novels into the modern-sounding, hip Marple.

Doctor...

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Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain wasn’t the first film to depict a gay, male relationship and win Oscars. That honour goes to Philadelphia, Jonathan Demme's unapologetically mainstream Aids drama starring Tom Hanks, which won two out of five nominations at the 1993 Academy Awards. (Brokeback won three out of eight.)

At the time, outside of the art house and specialist circuit, films about homosexual relationships were still rare – Personal Best, Torch Song Trilogy, Cruising.

But at least a shift in attitude in the 1980s had superseded the previous cinematic norm: a hint of homoerotic ambiguity. Think of the 1958 adaptation of Tennessee...

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You have to hand a big chocolate bar to the imaginative soul at ITV who dreamed up The Duchess in Hull (Monday 19 May and Tuesday 20 May, 9:00pm, ITV1). Take a working class family living on a rough council estate in one of Britain's least appetising cities (and before the outcry, can I say that I have lived in Hull, so I know exactly what I'm talking about). They are overweight and have no ideas about healthy eating.

One day there's a knock on their door and guess who it is? None other than the Duchess of York, a woman whose own problems with her weight...

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How is Michael still in this competition?! The task this week was to sell bridal gowns and paraphernalia at a wedding exhibition, and as a sales team, Michael and Sara were a marriage made in hell. Sara was painfully pushy but Michael's obsession with "closing deals" at all costs (and remember we're talking cup cakes here, not real estate) made me wonder if he hadn't seen Glengarry Glen Ross one too many times.

As Alex pointed out, Michael takes the aggressive approach he's learnt from working in telesales (and we've all had experience of how teeth-grindingly annoying that can be) and transfers it directly into customer's faces.

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