Radio Times

I have some sympathy with a recent exasperated RT correspondent who bemoaned the ubiquity of critical plaudits for Mad Men (starring Jon Hamm, below), a series that hasn't exactly taken a flaming torch to the ratings. Not that any of us expected it to: I realised long ago that the number of people (and we are not all journalists) who watch Mad Men could comfortably be fitted into an average-sized garden shed while still leaving room for the lawn mower and the paraffin heater.

Yes, there are few things quite as irritating as people banging on about a drama that you just can't bring yourself...

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Life is often a trial in Soapland, but generally that's only metaphorical. Sometimes, though, the trial is real. Currently, two court cases are in progress: in Weatherfield, Gary Windass is accused of beating up David Platt, while over the Pennines in Emmerdale, Debbie Dingle is charged with the killing of corrupt copper Shane.

That both defendants are in the dock for crimes they didn't commit is no coincidence. More often than not, soap criminals manage to evade the law - EastEnders' Janine got away with pushing Barry over a cliff; Coronation Street serial killer Richard Hillman died before being brought to justice; and Emmerdale's Carl King still hasn't...

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Part of me is glad that MasterChef is over, largely because I fear for the sanity of Gregg Wallace and John Torode. I worried that if they had to make any more strenuous efforts to mine their near-bankrupt seam of hyperbole, they would both implode and shower us all with dust.

The MasterChef grand final (Thursday 26 February, BBC2) was a torrid and shouty affair, and it wasn't the contestants who were getting het up. They were, in fact, remarkably calm compared to the combustible presenters. At one point I thought the top of overexcited Gregg's head would erupt...

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The phrase "shaky camerawork" used to be a criticism, like "wobbly set" or "visible boom mic".

Now it's a way of life, a certified cinematographic technique, and sadly a ubiquitous short cut for film-makers keen to add instant realism to their work by simply leaving the tripod and the dolly tracks back in the storeroom and running around like a dad with a camcorder on sports day.

Sometimes shaky camerawork is officially a "good thing", as with the two Paul Greengrass-directed Bourne movies – The Bourne Supremacy (Saturday 28 February, ITV1) and The Bourne Ultimatum – which employ the latest in portable camera equipment to...

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If ever a woman's body language shouted, "I'm clever, but I'm rather shy and I don't want to be seen as a show-off", it was that of Gail Trimble, intellectual Panzer and captain of the Corpus Christi College, Oxford team on University Challenge. Acknowledged as the quiz's highest-scoring competitor ever, Trimble laid waste to opponents with her sweetly nervous smile and breathtaking general knowledge.

It was Pollyanna-ish of me not to realise until the day of the grand final (23 February BBC2) that not everyone thought, as I did, that she was terrific - immensely clever and with an endearingly bashful air whenever she answered...

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Former EastEnders star Wendy Richard has died, aged 65, after losing her battle with cancer.

Richard was best known for her 21 years as Pauline Fowler in the BBC1 soap. She joined the show when it began in 1985 and left in 2006 after her character was killed off, reportedly by mutual consent. Her earlier career included roles in sitcoms such as Are You Being Served? and even featured a number-one hit record, Come Outside, with Mike Sarne.

Last year, Richard revealed that her cancer had spread and become increasingly aggressive, and that she had already planned her funeral.

She died at...

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The Big Match Revisited is merely a re-run of ITV's equivalent of Match of the Day from 30 years ago, shoved into ITV4's schedule as cheap archive filler. But it's an irresistible deluge of cute nostalgia, thrilling sport and charming unintentional comedy.

Assuming you can't remember 1979, the season we're currently reliving, you can enjoy games without knowing who wins - and savour a kind of football so different to today's that it could be from a foreign country where fancy dribbling is frowned on, cynical fouls and diving are rare, and organised defending is banned outright. It's a straightforward, gutsy game played...

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EastEnders

Though you might be weary of the Masoods' catering feud with the Beales - especially after Jane and Christian's food fight with Zainab - console yourself that at least the EastEnders family are not the victims of racist abuse. Not so long ago, persecution was the sole lot of ethnic-minority characters, and Asians in particular. So forgettable were the other storylines given to Sanjay and Gita in Albert Square between 1993 and 1998, it felt as if barely a month went by without the Hindu couple being subjected to racist abuse.

The same can't be said of the Masoods. Since arriving in 2007, cultural differences...

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In the unlikely event that Lladro should ever decide to manufacture a line of porcelain Angry Bereaved Lady Lawyer figurines to take its place among all of those shepherdesses and geishas, they'd surely have to model it on Damages's Ellen Parsons.

Ellen (Rose Byrne) returned in the much-anticipated new series of the brilliant, playful thriller looking like a bruised angel, with ice in her veins and fire in her heart, seeking revenge. In series one, her fiancé was killed on the orders of a crooked businessman and Ellen escaped with her life after her boss hired a hitman to do her in. Wouldn't want to work...

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I have a very low tolerance threshold when it comes to middle-aged men telling me things in television documentary series (hello David Dimbleby, Jonathan Dimbleby, Peter Snow, Dan Cruickshank, Simon Schama, Tony Robinson). Or, even worse, middle-aged men drinking too much then trying to tell me things (Oz and James Drink to Britain, the most singularly infuriating and pointless series currently on television, a homage to masculine self-indulgence).

Where are the women? We are seriously under-represented when it comes to the clever stuff (though the Oz and James farrago isn't clever, obviously). On second thoughts, maybe this is payback for the pitiful portrayal of men in just...

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Following last month's news that Michelle Ryan is to star alongside David Tennant in the Doctor Who Easter special, Lindsay Duncan has been revealed as the Time Lord's newest companion.

The Rome star - who can also be seen as former PM Margaret Thatcher in Margaret - will play Adelaide, said by the BBC to be "the Doctor's cleverest and most strong-minded companion yet". Duncan said, "I'm thrilled to be involved in Doctor Who. I've never done anything like this before."

The episode is the second of four specials starring David Tennant this year, before Matt Smith becomes...

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Why do bright women suffer so?

The trials of EastEnders' Tanya Branning have been manifold. She was married to Max, for a start. And then there was her dalliance with crazy Sean. And her relationship with Jack. But Tanya's trials aren't simply down to her poor taste in men. She's endured humiliation, misery, upset and trauma simply because of who she is. Or, at least, was - for Tanya was once a confident, capable woman who ran her own business, brought up a family and seemed to have conquered that contemporary conundrum, "having it all". And for that - in the eyes of Soapland's cruel gods - Tanya...

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Jonathan Ross's recent chat-show interview with the world's biggest movie star was no headline grabber. The highlight came when Ross asked if he ever broke wind in bed with his wife and then "fanned the duvet". Tom Cruise guffawed gamely, but declined to comment.

The weak link was not interviewer but interviewee. Tom Cruise is just not that interesting unless you get him onto Scientology, his chosen creed, and even then only in a slightly creepy way.

The one time he let down his guard and professed his love for Katie Holmes by jumping up and down on Oprah Winfrey's couch (back in 2005), he was pilloried for...

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Calling a TV series a "guilty pleasure" is a bit of a cop-out, because it's just a snooty way of saying "I'm far too clever and well-educated to enjoy this, but I do enjoy it, only in my own witty and ironic postmodern sort of way."

But I'll come clean and admit that though Mistresses (which starts on BBC1 on Tuesday 17 February, and you will doubtless have seen the sexy trailers) is complete nonsense, I actually adore it not only because it's complete nonsense, but also because it's sumptuously lovely, completely enthralling complete nonsense. Simple as that. Nothing snooty and nothing complicated. I'm hooked.

I took...

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If you could actually hear candyfloss, I swear it would sound just like Paris Hilton. With her itty-bitty, teeny-weeny, sing-songy little voice. Paris ("businesswoman, singer, actress and brand" though, oddly, not "drunk driver and ex-con") arrived on our shores to choose her British Best Friend (Thursdays ITV2). Aren't we lucky?

Twelve thousand applied, but only 12 were chosen; 11 shrieking girlies with false eyelashes that made their faces look like bats' graveyards, and a squealing boy. "I've read her book!" twittered one as they awaited the arrival of Paris. She's written a book? Dear Lord. For her part, Paris, who is made of lollipops and sugar...

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