Radio Times

As EastEnders announces that a live episode will be the culmination of a weeklong commemoration of its 25th birthday next February and Coronation Street prepares to celebrate its 50th anniversary in December 2010, the question of how a soap - working so far ahead, as they must - can best mark a milestone becomes more pressing by the day.

So what would make a suitable celebration? The climax of a big plot or an explosive stunt is a given, but as soaps are regularly punctuated by momentous events, that would hardly be special.

In 2007, Emmerdale's 35th birthday was marked by a conflagration...

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Popular fantasy adventure Primeval has been saved - three months after it was officially cancelled.

Stars Hannah Spearritt, Andrew Lee Potts, Jason Flemyng and more will be back for two more series, which will be screened on ITV1 from 2011.

ITV1 had dropped the series back in June saying that the channel's drama plans were to "focus on post-watershed production". The cancellation had come after ITV announced plans to cut costs and the show has been revived thanks to funding from other broadcasters, including digital channel Watch in the UK and BBC America overseas.

"We are really excited to be part...

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On Sunday 4 October (9:00pm), BBC1 broadcasts the first in a a new four-part adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma, yet in the future there's a move to cut back on the number of "bonnet" dramas the BBC produces.

In the latest issue of Radio Times, Ben Stephenson, the new controller of BBC drama commissioning, explains what's behind the move, while Andrew Davies, the king of period drama adaptations, gives his response.

Stephenson said, "Period drama[…]is probably about 15 per cent of the overall body of work that we make, but because of its scale and impact, it punches above its weight....

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Forty years ago, Monty Python's Flying Circus burst onto television without much attention at all.

Screened on BBC2 from 1969 to 1974, each short series did earn an increasing following, yet it would really only be in the years since that Monty Python would become the incredible phenomenon it is today. Four decades of stage shows, films, books and phrases that have entered the language. It launched the careers of John Cleese, Eric Idle, Graham Chapman, Terry Gilliam and Michael Palin - and is still seen around the world.

With all that, can you really pick out just a few sketches as being the...

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Last week it was Alesha - and you made very smart comments about her against this blog - but this week it's Len you've got to wonder about. He's supposed to be judging the dancing, we're the ones who are supposed to be wilfully supporting our favourites regardless. I embrace that role with gusto: I'll vote for someone who dances well, or someone I like who doesn't. Frankly, it's also possible to misdial, and I'm just crazy enough to do that sometimes too.

I have been asked how I accidentally voted for Lynda Bellingham last time and I'd like to say it was the...

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Boot camp! The cream of Britain's inexhaustible talent pool, whittled from 200 to 24 in an intense festival of perfect performances. That's the theory, but even with 99.9% of the original applicants already rejected, there were scores of tone-deaf chancers left. So the judges bashed through the acts three at a time, eliminating 100 straight away.

Making the contestants form trios had unexpected results. Three shouters who weren't all-that individually became a girl group, Miss Frank. Less fortunate was Sian Paley, who was landed with John and Edward - Beelzebub's answer to Bros, with their infuriating hairstyles and ridiculous hopscotch-based dancing. They rudely sang over...

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Ex boxing world champion Joe Calzaghe won my girlish heart when he told Radio Times in our Strictly Come Dancing launch feature that taking part in the competition was more fun than "getting punched in the head for a living". I loved that; it was such a raw, honest and un-starry thing to say. What I know about boxing could be written on the back of a pixie's postage stamp, but from that moment on I knew I was in love with Joe Calzaghe.

That love even withstood the unassailable fact that Calzaghe danced like a dying moose when he took to the floor...

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"Hello and welcome to Location, Location, Location. We're the increasingly desperate and disheartened Kirstie Allsopp and Phil Spencer. The forced banter and our supposed sexual tension mask our despair that our househunters are becoming increasingly pointlessly demanding."

Phil: "Here's Tom and Tamara Troublesome and their ill-mannered children Hetty, Banzai and Isambard. Tom made his fortune running a shop that sells nothing but acorns, while Tamara simpers a lot in white trousers. Their dream is to live in a converted doll museum."

Kirstie: "Meanwhile, Izzie and Isaiah Idiotic want to move out of their £6 million penthouse apartment made entirely of crystals and into a more eco-friendly pad...

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In what's widely being viewed as a response to allegations of ageism, BBC director general Mark Thompson has asked news director Helen Boaden to recruit a female newscaster over the age of 50.

A spokesman confirmed that there had been discussions between Thompson, Boaden and other directors about broadening the range of presenters on air - including older women: "News has a pretty good story to tell with Kirsty Wark, Martha Kearney and Maxine Mawhinney all flourishing - as well as highly experienced women out in the field like Bridget Kendall, Caroline Wyatt and Orla Guerin. However, we'd be the first to say that it's important not to...

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"It's nonsense to say that I'm not qualified to judge the dancers," Alesha Dixon tells Radio Times exclusively. "If anything, the controversy has sparked the fighter in me."

Strictly Come Dancing champion Alesha's replacing Arlene Phillips caused storms among fans, with newspapers decrying the change and Harriet Harman raising questions about it in the House of Commons. It was ageist, they claimed - Arlene is 66 while Alesha is 30 - and Dixon only got the job because of her looks.

"When I read that I only won in 2007 because I was half-naked, I did take that seriously," she says. "That's not...

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Autumnwatch presenter Chris Packham is a champion of nature and wildlife - just not all of it. "We pour millions of pounds into panda conservation," he tells Radio Times. "I reckon we should pull the plug. Let them go, with a degree of dignity."

It's not the attitude you'd immediately expect of a BBC wildlife presenter and vice-president of the RSPB, but he also doesn't think it's going to happen: "Here's a species that, of its own accord, has gone down an evolutionary cul-de-sac. It's not a strong species. Unfortunately, pandas are big and cute and a symbol of the World Wildlife Fund."

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On Wednesday 30 September the Freeview service will undergo an upgrade, requiring viewers to retune their set-top boxes or TVs.

Who is affected?

The retune will affect homes with Freeview, Top Up TV or BT Vision equipment. Satellite, cable and analogue TV equipment is not affected.

Why is the retune necessary?

Freeview is an evolving service that requires viewers to retune their equipment from time to time to accommodate changes to the platform - for example, at both stages of digital switchover, when a new channel is launched or a channel/service moves multiplex (a multiplex is a group of channels all broadcast on...

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Brendan Cole famously keeps breaking the rules of Strictly Come Dancing with those lifts of his. But once, on the great It Takes Two, he and Craig Revel Horwood had a barney about it. Without the rules, claimed Craig, there's no test, no real challenge, no measure of the dancing. He's right - and this is why Alesha Dixon is a mistake.

As much as we loved Alesha Dixon for winning so brilliantly two years ago, all she's got to offer is that she knows what the contestants are going through. It's not enough and we've already seen that: the other three judges...

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Well, who isn't glad that's over? This year's audition shows lasted approximately eight months, were made as blaringly vulgar as the rest of the series by the live audience (here's a thing I only noticed this week: it's killed the judges' banter about the contestant just gone) and had, as usual, a good deal of laughing at the sad, the unfortunate and the vulnerable.

The double-header before boot camp was two more episodes too many. On occasion, though, this weekend's X Factor had warm laughs and hit cheesy, shameless highs.

Richard Green had a very scary stare, but there was something admirable in his utterly uninhibited...

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I never make the mistake of underestimating my capacity for watching drivel; for example, my current favourites The Real Housewives of New Jersey and Harper's Island are top quality, hugely entertaining drivel. But drivel, all the same.

Which brings us to FlashForward. Not that it's drivel, it's just silly, but it's good silly, brilliantly put together and a lot of fun. Five has bought the series, which makes its US debut on Thursday 24 September, and starts here shortly afterwards (Monday 28 September, 9:00pm).

I loved it, and I'm generally far too sensible and literal to like anything sci-fi-ish or otherworldly. But the premise of...

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