Radio Times

In last week's episode of soapy US legal drama The Good Wife, a stripper claimed she'd been raped by the scion of Chicago's wealthiest and most powerful family.

But the police wouldn't investigate so the woman pursued a civil action. "I think you're looking for justice," said wise attorney Alicia Florrick, The Good Wife of the title, wisely. See, she isn't a lawyer for nothing. Did I mention she is wise?

I love The Good Wife (Monday C4), because it's my favourite type of television show: guilt-free, shiny drivel that asks nothing of me, except my disbelief.

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I don't know about you, but I can never see enough grainy camcorder footage of people falling off skateboards. And if they fall off while attempting to do something even more idiotic than just straight skateboarding - such as skateboarding down a flight of stone steps - so much the better.

Watching wheeled halfwits get their just deserts is one of the great joys of You've Been Framed! (Saturdays, ITV1) which is the amuse-bouche before Harry Hill's TV Burp.

You've Been Framed! has been around for a long time. Do you remember when it was...

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You've got to hand it to American television - it knows how to have fun. We don't seem to get TV happiness over here, though goodness knows we can do misery: Silent Witness, Survivors, EastEnders, Wallander…

Which is why Glee (Sundays, Channel 4, C4 HD; Mondays, E4) is such a joy in this dog-end of a rotten winter with its bleak homegrown-telly landscape. It's silly, fun and packed with cliché, though it's knowing, too, without being cynical or mean-spirited.

And it's early days yet, but I think Glee has already given me my...

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For me, Radio Times covers parties only really come into sharp focus the following morning, usually when my head is in my hands. And so it was this year: oh no, did I really keep finding excuses to cuddle Being Human's Aidan Turner? Did I really ask Rob Brydon to sing to me? Yes, I did.

I can report that Aidan Turner (melting chocolate eyes, warm syrup voice) is utterly charming, as well as being so handsome that light bulbs spontaneously switch themselves on whenever he enters darkened rooms. Dear reader, he really is...

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I'm struggling with a novel. Reading one, not writing one. It's The Outlander by Gil Adamson, since you ask. I bought it, not just because it was part of a three-for-two offer at a major high street book chain, but because it came larded with praise by critics, commentators - everyone.

But I'm about a third of the way through and, frankly, I'm just not bothered and have reached the point where I either give it away or finish it out of sheer bloody-mindedness.

Put simply, it's because I don't care about its central...

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Maybe I'm the only person in the world bothered by Law & Order: UK (Mondays, 9:00pm, ITV1). It gets very good audiences (nearly six million tuned in for the first episode in the new series) and ITV1 is obviously very pleased with it.

Even though, yes I know it's a drama and not a documentary, I am troubled by the amateurishness and silliness of its depiction of the British legal system.

Ordinarily I wouldn't let myself get too upset, but I marked Law & Order: UK down in my Big Bad Book at the end of the...

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It's nearly the end of the year so it must be time to lie on my TV editor's chaise longue while my white-gloved staff bring me sweetmeats, or at the very least a chocolate orange, as I review some of the highs and lows of 2009.

I've resisted the temptation to peer at everything through a gauze of nostalgia, which is always a danger in this type of fond look-back, but I don't think I'm being too rosy in declaring 2009 a stand-out year for drama.

ITV1 announced that it was shedding old favourites Heartbeat,...

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"Hello everyone! It's that time of year again, the time when celebrity chefs tell you how to cook a turkey and all the festive trimmings. You wouldn't think it was that complicated, would you: just put it in the oven, cook it, take it out and eat it.

"But celebrity chefs always have lots of special hints and tips and even minute-by-minute timetables of preparations guaranteed to make you feel guilty if you don't get up till 11:30 on Christmas morning and would rather lie in a bath of prosecco dreaming of Jon Hamm dressed as Santa than...

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Sometimes, I'll come across an overwrought drama where I can be fairly sure that the dialogue was written by an infinite number of ants with a giant marker pen.

They roam and doodle, writing whorls of pap that, eventually, someone will shape into pages and form into a script for a science-fiction series. Like Heroes, and, starting on Wednesday this week on BBC2, Defying Gravity.

Defying Gravity is epically awful. It's an international co-production between Canadian, German, American and British (the BBC) broadcasters. I wonder if they are all blaming...

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I love this time of year; the temperature is dropping and the nights are drawing in, so it's the perfect excuse to get cosy in front of the telly having of course first dug out my Big Slippers, the ones the size and consistency of fluffy canoes.

It's hard to believe but there are people in the world who are very sniffy about telly (who are these pinheads and what makes them think they are better than the rest of us?). They can't grasp the joy of that shared experience, when millions of us, all at the same...

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The US comedy 30 Rock is always described as "critically acclaimed" which, as we all know, really means "nobody watches it". Even in its native land, 30 Rock's audience is comparatively tiny, with writer/creator/star Tina Fey (pictured) memorably thanking the show's "several viewers" at an awards ceremony.

So with 30 Rock a prophet without honour in its own land, it never really stood much of a chance over here. The first two series were bought by Five, who broadcast season one in increasingly eccentric time slots (ie late or, sometimes, not at all). Yes, of course,...

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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...

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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...

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ITV1 gave new Miss Marple Julia McKenzie a slow-burning start with her first story, A Pocket Full of Rye. She didn't appear on screen properly until about 30 minutes in, and even then most of the proper detecting was done by a real police officer (played by Matthew Macfadyen).

But McKenzie really gets her feet under the table in the second adaptation, Murder Is Easy. And that wasn't even a Marple story. This hijacking doesn't seem to bother anyone but me, so I won't go on about how much I dislike it, and yes,...

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