Radio Times

You have been abducted by masked gunmen and imprisoned in a grubby Walthamstow flat. Your sabre-wielding captors will show no mercy unless the British government concede to all their demands. Never mind, anytime soon golden-haired Adam Carter and his snappily dressed team of top MI5 agents will come sashaying up the garden path. Feeling reassured? No, me neither.

Time was when you had to be pretty ruthless to work for the secret service. But all that must have changed when tender-hearted Harry Pearce took over. Ceaselessly kind and compassionate towards his staff, he takes their safety personally,...

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Viewers who pay to receive satellite porn channels are losers. OK, so you already knew that. But I'm not talking about how these sad, lonely people need to get out more and experience the thrill of real human interaction. No, I'm talking about how stupid they are to shell out their hard-earned cash for a service they can already get for free elsewhere on their menu of digital delights.

I'm talking, of course, about music television. Flick on one of these channels at any point in the day, and within seconds I guarantee you'll be seeing more bare...

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Before I mount my moral high horse about how this show glamorises prostitution, a niggle: why all the sunshine? Belle's charmed life as a call girl isn't so much glossy as luminous. Every single scene is pierced with sunlight. The obvious implication is that we're far from the grim, drug-fuelled world of streetwalkers. But, as she strolls from room to room bathed in rays, it goes further: is Belle a divine being?

She's certainly blessed. Most of her clients are winsome, wonderfully handsome chaps. True, in a rare moment of danger, one man ties her up...

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I'm sure no-one was seriously expecting Bonekickers to be about real archaeology. Personally, I quite like dusty shards of ancient pottery, though even I can see there are not too many thrills to be had from digging up ceramic fragments. But was it too much to hope for some adventure, excitement, suspense - even a little complex characterisation? Or is quality drama now as rare as an unexcavated Egyptian tomb?

The series got off to a very poor start with a group of chain-mail-clad extras clanking about in woodland in semi-darkness. If you've never seen this sequence...

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Ah, summer. British men baring their bellies, oppressive heat on public transport and flash floods. But no amount of sandbags at the door can stop the onslaught of Big Brother and all its bast*rd offspring as they arrive to pay an unwanted three-month visit. Yes, it's the time of year when the press vents its spleen about previously unknown people saying vaguely racist things; there's nothing that suits the season better than finding a fresh bikini-clad pariah. In fact, the only person who must be looking forward to the new series is Gordon Brown - at least he'll...

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TV executives don't have many good ideas, so they live by two rules. One: if another channel has a good idea, copy it, even if your version is bad. Two: if you have a good idea, keep milking it dry, even after it's turned bad. Ashes to Ashes is rule two in action.

In 2006, Life on Mars was a great idea. A detective wakes up in 1973 and has to join the oafish coppers of the time, while figuring out what he's doing there. The problem was plausibly getting him home, but the creators had...

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Musicians are no more guaranteed to be funny than chefs are guaranteed to be able to perform on the flying trapeze. The odds that a bass player will say anything remotely interesting are minuscule - you need only flip open the NME to see another bunch of self-absorbed music industry puppets blathering on in a self-indulgent fashion. So the premise of a TV show in which they answer questions about each other is, well, just asking for trouble.

Of course, music quizzes aren't new to television. Mike Read hosted Pop Quiz throughout the 80s. I was...

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Location, Location, Location is a programme based on greed and sex. Greed is provided simply by bringing the housing market to the screen and suggesting that not only could we "trade up", but also we would be better, happier people for it. Sex, less successfully perhaps, is provided by the intimation that, given the chance, Phil and Kirstie would be at it like knives.

The show's bast*rd offspring Relocation, Relocation has taken this model and gone global - well, over the Channel, anyway. Now it's not just about being greedy in Britain, it's about being...

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This isn't so much "hate mail", more a sigh of exasperation at just how stale and repetitive EastEnders has become. That might seem a tad mean when many at the Beeb must be patting themselves on the back for the 14.38 million ratings success on Christmas Day. But how many of those viewers actually enjoyed what they saw?

Did they actually relish all that aggro on the happiest day of the year, as the long-drawn-out Stacey/Bradley/Max betrayal storyline reached its unpleasant dénouement? At new year, we were treated to the tragedy of Kevin's car crash death...

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My initial reaction was dismay that the magnificent Sue Johnston was persuaded to ally herself to such meretricious dross. That a second run was commissioned also beggars belief. Jam & Jerusalem just doesn't know what it wants to be. As comedy it’s mirthless, as drama it's unengaging and as "gentle cosy entertainment" it's constipated.

With an impressive, predominantly female ensemble, J&J is reminiscent of Victoria Wood's superior dinnerladies, but it wastes all comedic talent at its disposal. Characterisation is minimal - one or two oddballs stand out but, frankly, they'd be more at home and get better...

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I am a man. I have a car. It has four wheels and I quite like driving it. But, honestly, what else do you need to know? They go. Some faster than others. They come in different colours. Mine's blue and has got a CD player. They're also quite expensive. That's enough information, surely?

It would be altogether too easy and too obvious to devote the bulk of this piece to a character assassination of Jeremy Clarkson. But, hey, what's wrong with easy and obvious? The man's a prig, a smug boor who sports a ludicrous haircut and...

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Occasionally, artists enjoy an "imperial phase". It's the part of their career where, after a massive hit, they can do no wrong. Critics daren't criticise them; their employers daren't interfere with their work. Then, when their abilities dwindle, nobody notices. For an example, look no further than Ricky Gervais and Extras.

The first series of Extras was an awkward mix of Office-style realism, celebrity cameos where stars hammered away at one unsubtle quirk, and bargain-basement comic misunderstanding. The main character, Andy Millman, swung wildly from frustrated everyman to boorish bumbler and, in emergencies, simply became David Brent. Outside...

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At around 7:00pm every Saturday evening, approximately eight million people take leave of their senses, jettison their critical faculties and tune into 90 minutes of unadulterated garbage. Eight million people can't be wrong, surely? Believe me, they can.

The X Factor is lowest-common-denominator television writ large, spawned from the same culture that foisted Katie Price and Peter Andre upon an unsuspecting world: a tired and repetitive format that plays on the aspirations of susceptible no-hopers with limited talent and even less personality, acting out their fantasies on a set with as much visual appeal as an unlanced boil....

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Robin Hood looks like it was made out of Playmobil, one of those clip-together kits of shiny trees and plastic figures with blunt weapons and detachable hair. Just look at Jonas Armstrong - he's even got the raggedy fringe and painted-on stubble. These people don't live by their wits, they're let out of the box for 45 minutes and then tidied back into the toy cupboard.

I knew I wasn't going to like it from the opening episode. It was Pirates of the Caribbean done in the style of an end-of-term school play. They all looked like children...

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