Radio Times

There will be people who'll read the title of this blog in disbelief. How can you love ITV's Rebus, they'll be asking - probably wearing a frown that wouldn't disgrace the eponymous hero himself.

Most of the dissenters will probably be dyed-in-the-wool fans of Ian Rankin's original novels. I write as an aficionado myself - Exit Music (the last Rebus novel) is still sitting on my bookshelf waiting to be read because I can't quite bring myself to say goodbye to the bloke just yet.

It's certainly true to say that the scripts aren't doing justice to the...

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Doc Martin looks at first glance like dull, patronising pap. It's got simple plots, an absurdly beautiful rural setting - Port Isaac in north Cornwall, renamed Portwenn for the show - and a supporting cast who talk in Somerset accents, as do all TV actors asked to play people from Cornwall, or Norfolk for that matter. (Nobody ever uses authentic Cornish idioms, either: "teasy"; "hell-er"; "bleddy"; "he in't daft" etc.) In short, it seems perfect for Sunday nights on ITV1.

Thankfully, someone noticed that despite its cosy medical-drama trappings, it's too edgy and, frankly, too good for...

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Well, it's not because there aren't enough sightings of Gordon Ramsay on television. There was a time, not so long ago, when the former Rangers footballer seemed more ubiquitous than Santa at Christmas. And, Gordon, I say that in the spirit of light-heartedness - please don't hit me.

See, there's one of the points. Ramsay's a hard-looking bloke, which makes for palpable tension. He's powerfully built - we know that because for some reason he changes into his chef top at the start of each programme, when surely he has a changing room at home - he sneers...

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Watching one of Channel 4's The 100 Greatest… shows is the TV equivalent of a tube of Pringles: once you switch on, you can't switch off. They're tasty and addictive, yet somehow leave you feeling bloated and slightly guilty.

Let's face it, there are far more constructive things to be doing of an evening than consuming visual junk food for the brain. Like doing your laundry, for instance, or taming the weekend's accumulated hangover with an early night.

Instead, you turn on the TV only to be sucked in by a celluloid vortex cataloguing The 100 Greatest…Musicals of...

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America's Next Top Model gives a whole new meaning to fashion roadkill. It doesn't so much assault the senses as whack you over the head with a heavyweight handbag and beat you into submission.

It is television that shows no mercy; a production that cares neither for its contestants nor its audience but is taking both of you bitches down. It is, in the words of its creator and host Tyra Banks, FIERCE.

Sure, the viewer has a sense of taking part, joining in with the unchanging script each week, repeating Tyra's mantras ("Twelve beautiful girls...

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We don't love Dragons' Den because we're a nation of sensitive, nurturing, not-remotely-jealous (no way), kindly philanthropists who come over all warm and squishy when someone who has devoted their life to a nutty invention strikes it lucky with an input of several grand and the chance to work with Peter Jones, who is very tall.

No. It's because we are utter gits.

There are two reasons why we love Dragons' Den: 1) we get to see the inventors squirm and 2) because we all have our favourite and least favourite Dragons, and admire/loathe their little quirks.

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Top Gear is television's greatest anomaly. It is the specialist interest show made all-inclusive.

I, for instance, know nothing and care even less about cars. If the conversation turns to motoring it's as unpleasant as having my every facial orifice packed with wet bread. What’s more, I feel no affinity whatsoever with Messieurs Clarkson, Richard Hammond or James May. They're like the great guffawing boobs you'd find at the back of the school bus on a day trip, pressing their arses against the window at passing truckers. And yet I LOVE Top Gear, and I'm not alone.

Though...

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When Wife Swap first hit our screens in 2003, the title titillatingly hinted at suburban sexual shenanigans, and we tuned in in droves - to discover, instead, a brow-furrowing social experiment.

A pair of women are transplanted into each other's homes - places that are, more often than not, radically different to their own - and expected to follow their new family's routines for the first week, before they get to do things their own way in the second.

While on paper it looks like the kind of car-crash reality television that many of us would stay late...

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We're all familiar with daytime television having either been a) off work ill b) skiving c) a student or d) "working from home" (also see b) at least once in our lives. We therefore know that it is the fastest and most effective way to induce a mild brain-coma.

According to TV schedulers, around mid-morning on a weekday viewers don't need intellectual stimulation (apparently this doesn't start until 7:00pm when BBC4 springs to life with a documentary on the 1915 Armenian genocide). Instead we must make do with hypnotically bland property programmes or a re-run of Friends...

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Don't piddle on Judge Judy's feet and tell her it's raining. Because "Stupid" isn't written across her forehead and because, I guarantee you, if you live to be 100, you'll never be as smart as she is today.

These are just some of the ripe put-downs and fabulous Judyisms that she uses to strip away any foolish litigant's attempts at getting one over on her. She’s a tenacious, truth-seeking rottweiler, fixing defendants with a gimlet gaze that would make a hard man feel like a schoolboy, and a cocky schoolboy wish he’d never been born.

Her...

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If you're not yet acquainted with this daytime TV jewel, then let me do the honours. Diagnosis Murder is an absurdly cheerful American daytime crime drama starring Dick Van Dyke as Dr Mark Sloan. He's an avuncular physician slash sleuth with a silky white side-parting you could ski down.

Van Dyke stars alongside his real-life son Barry who, conveniently, plays his cop son, Steve Sloan. In each episode the Sloans happen upon a death. Could this be foul play, they ask? It always is. It's a neat, if nepotistic, set-up.

Diagnosis Murder became a BBC1 daytime staple...

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Dramas about ancient Rome are often guilty of playing up the bloodthirstier aspects of life back then, and the joint BBC/HBO production Rome is certainly no exception. But then I suppose if we viewers wanted to know about Roman technological advances and cultural nuances, we'd be tuning in to Adam Hart-Davis instead.

This historical drama has more corpses per episode than your average crime series. And the ever gorier methods of dispatch make it an ideal substitute for any CSI fan experiencing withdrawal symptoms from their favourite show.

Rome purports to teach viewers about the fascinating historical and...

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Had enough of being an identical twin? Need a new face to escape the police? Or simply want your dead lover's ashes added to your breast implants? Then you need Nip/Tuck's McNamara and Troy.

In the glamorous, wealthy world of South Beach, Miami, plastic surgery is the answer to every problem, and surgeons Sean McNamara and Christian Troy are a cut above the rest.

Their prowess isn't limited to the operating theatre either. Over four series, married man Sean has had sexual relations with a patient, a porn star, his son's nanny and one of Santa's elves.

And...

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In these darks days of international tensions, wars, dispute and espionage, few common languages remain. One that does, though, is great pop music; a unifying force for good from the Beatles to Britney Spears and from Janis Joplin to Justin Timberlake. If only some of it could find its way into the Eurovision Song Contest.

Unfortunately, one of the few occasions when the countries of our continent come together doesn't allow a little thing like quality to get in the way. This, however, matters not. We don't watch Eurovision to be blown away by stunning compositions - that...

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