You’ve got to feel a wee bit sorry for ITN’s Mark Austin. There he was shivering in Antarctica, all set to continue his big piece on global warming when he found himself well down the running order because the lead story on ITV’s flagship bulletin was about two women in a house in Elstree having a slanging match over a stock cube.

Events in Big Brother certainly caught the attention this week and there’s no way that the flood of complaints could be ignored, but as ever when a media story breaks, our television news teams go way over the top, some of them without even managing to get their facts straight and the fact that the story dominated television news for the best part of three days would indicate that some news editors managed to lose a bit of perspective.

It proved particularly galling for the majority of people in this country who avoid reality TV in general, but Big Brother in particular like the plague, because there was simply no escaping it in news and current affairs. It even managed to dominate political show This Week.

There is absolutely no doubt that the goings on in the house have provided a platform for some serious debate on difficult issues but for the storm it created to dominate the news agenda in the way it did is just a further example of television eating itself.

Out-foxed

I’m not sure why but I’ve always liked Kay Burley so I was mightily pleased that she managed to squeak through in the next round of Dancing on Ice. The main reason for this though is that there would seem to be a tad of friction between her and Ulrika and what would a reality show be without the odd bit of needle?

That said I’ve nothing against Neil Fox, except possibly his daft insistence on being called Foxy, but the standard seemed to a bit higher overall than last year. No one seemed to be truly awful and there was no Andi Peters.

As for who will win I wouldn’t like to hazard after last year’s bizarre voting – I still can’t see how Gaynor Faye managed to triumph – but I’m sure I’ll have my favourite soon. There was a general consensus here at Hogan Towers that at least this bunch of contenders could just about claim to be celebs.

It can be quite a hazardous business though watching the show. Commentator Tony Gubba’s praise for Ulrika’s horizontal already had me spluttering into my tea, so when Robin Cousins told her she needed to separate her legs, I was actually choking.

I know the whole thing is completely derivative and that Jason bloke is a bit of a paper bad guy but Phillip Schofield holds the thing together with good humour and it's perfect telly to watch before a Saturday night out.

Breaking out all over

I tried desperately hard to avoid the first season of Prison Break but inadvertently found myself watching the opener of season two and now I’m hooked. Slightly perplexed, but hooked nonetheless.

I’m playing catch-up a bit here so the significance of that tattoo map thing is a bit hard to take on board, but there were so many twists and turns thrown into this that I’m intrigued as to how the whole thing will play out. I’m also going to have to track down and view season one now, if I can ever find time to watch it.

I loved the bit with the vet and the severed hand.

As our own drama budgets are squeezed by the financial climate, schedulers will have to look more and more to imports if drama is to be remain a central plank of the viewing diet and there’s no problem with that given the strength and quality of the writing in US shows these days.

Blairy eyed

The latter part of the career of Prime Minister is absolutely ripe for dissection but a cutting political satire. Sadly The Trial of Tony Blair wasn’t it.

The main problem seemed to be the need to cram in as many cheap shots and cheeky gags as possible and against a vast variety of targets, with Gordon Brown and David Cameron amongst the most prominent. This scattergun approach made the whole seem like just a smart arsed pisstake rather than the searing indictment of modern politics that it had the potential to be.

If this was a sequel to A Very Social Secretary it didn’t work nearly as well, with Robert Lindsay not sliding into the role as well as he had in the earlier outing while Phoebe Nicholls’ Cherie wasn’t a patch on Helen McCrory’s.

All in all something of a disappointment.

Back to school

I seem to remember being a bit lukewarm about the first series of Waterloo Road but as the new season got underway it felt as comfy as a pair of old slippers.

All of the most prominent cast for the first outing were back but we also had the addition of a new baddie while the Izzie-Lorna-Tom triangle seems to be getting ever more complex.

Naughty French teacher Steph Haydock is happily still there and still persuing the hapless head Jack, who had found himself replaced by well meaning Andrew by the end of the first episode.
I’ll grant you it’s all very soapy and all very drama by numbers with plot twists you can see coming a mile off but after a hard day at work it’s a very easy watch and that’ll do for me.

Paddy’s no Indiana

Showing long forgotten clips to the stars that performed in them is a great idea but Raiders of The Lost Archives looks like it’s been done on the cheap.

Surely there would be enough material to give Bruce Forsyth, Parky and Chris Tarrant a show each rather than cramming everything into a half hour? Doing the show with a studio audience would have given them each a chance to play to the gallery too and would have suited the talents of host Paddy McGuinness a whole better into the bargain.

ITV seem to have thrown this idea away as a late night filler when with the proper care and attention it could easily have been a prime time hit. Pity.