It's that time of the week again - time to sit in front of the Sky+ box and make sure all the televisual highlights over the next seven days get recorded. No excuses now, not even the fact the sun is shining gives you a get out for missing these programmes....
Monday
To twist an old cliche about buses coming along in threes, the same can be said about good TV programmes at 9pm on a Monday. First up is Waking the Dead, the utterly brilliant BBC forensics drama which has benefitted enormously from taking a few tips from the CSI franchise to make the episodes buzz a little bit more. This latest run has involved six two-parters, of which Monday's is the sixth. DNA evidence found at a traffic accident is linked to mass graves found during the Cold War. What makes Waking The Dead perhaps better than CSI, though, is the strength in depth of the characters. Trevor Eve, fantastic as the bastard boss Boyd, leads from the front, and special mention must go to Sue Johnstone, who plays the hard-working shrink alongside. Continues on Tuesday at 9pm.
Up against Waking the Dead is perhaps the most unlikely series of the year, The Duchess in Hull (ITV 1). As a royal who has used her battle against the bulge to commercial effect, as opposed to using it in an interview with Martin Bashir, Sarah Ferguson is perhaps better placed than most to teach a family about trying healthy food. In Hull. Admittedly, she's ginger, but apart from that, "Dr" Gillian McKeith has nothing on the no-nonsense Duchess, who goes and lives in a Hull B&B while trying to pursuade a local family to start eating more healthily. The family she goes to see can, at best, be described as dysfunctional - but at least she doesn't have to marry into this one to see them in action at first hand. Continues tomorrow at 9pm..
Now, working on the assumption you can only record two programmes on Sky+ at one time, one of the above will have to watched via the ITV or BBC player sites to make room for Warship Channel 5, 9pm also). I love this programme already, and I've only seen the trailer. It's cameras aboard HMS Illustrious for four months, cut down to six, one-hour parts. If the Navy hoped to get across how hard life aboard the ship is, then it's worked. If they hoped it would be propaganda to show off the armed forces at their best, then having to go back into port early doors because of a rusty fridge suggests they've got their work cut out.
Avoid: Tonight: Jobs For The New Boys (ITV 1, 8pm): ITV's documentary strand continues to pretend it really is into indepth investigations, but as the weeks go on, it feels more and more as if they've really just got a big lucky dip out of which reporters pull out tried, tested and increasingly dull subjects to look at. Tonight, it's finding out if the jobs immigrants are taking are really only the jobs Britons refuse to consider doing. Answer can probably be found in the Daily Express.
Tuesday
The choices on Tuesday don't get much easier, with CSI (FIVE, 9pm) riding into town for the final episode of the latest season. Last week's was a little too comical - the writers clearly enjoyed the little in jokes as they wrote an episode about a murder on the set of a TV drama - but, as we'd expect from the best of the CSI franchises, the last episode is a gripping one. Warwick is accused of murdering a gangster and as a the evidence mounts against him, he's not sure of innocence either.
Staying with FIVE, but a little earlier, is a programme doing something in the 7.30pm slot that Eastenders has failed to do ever - make you smile. Extraordinary Animals will feature some of the most bizarre animal stories ever, starting tonight with a Jack Russell that can do sums. Honest.
AVOID: RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2008 (BBC 2, 8pm): The mention of the name Alan Titchmarsh should be enough to stop you watching this. Rich people, "celebrity gardeners", far too much discussion over the use of water features. Is that enough to make you stop watching this?
Wednesday
At Home with the Hattons (Sky One, 9pm). If you thought Ricky Hatton, the boxer, had a lot to say, you've not seen anything yet. First of two parts where his family get to talk apart the real Ricky. In a sport known the world over for its ability to produce sportsmen who talk crap with the best of them, it's good to see someone so down to earth.
Desperate Housewives (Channel 4, 10pm) Is it me, or has this season, so far, just plodded along when compared to previous ones? That may well change tonight, as a tornado whips through Wisteria Lane. The voiceover woman begins by saying: "One of these women will lose husband, and all of them will lose a friend." Good, it's time things were shaken up a little.
Champions League Final (ITV 1 and Sky Sports 1, 7pm): I'll discuss which channel offers the best later in the week, but for now, it is the must-see sports event of the, er, week. Not least because it's the last time we'll see English footballers in competetive action for a few months. Is there an irony in two English teams playing in the Champions League Final when the national side can't even make Euro 2008? If there is, I can't see anyone laughing, other than perhaps the man who made a mint out of leading us to failure. As for who you want to win, it's kind of like picking the lesser of two evils.
AVOID: The Secrets of the Austrian Cellar (Channel 4, 9pm): How do you turn around an hour-long documentary apparently investigating, in depth, what went on behind the scenes of a news story we've only known about for less than a month? I suspect it won't be the last documentary about Josef Fritzl, the man who kept much of his family in a cellar for 24 years...
Thursday
Midnight Man (ITV 1, 9pm): You don't need to know much about the first two parts of this drama to understand the third: James Nesbitt plays a washed-up reporter determined to get a big scoop. He wants to know why the Government is trying to hush up Iranian deaths. He needs the tape to prove it. And he puts his life at risk to get it. It's worth watching the catch-up episodes to know all the ins and outs, but the fact it is so simple to explain is testament to the great job done by the producers in creating it.
Spendaholics (BBC 3, 7pm): Worried about the credit crunch? Concerned about your level of debt? Then check out Spendaholics. Tonight, it's a family with £13k in unsecured debts. Strangely, this programme has taken on an almost medicinal quality in that it helps people realise their financial worries aren't perhaps as bad as they first thought - at least they aren't on telly getting them sorted.
AVOID: Holby Blue (BBC1, 8pm): The Bill is excellent at the moment, but maybe it's just because it compares so favourably with the utterly appalling Holby Blue. Words can't describe how this programme makes me feel.
Friday
Have I Got News For You (BBC 1, 9pm): So far, so good for the evergreen satirical news panel quiz in terms of guest presenters - with the exception of Brian Blessed. Tonight is Lee Mack, a comedian I suspect Paul Merton will give a reasonably easy ride to.
Tonight with Jonathan Ross (BBC 1, 10.35pm): There's no easy way of explaining just how laugh-out loud funny Ross's programme is at the moment. The sort of guests you'd expect to get prickly with Parky simply open up to Ross. Yes, he's a bit crude, and yes it is rude, but he's knows his audience, knows his guests and, above all, his guests know what to expect. Ray Winstone certainly will know what the show is all about, but as for the nine Osmonds - together on TV for the first time in 25 years - well, who knows....
Great British Menu (BBC 2, 6pm): Of all the food porn shows out there, this has the ability to be the most tedious. Thankfully, tonight is the final and the seven regional finalists - them getting to the finals was the tedious bit - will find out which dishes the public have chosen to be served up at some swanky bash. Sadly, those voting will have probably taken it seriously.
AVOID: My Family (BBC 1, 9pm): Was once funny. About six years ago. Tonight's is the last in the series, but sadly not the last series.
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