I’m so disappointed in this show. It was so hyped, so well promoted, and it had the success of Lost as a blueprint, and it’s been a total let down.

Episode one was brilliant, but we’re now on episode three and it’s going downhill exponentially. Last night’s episode largely centred around a Herr Schultz who entered into a “game of chicken” with Agent Benford, promising that he had information that could provide the answers to the big question, ‘why’.

It turned out he was just a really good poker player, but there was initially the promise of something Lost-esque in Schultz’s insistence that the 137 Sekunden – seconds, as in the total amount of blackout time – of the episode’s title were important to the whole shebang. Read more & comment »

I have to say, I was more than a tad disappointed with last night’s second episode of FlashForward. Last week, it ticked all the boxes; mystery, strange global phenomenon, Easter Eggs from Lost, and dozens of intriguing questions were raised.

And from the makers of Lost, I’d expect nothing less than excellence, and unfortunately, FlashForward’s offering last night, White To Play, caused the show to lose a good deal of its credibility for me.

For instance, in one scene, we saw our heroes waiting for a mysterious person who’d stolen the identity of a Miss Gibbons. This was the D.E. Gibbons who appeared on a post-it note on Mark’s much flash-forwarded board… Read more & comment »

As regular Primetime readers will know, I’m an absolute Lost addict, so when I heard this show was being hailed as the “new Lost”, I knew I’d be hooked. And I am.

After just one episode, which bore more than a few resemblances to Lost – and contained enough Easter Eggs to have us Lost theorists going bonkers, such as a billboard advertising Oceanic Airlines – I just know I won’t be able to miss a single episode, no matter what.

And as with Lost, there was the weird placement of an animal in a setting where one wouldn’t expect to find it. With Lost, it was a polar bear, with FlashForward, it was a kangaroo hopping about in LA… Read more & comment »

Channel Five hosted this very enlightening, and let’s face it, voyeuristically entertaining show, which was all about the work of the Metropolitan Police’s Vice Unit. And I must say, I loved every salacious minute of it, even despite the fact that so many of the faces were ‘fuzzed out’, I began to suspect I had cataracts.

Vicariously, we got to take a peek behind the doors of those sex shops I’ve always been uber curious about but never had the bottle to go into, lest my elderly neighbour happen to see me, so to watch the comings and goings – pun intended – was fascinating.

And the phrase ‘comings and goings’ might be taken quite literally in Soho where it seems the sexual practise of ‘watersports’ is the going that causes the coming. Ewww. There was no sign of a jetski or a yacht either, but there were lots of magazines dedicated to this form of ‘pleasure’. Read more & comment »

As I sat down to watch this new Five show, I didn’t expect to like it at all. I thought it was going to be full of vapid, shallow women and a leering, sex starved farmer. And it was, which made it compulsive viewing.

I’d thought all those elements would put me off, but they were in fact what made it worth looking at. It was the TV equivalent of junk food and one of those ‘guilty pleasures’ shows. The ones you’d never admit to watching but would secretly record if you couldn’t watch it alone.

Of course dating shows are nothing new; there’ve been dozens of them, but this one is sort of a new concept in that it’s picked one profession – farming – and sifted through the applicants to find suitably eligible bachelor farmers with whom literally hundreds of women would like to get their hands, and other bits, dirty. Read more & comment »

This is one for the Christmas Stocking! The much loved and eagerly awaited DVDs of the Law And Order Criminal Intent second series have been released and are flying off the shelves as we speak!

Pick up your boxset here!

Read more & comment »

Channel Five is to launch new programme My Body Hell this autumn. The show will focus on women’s body obsessions and will centre around a different body part each week, such as spots, breasts, cellulite and body hair.

The series will have celebrities taking part and the first will be Michelle Heaton, who will attend a premiere without make-up or fake tan as part of the show.

Steve Gowans, Controller of Factual Entertainment at Five, said: “It’s full, frank and really rather shocking.

“The full extent of what women put themselves through hasn’t been shown on TV before, and Body Hell is thought provoking and pulls no punches.”

The third season of the acclaimed medical drama concludes this week with an action-packed double bill. In the first instalment, the doctors handle a 16-year-old chess prodigy with raging
headaches; while, in the season finale, House treats a woman who has travelled from Cuba just
to see him.

Thursday 23rd August 9PM

Inferno 999

Returns Monday 3rd September, 7.30pm on five

Twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, the Greater Manchester Fire & Rescue Service are on the front line – on call to deal with fires, emergencies and accidents. For the largest fire service in the UK outside of London, who respond to over 52,000 incidents a year, there is no such thing as an average day at work for its crews – with no one incident, fire or situation ever the same. Read more & comment »

Channel Five has bought the rights to yet another hit US TV show, this time, David Duchovny’s new comedy, Californication.

The Sun reports:

The X-Files actor, 46, plays troubled novelist Hank Moody who is hooked on drink and drugs.

It co-stars Natasha McElhone as Hank’s ex-wife Karen and Madeleine Martin as their teenage daughter.

C5 executive Vanessa Brookman said: “I’m delighted that we have acquired the rights to Californication which is witty, sexy and original.”

Five has renewed its TV licensing deal for the Golden Globe® and SAG Award® winning smash hit U.S. hospital drama series Grey’s Anatomy, with Disney’s Buena Vista International Television.

The new deal will continue to give Five the exclusive UK terrestrial rights to the series, which is the number one scripted programme in Adults 18-49 in the U.S.

Acclaimed by audiences and critics alike, Grey’s Anatomy is the recipient of multiple Emmy Award nominations and winner of the Golden Globe® and SAG® awards for Best Television Series – Drama and Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series, respectively.

Vanessa Brookman, Five’s Controller of Acquisitions, said: “I am delighted that we have renewed our deal for Grey’s Anatomy. The show is a perfect fit for Five’s raft of top rating acquired dramas.”

Five young men who posted videos of themselves conducting Jackass-style scientific experiments on each other on YouTube have been awarded their own show on Channel Five.

The show will be called Guinea Pigs and will investigate such questions as ‘Why can’t humans eat grass like cows?’ and ‘What is it like to be shot when wearing a bullet proof vest.’

“The hope is that the viewer will get to know and love the guys, rather than viewing them simply as anonymous guinea pigs,” says executive producer Katy Thorogood.

Mr Men will return to our TV screens for the first time in more than a decade.

the show will be airing as part of Channel Five’s Milkshake morning slot.

“The new Mr Men Show is a funny and engaging programme that will sit perfectly within the Milkshake! strand,” said Five’s controller of children’s programming Nick Wilson.

After one of its main actors publicly used a gay slur towards one of his fellow co-stars last year, Grey’s Anatomy producers were no doubt surprised to have won the award for outstanding individual episode at the GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) media awards.

The Alliance demanded an apology from the show in January, after Grey’s Anatomy actor Isaiah Washington allegedly used a derogatory term about co-star TR Knight last year.

Very forgiving people!

Mist may no longer be a puppy, but she still has much to learn about life as a Borough farm sheepdog. But with Swift, Ernie, Jake, Fern and her Mother Gail around, Mist has all of the help she needs to cope with the host of animals that live at Borough farm.

‘Mist – sheepdog tales’ are thirteen individual stories, telling of Mist’s first adventures as she sets out in life as a fully-fledged working sheepdog.

Mist Sheepdog Tales airs tonight on Channel Five.