Tickets, Money, Passport?

A bit of over-excitement in these parts (water cooler moments in the office) from a televisual point of view. After quite a long fallow period with nothing on tv, I say nothing, I mean nothing on terrestrial save a couple of hours of salvation, we are now being almost spoilt for choice. The Monday night staple of ER starts the week. It's been a bit patchy this series, but it finally kicked into first gear last night with a cracking episode. It just goes to show, Carter out of a relationship is a better character (sorry Miss Social Worker, anyone can see you're not around for long), Abby happy and heading into one is a better character (enough of the misery please).

Tonight we're back with Hustle. It's fab, even if ridiculously implausable, but that's what TV is for. Plus it's pretty to watch.

Wednesday is the also faintly ridiculous yet addictive Desperate Housewives. I do like it, I wish it would sort out what it's trying to be though (yes yes I've said this before, repitition is a feature of DH though). Part high camp, part drama, part comedy, part murder mystery. You'd think that it would be a winner with that combination but it can't find a balance and should probably just settle for being a glossy, funny camp show a la Melrose Place but, you know, in the suburbs. I get that Lynette is a rubbish, stressed mother and that Gabrielle is a vain, lazy money obsessed adulterer (ooh get me, taking the moral high ground) but you could turn that into comedy instead of re-hashing it. And I've said it before, I'll say it again, Mike Delfino is a rubbish investigator. They seem to forget that that was the original premise. Anyway in spite of all that I do still like it. Probably because Marcia Cross is brilliant and Teri Hatcher does make me laugh in spite of her obvious 'klutziness'.

Onwards and we're with a true gem of a high camp comedy. The return of Footballer's Wives on Thursday. Another hit and miss show, but it hits so much more than it misses mainly because it knows what it's trying to do, and that is be ridiculous and over the top. You gotta love it.

This leaves my Friday nights free (bye bye The West Wing) for recording* The Two Ronnies Sketchbook. One word - genius. Or as they might say. F U N E X? The answer to which is 9 I F N X. [edit re-reading I can see that clearly isn't the answer; help, anyone?/Edit]

Saturdays alright for fighting. Um, yes, anyway.

Which brings us back to Sundays, a veritable dead zone for weeks now. No decent ITV drama to speak of when suddenly the Beeb steps up to the breech with a fab adaptation of one of my favourite books of 2003. Fingersmith. A cracking read. You'll see from an earlier post it has many of my favourite elements, mystery, history, London, ladies in period costumes, madness and romance and the first episode was rather good. I am very curious to see how they handle the narrative structure of the book, but next weeks episode will sort that out. My only complaint thus far is Gentleman is far too young, though he's got the character, it seems a bit like he's a cheeky chappy rather than an experienced rakish conman. As Divine once said 'you think you're a man, you are only a boy'. Neither of which, as the girls are quickly discovering, are of interest to them. Oh and those gloves with the pearls are the most hilarious symbolism I've seen on screen for a while.
Thank goodness for recording devices, I don't know how I'd keep up with it all.

*because believe it or not, I do go out.....