Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.
Spooks, Series 10 Episode 3 (BBC, Saturday 1st October)
Imagine being told "have sex with this woman or everyone will die". Yeah, it's a hard life being in the secret service, eh? After a rather scrambled start to it'd final season, Spooks is back on form with a cracking episode that sees Handsome Dimitri finally step into the limelight. Actor Max Brown must be the only person not mourning the absence of Richard Armitage from our screens as it means he very nearly gets enough character development to stop me mentally referring to him as 'Handsome Dimitri'. Almost, but not quite. He is very handsome. This week sees him going undercover to seduce the sister of Anarchist Johnny and stop a potential dirty bomb threat aimed at a thinly veiled Rupert Murdoch caricature (current affairs, y'see?). The sister - let us call her Average-Looking Natalie - lights up as she spots her blind date for the evening, 'Ryan' the 'estate agent', and doesn't do much else except be awkwardly working class. The following 50 minutes were packed full of exactly the kind of low-tech thrills, spills and double crosses that prove Spooks still knows how to produce a pleasing, intelligent episode when it wants to.
Elsewhere, after the untimely demise of Poor Tariq (only to be reincarnated as a twattish musician on Channel 4's Fresh Meat - see below), Callum is finally proving his worth by investigating the death of the bromance that never was. Lara Pulver continues to put in a performance that can only be described as a "Poor Man's Ros", leading me to dub her character Grim Erin. Given that Pulver is also due to appear in Series 2 of the excellent Sherlock in the contentious role of Irene Adler, I hope she learns to emote a little by the end of the series. Having her plot-point - sorry, daughter - put in mortal danger by the end of the run should do it, as will surely happen.
Harry and Ruth continue to be the real stars of the show, sharing pained looks across the briefing table. But with Harry's film-noir-esque ex-lover and belligerent son (a kind of Russian spy version of Harry Enfield's Kevin) muddying the waters, it seems Ruth is in danger of being driven into the arms of the oily Home Secretary, both professionally and perhaps otherwise. Don't do it, Ruth. Harry may have less hair but he's the better man by far. Though for a show that slaughters its characters with such apparent glee, can there really be any hope of a happy ending for these two? Godspeed, you middle-aged Romeo and Juliet, godspeed.
Merlin, Series 4 Episodes 1 & 2: The Darkest Hour, Parts 1 and 2
Also making a welcome return to our screens is the BBC's 'not Doctor Who' show, Merlin. despite the fourth series' Dark and Edgy makeover (and increased budget, perhaps?) the silliness and heart of the show are still intact. We've been served up two surprisingly tight, well-written episodes with genuinely scary villains, the Dorocha (blue ghosty dementory thingies that screech unsettlingly), controlled by Bridget Jones' mum.
Bradley James continues to play Arthur with just the right hint of self-awareness, as is only right for a character who has failed to notice for four years that his BFF's eyes go strangely glowy every time his life is miraculously saved yet again. Plus, of course, those obligatory Arthur shirtless scenes, along with a rather loving shot of his arse in literally the opening minutes of the first episode. It's in his contract, I swear to god. Colin Morgan is still strong as the titular boy wizard and in the midst of all the angst, there was some of the bromantic bantering we all know and love: "Clotpole," says Arthur. "That's my word," says Merlin. Self-referential, see. Oh boys, you make me so happy.
Gwen (Angel Coulby) took a backseat to the boys' adventures in the first part, which I hope is not a sign of regular things to come, as she is by far the best actor on the show. However, my prayers for less Regulation to Love Interest, more Promotion to Blacksmithing and Dispensing of Wisdom were swiftly answered, with Part 2 providing a glimpse of those Once and Future Queenly powers. Essentially, she's being set up as a kind of people's princess, pseudo-medieval Diana, only with less designer outfits and more practical advice at her fingertips, like "don't remove the only protection that extremely vulnerable people have from screaming blue ghosts". And now apparently she's as much of a threat as Arthur to Morgana and Agravaine having regular smirking parties, so she's also in the firing line for more Scooby-Doo-style villain plots doomed to failure. Excellent, excellent, excellent.
However, the main focus really was on the newly christened Knights of the Round Table or, as I like to think of them, Princely Arthur and his Jukebox Knights, Camelot's No.1 Boyband. Obviously, you've got Arthur as frontman, with Gwaine as the cheeky Irish one, Elian the 'urban' one (one of two black people in Camelot and yes, they're related), Percival the Sweet One and Sir Leon, the long-suffering band manager. And, of course, the shock exit of Lancelot the Soulful Latino One. Dead for Real or Sleeping Lions? I'll be honest, I couldn't quite tell if that was a body they were giving a spuriously Viking-style funeral to (though if I listed every historical or mythological inaccuracy on this show, we'd never see sunrise) or just his sword and what have you - we last saw him striding manfully into a howling void of death in order to save his friends so will the veil spit him back out or has he gone down the Sirius Black route? Only time will tell. It would make sense if he's Dead for Real, given that the thing Lancelot is really famous for in the stories is bumping uglies on the sly with Guinevere and on the show the writers have really painted themselves into a corner with the Arthur/Gwen/Lancelot love triangle. Where we left it, Arthur and Gwen were happily ensconced in cosily forbidden domesticity with him looking angstily and nobly into the distance while she delivers reassuring speeches about what a great guy he is... aaaand that's still where we are. Basically. There's really no room for Lancelot in this scenario, given that Gwen won't even glance in the direction of his ridiculously defined jawline, so he's stuck staring moonily at her and suffering through the self-inflicted torture of keeping safe Princess Arthur. And looking wry every time Merlin does magic, of course. So the show can probably toddle along without him but then again - an Arthur legend with no Lancelot at all? It's like a sky without a rainbow every once in a while. A really good-looking, sexy rainbow.
Elsewhere, not much has changed. Eoin Macken's Gwaine is Irish and thus automatically comic relief, though with Lancelot out of the way, maybe he'll be enjoying some Dimitri-style time in the limelight. Percival and Elian's dialogue seems to be written with the idea that a show built around one bromance really needs another. I demand a spin-off: every week the unlikely pairing rescue more implausibly cute children from certain death while Percival models Camelot Gap's new chain mail range (conveniently short-sleeved to show off those rippling biceps) and Elian delivers cocky one-liners. Gwaine can come too as a kind of tall, handsome (one thing you can say about this show is that it panders to the female fans and those inclined to the gentlemen just as much as it indulges in male gaze, if not more) canary, wandering into the mine shafts of danger with nought but twinkly, Hibernian over-confidence to guard him.
It also seems like we've seen the last of Emilia Fox's sultry Morgause, sadly, as she makes way for new villain Agravaine, played with a double order of ham and cheese by Nathaniel Parker. The great thing about Morgause was that her hollow-eyed crack-addict intensity went some way towards balancing out Morgana's incessant smirking. Unfortunately, Agravaine seems to have a mean smirk of his own, in every sense, and I'm not sure my poor eyes can take much more of these mouth-acrobatics. On the plus side, maybe he'll teach her to do it properly now. Either that or she'll break her face trying.
Merlin. Long may its implausible plots, bewildering lack of character development and shameless fanservice reign.
Fresh Meat, Channel 4
And finally, let's round up with a quick note on Fresh Meat, Channel 4's new university comedy after their last effort Campus, which induced all kinds of confusing reactions amongst which laughter was strangely absent. I have many reasons to dislike Fresh Meat. Well, one. Namely that Channel 4 weren't the only ones to realise there hadn't been a decent uni house comedy since The Young Ones and I started writing one with a friend. And obviously, the BBC were going to be interested in this script by a couple of first time writers about thinly-veiled versions of themselves that was terribly middle-class and obviously there were going to make it and obviously it was going to be really successful and Rebecca Front was going to play my mum and we were going to win BAFTAs and I would use my acceptance speech to lobby for the role of the next companion in Doctor Who and obviously the only thing to stop that happening now is the appearance of Fresh Meat. Obviously
But, like the generous-hearted person I am, I decided to give these poor, misguided amateurs a chance and you know what? It's really good. As in, funny. As in, laugh out loud funny occasionally. Weirdly, for a show written by Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, most famous for the (I don't care what anyone says) still excellent Peep Show, it feels much more like an episode of Green Wing moved to a university campus, than Campus, which was actually supposed to be Green Wing moved to a university campus, did. I'm even managing to tolerate the presence of Jack Whitehall, or as I know him, Oh, That Tosser Again. You've got the standard will-they-won't-they couple, played harmlessly by a pretty blonde and the only normal looking one from The Inbetweeners, but that's not really where the interest lies. Apart from Jack Whitehall playing (shocker) a twattish public schoolboy, there's the brunette overachiever desperately trying to reinvent herself as edgy and laid-back (I'm not really at the names-learning stage yet), who in in the unenviable position of playing an extremely unlikable character very well (though her storyline has just got interesting). My favourites, though, are Stoic Howard, the student who never quite managed to move out of the house and standout performance, Vod, even if she is basically Superhans's estranged daughter.
...
And that's it for the first week of British telly-wrangling. Depending on how crushingly egotistical I'm feeling each week, the need to share my thoughts on the nation's favourite pastime (except for prostitution, obviously) will vary from programme to programme, but for now I'll say sayonara.
Can't believe Marianne didn't win Great British Bake-Off though. That Jo, with her four sons and inspirational story of breaking out of the kitchen (though admittedly she didn't so much break out as do a u-turn right back into the kitchen) and achieving her dream. What a bitch, eh?
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