The Wedding / Thu 2, Fri 3 BBC1
The big one. No, not Ian's ego, but the episode we've all been waiting for; the wedding. In a one-hour special (and working on the rough equation of twice the length making for ten times the drama) Peggy is preparing to tie the knot with Archie. For quite some time we've been screaming, even hurling things at, the tv screen in a desperate bid to make poor Peggy listen, but alas she goes ahead and marries him, the epitome of east-end evil. A hushed row at the altar is just the beginning though; back at the Vic, Ronnie catches Danielle attempting (in a strange turn of events) to kidnap baby Amy; naturally she assumes insanity and throws Danielle out, but not before Danielle, after six searingly-long months, finally confesses the truth, giving us the best "You're my muvvah!" moment since, well... "You're my muvvah!", that fateful time when the Slater slappers dominated, pre-Branning brats.

Anyhow, back to the point. Ronnie finds the locket in her champagne glass (and where better to ensure something is found in Walford than placing it near alcohol?) and suddenly Archie's world falls apart. As threatened by Enigmatic Voiceover Lady, he is no longer in control! Ronnie, desperate to find Danielle, makes her way to Stacey's, but she too busy spewing her guts up to keep an eye on depressive Dani. Eventually she catches her outside the tube station - naturally. Things get really emotional now. "Baby", mouths Ronnie, and Dani runs her way. A happy ending! Well... not quite. Janine, ruiner of all things good and consumed by rage for Jack and 'Fat Pat', plows Danielle down in the middle of the road. And there she lies, dieing in Ronnie's arms. It's an immensely sad moment, the shock value of which isn't likely to be repeated for some time. Ronnie shrieks for her daughter, the family which could've been. Without any doubt, this episode will be looked back on alongside the likes of the Max/Stacey and Kat/Zoe reveals, tissues dabbing eyes.

Friday's follow-up episode was perfectly-judged and just as upsetting. Much of Walford is in a state of shock - except, of course, for Ian Beale, who will do anything to overhear a tidbit of gossip. Peggy and Pat have gone to stay with Aunt Sal (and how I wish she was my aunt); incredibly, Archie thinks himself welcome at the Vic, where even Phil doesn't both reddening the skin of his fists. Again Samantha Janus gets us going as she begs Dani's incensed adoptive father (whose lament that she had 'everything' in Telford provides a rare chortle) not to stop her from attending the funeral. Episodes like this are a poignant reminder of why Eastenders is truly the country's finest soap opera.

Wed 1 BBC1
If the opener to series five of The Apprentice was ever-so-slightly underwhelming, tonight's second episode was a classic. The task, to put on lunch for city-goers and later provide a business firm with an evening to remember. The teams, an utter shambles. Empire, brimming with male businessmen the UK probably shouldn't be proud of, decided to dress as greek olympians to impress a throng of high-flying lawyers. Because obviously having paid £15 a head, these lot really fancied being served cheese on sticks by unattractive, half-naked lumps.

The girls fared somewhat better but they were hardly without embarassment; I defy anybody to watch Kate squirm as the client asks which snacks will be served, and how. "Bruschetta, which is... always a favourite", she murmurs, not even bothering to pretend she knows her stuff. And later in the boardroom, Margaret informed Sralan of another girls' team faux pas with the hilarious one-liner "somebody slipped a hair into one of the salads, to compensate." Proof, as if it were needed, that a Margaret and Nick-fronted spin-off is a must.

Wed 1 BBC1
Waterloo Road is not a pleasing place today. Not one bit. Travellers have arrived and, being the charitable force that he is, Eddie has decided to enroll them at school. Sadly for us, the central character, scouse Kyle, is exceptionally irritating. His 'spontaneous' poem, a cause for much swooning by silly Sambuca, made me cringe until my face actually hurt. Hurt! The first fourty minutes, constructed around said gypsies, were excrutiating. Thankfully, though, the ever-reliable Janeece provided some relief from the 'skags', as phrased so eloquently by Paul, by parading her new assets around college, much to Kim's annoyance.

The show feels like it's hurting from something right now. It'll be interesting to see where they take it later in the season, with the divine Davina, preposterously-underused of late, departing soon. Surely she and Tom can't split? Hopefully she'll be killed off (she is my favourite!). Leaving in a cab for Spain or America, the only two locations characters ever leave for, would be immensely unsatisfying.

1.01 / Tue 31 BBC1
First things first, if you're tuning in expect something even half as delightfully delicious as Mistresses, whose time slot All The Small Things has taken, tune out right now. This is an altogether inferior affair. That's not to say it's not good, it just doesn't seem to know what it is. There's comedy (perhaps better described as light amusement actually) in the forms of broad-accented characters with wobbly guts but Big Hearts (they're a community, you see). There's drama; Esther's teenage son Kyle has Aspergers and is bullied by thuggish chavs from the school. But there's not really any balance.

The plot is particularly ropey too. Sarah Lancashire excels as Esther, a country kind of girl with no especially big ambitions; she just enjoys the company of her family, and her friends at the church choir around which the show is centred. Her husband Michael (Neil Pearson) is content too, until Layla (Sarah Alexander, who it seems is not choosy with her roles) turns up at choir practice. She's young and glamorous, and instantly Michael is besotted. However for apparently no reason at all he breaks it off with his wife, citing that he's bored of her rose-tinted prognosis of life, and embarks on an affair with Layla. Then he tells Esther about the affair and asks that she remain patient until, basically, he's got it out of his system. Yes, that is genuinely what happens.

Kyle, a huge Blink-182 fan, is played with a touching sincerity by the previously-awful Richard Fleeshman, but sometimes the soppyness is laid on too hard. There are some interesting characters; Esther, her daughter, and new-in-town jack-the-lad Jake. It just all feels slightly tired. The Chase, Gaynor Faye's short-lived BBC1 drama based around a vetinary practice, did the whole families-and-fallouts-in-the-country thing a lot better. Ultimately All The Small Things has potential, but I doubt, somehow, that it will ever reach it.

Tue 31 BBC1
There's one problem with tonight's episode of Holby. Jac isn't an evil cow. She's vulnerable (you heard me right!). What's with that? I was never under the illusion that she was a proper, crusty crap 24/7 - she needs to sleep, for one - but actually seeing a flicker of humanity is utterly disheartening. Either way, see it we do, as she and Joseph get cosy in the operating theatre. They've been locked in; a patient is contaminated, two doctors are down, a third is dead, and Joseph and Jac are all alone. Perhaps most shocking is that Joseph confesses that he doesn't love Faye in the same way that he does Jac - so why are you hogging her? Give her up! It's Linden's turn, surely! Still, it's a tense, dramatic installment which displays significant edge over nearly every other UK serial drama.

Tue 31 BBC1
It's very kind of Eastenders to give us a nice little dose of amusement before the wedding on Thursday, which will undoubtedly be the most explosive and darkly depressing episode in quite some time. Thus we get to see Peggy and her crew - not all middle-aged, but all acting it - attempting to cheer-lead, pom-poms in hand. Apparently Biology is a twenty-minute song, but no matter, because it gets the Mitchell matriarch enjoying herself again, something we've come to suspect is missing from her relationship with Archie the Arse.

Now, perhaps we should grab the tissues - it's nearly wedding day...

2.09 'The Family Vacation' Mon 30 E4
Samantha has decided a holiday is what will take her mind off endless men troubles, so her parents take she and Dana to a log cabin where they holidayed years earlier. Andrea, bitterly jealous at not being invited, rents out the cabin next door, much to Regina's annoyance - until she finds alcohol (her hiding place is ingenius). The comic details, such as Dena repeatedly telling people to remove Samantha's shoelaces or lock the car childlocks so she can't kill herself, are fantastically-observed. Once again the strength of the famale cast is blindingly apparent as Samantha's dad plays charades with the four women; Dena is especially enthusiastic, a slumped Regina watching on drunkenly. Perfect.

1.11 'That Which We Destroy' Mon 30 E4
90210, for all of its positives, continues to be crippled by Annie. She's fickle and annoyingly flippant. She's Naomi's friend, she's Naomi's nemesis, she bitches behind her back, she snaps to her face, she regrets being a bitch. Finding a personality and sticking to it might well be a good move. Thankfully for us the rest of the cast is sparkling lately, particularly some of the more minor characters. Naomi's socialite mother Tracy is especially entertaining, throwing herself around her long-lost son Sean and then doing her best to poison him against his dad. Fabulous.

Elsewhere in Beverley Hills, Brenda (an understated Shannen Doherty) lies to Kelly about why she's been avoiding her, but eventually the truth outs. Apparently it doesn't matter than Kelly has long-since finished with Ryan, she still wants his exclusivity. And would anybody care to have a stab at why Adrianna is puking?

Mon 30 BBC1
The thing about Janine is that we care about her. However much of a cheating, caniving crap she is, we truly like her, because deep down, there's a girl who just wants to be loved. So we do NOT appreciate arsey Archie or powerless Peggy throwing their happiness in her face. We must hope Janine gets her revenge...

Talking of Peggy, she kindly allows Jean to make her over, and it goes well - until Archie scoffs at Jean's abilities with a make-up brush. The man is truly evil. He also lies to dim Danielle about having told Ronnie the truth, before preparing to strangle his grand-daughter. He's a man in control but, as the Eastenders advert voiceover lady keeps asking of us, for how much longer?

5.15 / Sun 29 E4 / Wed 1 C4
The world watches Desperate Housewives because we are seduced by the glamour of it all, so an episode about money troubles would be a wasted effort, right? Wrong. Tonight's episode is crammed with comedy gold, much of it coming from Gaby. Having seen Carlos' boss Brad with another woman and subsequently negotiated him a bulging bonus cheque, she's feeling bad (really!). Bad becomes awful when Brad's pregnant girlfriend asks Gaby and Carlos to be the child's god parents. Watching her squirm as she's told how wonderfully their marriage counselling is going is a pure delight!

Lynette, who used to be fun but has become a chore with age, moans on at Tom about selling the pizzeria. Her sole mission in life seems to be the destruction of everything he enjoys. Most amusing of all is Orson's method of finding out Bree's bank account security password - and the expression on his face when he realises Andrew's being payed significantly more. 'We all know how YOU got the job!', Bree sneers at him. He rebels by stealing Andrew's expensive pen, and why not?

For once it's Susan's turn to be the stoney-faced housewife, yoyoing between her house and Katherine's as she worries about MJ getting too close to the enemy. She gets home from what we are told was a long day at work (there's a first time for everything) to find Katherine making cakes with MJ. The cheek! A superbly-entertaining episode then, except for the times when deviant Dave is hogging the screen. His not-especially-intriguing mystery has dragged on for too long now. Death to Dave!

Sat 28 BBC1
I've made no secret of the fact that lately I much prefer Holby City to Casualty. The show which was once the mere spin-off has become the main attraction, leaving Casualty without any particularly commanding lead characters. That, however, is not an issue tonight, as we say goodbye to Kelsey, the outgoing nurse with generously-gapped teeth. For much of the episode it seems a night out with Alice and Ruth, never the most adventurous, would be the most Kelsey has to look forward to, so it's understable she should go on the pull. More surprising is that she receives interest from a hottie named Guy. She wastes no time in leaving with him, only for him to be stabbed by a hoodie (and they certainly make sure we understand that he's a nasty yoof). Once back in the hospital, Guy's true colours present themselves, and a distraught Kelsey cries her final night away. Thankfully the staff have a lovely surprise up their sleeves, and all ends well.

Elsewhere Dr Hanna the Happy is visited by Cherise's grand-parents, two stereotypically old-school Scots who very much disapprove of their grand-daughter's apparent chocolate-and-late-nights lifestyle. They reward her by stabbing her in the eye with mascara. It was an 'accident' apparently (yeah right!). It helps Zoe reach an important decision about Cherise's future though, and any excuse for more Sunetra Sarker on our television screens cannot be scoffed at. Why can't Casualty be on form all of the time?

3x10 / Thurs 26 E4
For much of its third run, Skins has been brilliant. Funny, well-acted and pleasingly escapist. Just our luck, then, that the much-anticipated season finale would disappoint. I can cope with Cook-dominated episodes of Skins, though they're never the best. One revolting character is just about acceptable. I can't cope with an episode where nearly all of the screen time is taken up, not only by Cook, but also his father, also called Cook. He makes his son look like an angel.

The saving grace was Effy, a siren so mesmerising that we can forgive her icyness and embrace her (not physically, sadly). Her mother also made a sad and emotional appearance - and then we were dragged back to the hellish scene at Cook Central. It's a shame that the series had to end like this, but when we had episodes as brilliant as Effy's and the twins', perhaps we shouldn't complain. It seems as if the gates are wide open for a return of all the major characters, Cook included, next series.

4x12 / Wed 25 BBC1
The return of Kim has really refreshed Waterloo Road. Kim, whose no-shit attitude makes even Steph seem refrained, brings the show back full circle; back to when it was slightly less ridiculous and slightly more depressing. Okay, just more depressing. We like.

The show happens to be in need of a bolshy new student now Earl and Max are gone; enter Michaela. Usually under-used, she steps into the limelight tonight - and what better way to do that than by manipulating a girl with aspergers? And so she bullies her into drawing sketches of her classmates in exchange for cash. If I say so myself, she was under-charging, but she didn't listen when I shouted at the TV. Meanwhile Eddie and Rachel are finally getting it on. The man has no morals.

5x01 / Wed 25 BBC1
TV's biggest ego war is back. Hurrah! Tonight we meet the new bunch of business men, woman and warriors, and welcome back Nick and Margaret, the greatest comedians on the box. The cleaning task - to spend as little as possible, clean as much as possible, earn as much as possible - was a fairly large failure on both teams' parts. Four boys spent over an hour cleaning one family-sized car. Anita the Chin celebrated blowing the girls' entire budget, without a hint of sarcasm. Geordieboy the Gob licked his own arse.

Things got fairly interesting in the boardroom when Debra the Dick, whose claim to fame could well be sporting the first jawline which actually blocks out sunlight, outright denied lampooning her team on the phone. Lovely team leader Mona managed to survive the cursed role, which is certainly a blessing since she looks set to be very interesting indeed. Slight hopeless case Anita got the sack. Perhaps she thought that going by previous years, staying in the background would do her a few favours. Alas, no. Mona mustn't have liked that chinny chin chin.

Tue 24 BBC1
So it's official. We hate Joseph. The simpering, snivelling snake has been on finest Faye's mind. She wants him back! We must pray that it doesn't work out, because Faye has to hook up with Linden so as to please (arouse) her tense audience. Joseph the Joke, whilst not sulking, renders his own presence utterly pointless when two doctors collapse in the operating theatre. "Can we please get some assistance in here?!" he murmurs half-heartedly. Before I get too angry it might be best to move on...

Ah yes, Elliot. The poor old fool convinces himself that his son-in-law is partaking in a bizarre porn ring or similar. He doesn't even see the funny side when my beautiful champion Connie Beauchamp cracks a joke for the first time since records began! A geezer (we know he is a geezer because he has blonde hair, nice teeth and a cockney sparra accent) makes several passes at Faye, and soon they're on their knees. Sadly it's all strictly above-board. One day...

Tue 24 BBC1
"I told you I'm no good at this". Understatement. Katie is laughably bad at 'this'. Dan has learned of her infidelity and called things off, and now Katie is miserable and alone. She wanders around her striking glass apartment wearing her XXL mens' shirts. She ambles down the ward corridors whilst the entire hospital staff give her evils (Eastenders Syndrome, that). Still, it's amazing what a cricket bat and a rambling letter can do to get you back into a man's heart.

Elsewhere in the final episode of the ridiculous but endlessly enjoyable second series, Trudi the Truthful forces herself to decide between Richard the Rubbish (he's dull! He deserted his ill wife! He's not the one for her!) and Lucas the Lovely(he's a baker! He gives back massages! All the signs point toward him!). Naturally she follows her head instead of her heart. Jessica the Jezabel can't decide whether to keep the baby, but she's given a gentle push when Mark the Man-pig conveniently goes bankrupt. Talking of pigs, the girl has less sense than one. Now you may think pigs are intelligent creatures, but this particular (theoretical) one is dead, and so has no sense at all.

It's Siobhan's scenes with Dominic and Hari tonight which really touched me, though. Orla Bradi is the queen of all emotion, from intense lust (the eyes! Beware the eyes!) to immense misery, making Siobhan the mistress I can't help but root for. She's a god-send, the sort of woman I fully intend to marry one day. Have the tissues at the ready when Hari says his final goodbye. And it's goodbye from us too - at least until the rumoured third series. I'll be waiting. The purple tights will not be forgotten.

Tue 24 BBC1
Patrick is a prune. I understand that whatshisface Woodwood is SlightlyEvilActually, but Patrick does not know this; why be rude? It's plain unnecessary. Danielle must also be culled. Bring on the Wedding. In better news, Bradley's new girl Syd is utterly fabulous, the sort of youthful character Eastenders has been crying out for. You could hear it when you lay awake at night. 'Find me a Syd! Find me a Syd!'. Well here she is, and she's lush. Attractive, smart, and boasting an actual sense of humour (the proof? She fancies Bradley!). Like a savvier Stacey, without the chin wobble.

2.08 'The Park' Mon 23 E4
These days with US sitcom it's the less-documented which turn out to be funnier; see Samantha Who? Not a lot of people seem to know what it is. Some particularly annoying people deem it funny to crack the joke 'Samantha who?!'. Those who do watch are richly-rewarded with a number of fine comic creations, mostly women: there's the Samantha of the title, an amnaesiac who has decided to become a nicer person post-coma. There's her mother Regina (played with wonderful quirks by Jean Smart), her fat friend Dena, who lives in her own fairy-world bubble, and her sassy Latin friend Andrea.

The setup may sound tired - post-trauma a girl vows to become a better person - but it's perfectly-pitched. Samantha, portrayed with a dizzy twist by a flexible Christina Applegate, does mean well, but she still lies and finds herself in awkward, genuinely hilarious predicaments. She bounces off Regina (not literally, mind) with sparkling chemistry. Often though the scenes are stolen by Andrea, who seems to glide around like a whispy cloud, flicking insults in the direction of her admirer Seth whilst boasting of her seductive existance.

Tonight Samantha lies to her new boyfriend Owen about being too ill to join in with environmentalist work at the local park. Obviously everything goes wrong - she's spotted by Owen's housemate whilst out shopping - and ultimately she decides to end it, but not before he thrusts a laughably grand gesture her way. Andrea's delusions about dating a celebrity are brought crashing down, to the delight of Seth, who throws some shapes on the dancefloor which every living person should be obliged to try. When it's not laugh-out-loud funny it's cheeky and leaves you smiling; not to be missed.

Mon 23 BBC1
Archie, the best 'Enders villain since time began* (*since Johnny Allen) is very busy. Not content with planning a wedding, he's got an awful lot of man-handling to do. Tonight he man-handles that little lamb Danielle into the cellar of the Vic, where all secretive conversations occur, because this is London. People don't whisper! She bleets on about wanting to tell Peggy she's her grand daughter, decides to up and leave for the twenty-eighth time, comes back again, peeks into the family dinner that's being held in the dining room. She might seem sinister if it wasn't for the fact that Archie's black eyes out-evil everything else in the frame.

Elsewhere Tanya lets Max back into her home just a day after he stole the address of Lauren's care worker from her handbag - will she ever learn? - and Abi runs upstairs in tears. Again. It's starting to resemble a compulsary on-air exercise regime enforced by the producers. Way to kill the poor girl's self-esteem!

5.14 / Sun 22 E4 / Wed 25 C4
Sometimes I sit and watch Housewives with a stupid grin on my face because the episode happens to be one which is either very funny or very charming. Sadly 'Mama Spent Money When She Had None' was neither, in sharp contrast with last week's hundredth, and touching, episode. The laughs come from Edie, who appears to have found a shred of dignity and wastes no time in giving Gaby a scolding, and Susan, who hides under Katherine's bed whilst plinkety-plonk music plays. Elsewhere Lynette gives Bree the cold shoulder and Tom decides to show creepy Dave his fist. Careful, Tom...

The past month has been pretty glorious for a telly addict such as myself. Here's what I thought, in a nutshell, of a couple of series which have just come to an end. Be sure to leave me a comment telling me why I'm right/wrong!

C4
Grim is easily the best adjective to use in conjunction with Red Riding, a three-parter adapted from David Peace's quartet of novels. In it, a corrupt West Yorkshire police force use any means necessary to discover who has been abducting and killing young girls; the quote "Where we do what we want!" was flaunted on more than one occasion.

All three installations relied heavily on atmosphere - and there is little doubt that as viewers we were taken back in time with a greater sense of realism than is displayed in the BBC's more nostalgic Life On Mars/Ashes To Ashes - but at six hours in total, the pace was arguably overly-sedate. Furthermore the plot was difficult to follow, particularly in the 1983-set episode, where gay twenty-something BJ (guess how he earned that nickname) narrates musing after musing until the audience is simply bemused.

That said, the acting was nothing short of the best, with particularly impressive showings from the likes of Andrew Garfield, Sean Bean, and Maxine Peake, television's very own Queen of the Bleak. The 1980 Ripper episode was the least interesting; 1974 and 1983 were pretty gripping. However each of them, especially the latter, is incredibly violent. I'm not squirmish but when a particularly unpleasant police chappy tortured an innocent man with a silently disgusted David Morrisey watching on, I felt slightly queasy. To summarise, Red Riding made a change - though nice is certainly not the word - from the usual rose-tinted TV murder series; it just isn't for the impatient or the faint-hearted.



BBC2/4
Party Animals, originally aired in 2007 on BBC2, was repeated beginning last month on BBC4, and I thought it'd be an interesting watch, not least because I fancied a preview of Matt Smith's acting abilities pre-Doctor Who. I was not disappointed. The show, mostly a drama with the odd laugh thrown in here and there, was produced by the same team who gave us my old favourite No Angels, but unlike that show, the focus here is almost entirely on the characters and the relationships they build (and the ties they sever); the only real storyline running through the eight episodes is the political climbing of researcher Ashika Chandirimani, who takes the decision to run in a bi-election, to the initial disapproval of her boss and sometime-lover, married MP James Northcote (Patrick Baladi).

The decision to focus so heavily on the characters, whether intentional or not, could've resulted in something too plodding to enjoy, but luckily the actors are of such calibre that this never becomes an issue. As Chandirimani, a grounded and warm Tory, Shelley Conn is totally relatable. On the other end of the scale, Labour researcher Kirsty smirks too much and appears to love herself more than anybody else, but Andrea Riseborough's - who also appeared as a young Thatcher in last year's The Long Walk To Finchley - lusty eyes tell us that, actually, she's ripe for softening up. Smith nails the well-intentioned geek as Danny Foster, Kirsty's more experienced co-worked who secretly pines for her. Their boss Jo Porter, played to perfection by the delightful Raquel Cassidy, is a sarcastic pessimist who drinks her way into trouble, losing her husband along the way. However it's Andrew Buchan as Danny's cynical lobbyist brother Scott who steals nearly every scene he graces, portraying the emotions every viewer is familiar with - determination, love, mourning - with such aplomb that you can't help but root for him. He's the hero, the go-getting good guy who was almost too intelligent for mere political frolics.

And that's why Party Animals is such a raging success - it avoids said frolics in the main, despite its parliamentary backdrop, each episode constructing characters we can really connect with. Sadly the series was poorly promoted and subsequently never re-commisioned, but it remains a little-known treasure which can be bought on DVD.

Just a quick hello - if you've been unlucky enough to stumble upon this disorganised drone-fest, I welcome you with my sincere apologies! The first of my extremely amateur reviews shall appear, like magic, very shortly.