January - what a complete and utter failure of a month. It's really dark, really cold, cloudy, dull, and has no redeeming festivals, not even Christmas or that one with the pancakes. It's funny, because I thought December was rubbish, but no, at least the sky was clear and people gave you presents for no reason. Bah Janbug.
Actually, there is one nice thing about January - all these new series. That's quite a lot like being given presents, if you don't mind your presents lasting between 30 minutes and an hour before being cruelly taken away from you again. There's the new series of Boston Legal (Living TV) that started next week, that Bones (Sky One), similarly. There are fat cooks, thin cooks, cooks with beards, houses, gardens and cars.
Then of course there are Desperate housewives and Wannabe designers who, when they try and string a sentence together, sound like this: "Well, yeah, as a dress it might be ugly, but as a concept, it's like movement? Space? Is it there? Is it gone? Is it real? Yes, but also no? Do you see?" (Project Catwalk).
And of course, entering at the very top of my "Oooh-Look-What's-On!" chart this week with a golden bullet (or rather Globe) there is Hugh Laurie, and his fabulous House (tomorrow, C5).
So there we have it. Maybe January isn't that bad after all. Apart from Celebrity Big Brother, obviously. Quickly, before I sink into an enormous fame-foolery induced funk once more - here I offer you the picks of tonight's stuff. From the Guide. Oh, And I've been told to inform you that apparently there's also some football on.
Natural World: Portillo Goes Wild 8pm, BBC2 In which the former MP gets ripped on sangria and absinthe and charges down Las Ramblas wearing nothing but a Panama hat bellowing his undying love for Diane Abbott. That's what the title implies; however, what we in fact have here is Portillo on a nature trek in the vast, remote, mountainous stretches of the country of his father's birth, in search of elusive bears, vultures and marmots. It's all windingly beautiful.
David Stubbs
Hyperdrive 10pm, BBC2 Nick Frost heads the crew of spaceship HMS Camden Lock (is that a gag actually intended to be funny to anyone who doesn't live in NW1?), every inch the "suburban English types in space" (excepting the genuinely other-worldly Kevin Eldon). For every half-dozen misfires there's one laugh-out-loud moment, usually prompted by crew member Miranda Hart, who tonight drunkenly takes exception to an alien princess's designs on Frost: "She is an alien tart! The planet bike!" A sweetly laidback space-com that makes Red Dwarf look positively frantic.
Ali Catterall
Desperate Housewives 10pm, C4 Mary Alice's glossy tale of suburban babylon continues tonight with a new series. Yes we're a little tired of seeing Teri Hatcher stubbing her toe every time she opens the door, as each character is still emphasised to the point of parody but, as with Sex In The City, its hip wit and tawdry subplots are so darn watchable. Especially tonight, which kicks off with the cliffhanger of weirdo Zach pointing a gun at Susan's head and Gabrielle trying to steal an orphan's paternity test. Classy.
Danielle Proud
Three Colours: White (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1994) 8pm, Sky Cinema 1 The middle part of Kieslowski's trilogy (equality) is, believe it or not, a comedy. This may not become apparent for some time, however, since the opening section deals with a Polish man (Zbigniew Zamachowski) being divorced by his French wife (Julie Delpy), and the overall tone of the humour is so deadpan as to be virtually undetectable. The husband's return to post-communist Poland, his fall and subsequent rebound, and his relationship with mysterious hood Mikolaj set up a finely balanced tale of revenge and redemption.
Steve Rose
Under Laboratory Conditions 9pm, BBC4 First of a two-parter in which neurobiologist Dr Daniel Glaser heads around the country's labs to find out exactly what it is those men and women in white coats get up to all day. As well as exploring what motivates them, and looking at the often laborious process that research can take, Glaser also touches on the competitive nature of science, showing how professional rivalry can sometimes lead to plagiarism. With Bill Bryson, Lord Robert Winston and former President of the Royal Society Lord May. Next week, Glaser looks at how projects get off the ground and survive the funding game.
Richard Vine
Lake Placid (Steve Miner, 1999) 10pm, BBC3 Not the Lake Placid -- that name was already taken -- but a body of water in Maine improbably overtaken by a giant crocodile. But Miner acknowledges the inherent silliness and compensates with great dialogue and characters, particularly Bridget Fonda, showing she knows her way round an expletive or two, and Brendan Gleeson as a sheriff barely tolerating his big city interlopers: "They conceal information like that in books." Add a magnificent Stan Winston animatronic croc and a perfect-for-this-type-of-thing running time of 82 minutes and you have a classic, fun B-movie.
Phelim O'Neill
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Oh. I got all excited, there, writing about all the fabulous things that might just be on this month. Then I go and discover that mostly, they're not actually on tonight. Oh boo.
Back to Desperate Housewives, the brave new world of TiVo and the SAD-lamp for me then.
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