2011 TV - the good, the bad and what could go either way

The Good:
The 10 o'clock Show
Something with the quality of presenters/comedic talent that this has really can't fail, David Mitchell and Charlie Brooker are two of my favourite funny columnists/tv personalities; Jimmy Carr is actually quite funny despite occasionally being very annoying; and Lauren Laverne is my favourite radio presenter.

Put all of this into the irreverent current affairs show format and you have ample chance for rants, sarcasm and generally funniness.


Masterchef
"COOKING DOESN'T GET TOUGHER THAN THIS"

I love food, I love the whole feel of the show with the people desperately cooking at lightning pace, the look on Greg's face when he loves a dessert, some of the culinary catastrophes, the cooking in tents for the army, followed by cooking in Michelin starred restaurants and for Michelin starred chefs.

Episodes
I'm going to start with a disclaimer: I love Friends, and Black Books, and I think I liked something that Stephen Mangan was in once.

There isn't that much good comedy on TV at the moment, the good tends to be really good i.e. Peep Show and The IT Crowd, but the bad is terrible... I'm looking at you Miranda.

So when you put three people who have a pretty good track record along with the creator of Friends writing it, everything looks pretty promising

Doctor Who
As usual, the spring will bring with it a new series of Doctor Who. When David Tennant left the show I was deeply sceptical that anyone else could reach the brilliant standard of his doctor, but Matt Smith may actually have topped his efforts.

The great thing about Smith's doctor, is that it has the same crazy energy of Tennant's, but also a youthful innocence and glee, yet conversely a darker side is evident when it has to be.

The Christmas special (some dodgy time travel problems aside) was very promising, and the series - if Steven Moffat resists the temptation to turn to the Daleks and Cybermen too often and instead comes up with some new monsters/villains with some kind of moral ambiguity about them - looks set to be even better.

The Bad:
The Fattest Man in Britain
More C4 look at the fat person and laugh claptrap which was on last night - I didn't watch.

What could either way
Skins
Some shows start well and tail downwards, Skins started well, got even better in the second series, tailed downhill quite a bit in the third series, and fell off a cliff at the beginning of the fourth series.

The show went from being consistently interesting, dramatic, funny and containing some real emotion to a dried up husk of a thing with one or two good characters and episodes a series.

I still harbour some hopes for the new series, and I'll watch the first episode, but whether I go any further than that is quite doubtful.