Michael Winner's Dining Stars, ITV1

Three of Michael Winner's Dining Stars means your cooking is 'historic beyond belief'

Bumptious restaurant critic in home invasion shocker

The national urge for self-flagellation on television continues apace with Michael Winner’s preposterous new series. Not content with having to eat cockroaches in Borneo, never mind being tongue-lashed by John Torode and that thuggish bloke who looks like a bailiff on Masterchef, the population is now queueing up to invite a cantankerous elderly man into their own homes to ridicule their cooking. At the end of the series, the winner gets to cook dinner for Michael's celebrity chums, such as Kym Marsh and Andrew Neil. A Pyrrhic victory if ever there was one.

The Turn of the Screw, BBC One / Sleep with Me, ITV1

How to do eroticism in drama. And how not to

Television doesn’t do eroticism at all well. Perhaps, rather like a truly horrifying horror film being unwatchable, a properly erotic drama would never pass TV’s internal censors. Dennis Potter tried it with his 1989 love letter to Gina Bellman, Blackeyes, but ended up dubbed “Dirty Den” for his troubles. And what is erotic anyway – just a glimpse of stocking, or the full-on and (for me, anyway) embarrassing sight of Billie Piper in fishnets and suspender belt? It's a question of taste, I guess.

An Englishman in New York, ITV1

AN ENGLISHMAN IN NEW YORK John Hurt minces back as Quentin Crisp 34 years on

John Hurt minces back as Quentin Crisp 34 years on

There was something very postmodern about the resumption of Quentin Crisp’s story. To recap, in case you missed episode one back in 1975, The Naked Civil Servant has been turned into a successful television drama, and its subject into a celebrity.

Mister Eleven, ITV1

The infernal triangle: Michelle Ryan and other eye candy

Drama by numbers gets its sums badly wrong

You can just picture the meeting. Someone stands up and pitches. “We’ve got this girl, see. And she’s good at numbers, OK? You know, maths and stuff. But here’s the thing: she knows that statistically her best chance of a successful marriage is if she gets hitched to her 11th sexual partner when she’s 28. With me so far, guys? Trouble is, she discovers on her wedding day that Mister Eleven is really Mister Ten. Yeah? And then all hell breaks loose. What you reckon? Eh? Think it’s a goer?” Silence reigns in the room until the head honcho - you somehow assume it is a man - slowly raises his honcho head and delivers his solemn verdict. “I love it!!”

Collision, ITV1/The Execution of Gary Glitter, Channel 4

DI Tolin (Douglas Henshall) tries to untangle the wreckage in Collision

Carnage on the A12, and a long drop for Gary Glitter

The premise of Collision (as well as its title) is unmistakably similar to that of Paul Haggis's movie Crash, in which a road accident provides the linking point for a cluster of disparate personal stories. However, instead of the boulevards of Los Angeles, Collision exploits the less often remarked upon mystique of the A12, which links east London to Great Yarmouth. In 2007, the A12 was adjudged "Britain's worst road" in a survey by Cornhill lnsurance, so Collision's creator and writer Anthony Horowitz has picked an appropriate location for his fateful multi-vehicle pile-up.

Murderland, ITV1

Coltrane back to case-cracking

You can only assume they decided to confront the, er, generously proportioned mammal in the room. ITV launches a new police procedural starring the star of an old police procedural. Said star is a sizeable Scot with an old Toby jug of a face and, oh sod it, let’s just admit we’ve cast him because of the baggage. Yes, Cracker is back. OK, not Cracker, nor even Fitz, but a lived-in Glaswegian high-rise of a man who cracks murder cases on primetime, pausing only for the commercial breaks. It’s almost as if the young witness already knows all about Robbie Coltrane. “I’ve seen you before,” she says in the incident room. “Yeah?” he drawls. “I’ve been in the papers a few times.”

The South Bank Show, ITV1

Coldplay are enormous but anonymous

They say you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone, and despite its sometimes erratic quality control, the loss of The South Bank Show (ITV1) is going to be like having a leg sawn off TV's arts coverage.

Trinity, ITV2

Homegrown teen-dramedy-thriller-whatever

Secondary school teachers accused of not pointing their brighter students towards Oxbridge might feel vindicated by ITV2’s Trinity - although the messages were a little mixed. On the one hand the fictional elitist university college in this new teen dramedy-thriller is dominated by sadistic, floppy-fringed toffs and their debauched secret societies. On the other hand some state-educated freshers might quite like the idea of being asked by lithe, blue-blooded blondes, “Have you ever come on a member of the royal family?”

Julia McKenzie's Marple

Julia McKenzie: 'If there's a word for even-more-than-daunting, that's what it was'

Stepping into Miss Marple's shoes

Miss Marple is frequently described as “a little old lady”, but for all that she casts a giant shadow. Just ask any new actress invited to portray this most beloved of characters. When you play the spinster sleuth, you have massive shoes to fill. That has certainly been Julia McKenzie’s experience.
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