A brief guide into my favourite programmes and the reasons why the shelf with my DVDs on it is at breaking point.
Doctor Who - Simply the most inventive, inspirational and amazing thing I have ever seen on Television. Even the old episodes from the classic series still stand up story-wise to anything US imports have tried to eclipse in recent years, although seeing Jon Pertwee chased by a piece of tinfoil with a face like George Galloway is not a scary as it used to be...or is it? Best episode in recent years was Blink, which barely featured the Doctor and managed to be scary and engaging for all ages throughout.
The Simpsons - Okay, so the last six seasons or so have been as funny as watching England crash out of the World Cup on penalties, but even daily never ending repeats on Channel 4 are still ten times better than anything else being shown that night. Best Episode is Season 4's 'Last Exit to Springfield' in which Lisa needs braces and Homer becomes Union Leader in a bid to keep the 'dental plan'. Simply brilliant.
Top Gear - Picture the pitch, three middle aged men shouting at each other about cars for an hour then invite a celebrity to drive around their test track really fast and challenge each other in tasks that most of the time involves 7% about actual bloody cars. Why does it work? God knows, but the banter between Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May is reminisent of any debate we've all had in a pub about who is the greatest band of all time. The challenges are the best part of the programme and then of course there is the Stig, some say that he excretes toast through his pancreas...
Red Dwarf - A cult comedy series for some, it took influences from films as diverse as Casablanca, The Odd Couple, Alien and even Pride and Prejudice and stuck it all in a spaceship 3 million years from Earth. One minute the crew (populated by the last human, a hologram of his dead bunkmate, a creature that evolved from cats, a domestic droid without a penis and a floating head) would be running away from a curry monster, the next stuck in a cowboy video game fighting for their lives then erased from time altogether. Their adventures were silly and fun, something wihch is missing from all sitcoms today. Plus it gave us the word 'Smeghead' a word so funny it had the power to blow snot from the nose of an eight year old whenever they mentioned it.
Family Guy - Cancelled twice by Fox, the laugh out loud adult version of The Simpsons (come on, look at the similarities, a dunse of a father, an outcast for a daughter and secondary characters who are just as funny if not funnier than the main family) Family Guy doesn't care who it offends with cut away jokes which poke fun at any Hollywood celebrity or politician worth ridiculing and loving spoofs of cult movies from the 80's, comic genius and anarchist Peter Cook would have loved it. It can be as abstract and outrageous as it likes and the storylines can still be plausible within the Family Guy universe, someting maybe only South Park can do as convincingly.
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