TV Dinners is still alive!!

Hello,

Yes I know we've been a bit rubbish recently, but December and November are busy months for the TV Dinners writers, what with Christmas and income tax filing deadlines and Ceej's birthday preparations...

So, here's a quick summary of what I've been watching and liking

PROJECT CATWALK
It's back! And Ben de Lisi is ANGRIER than ever! He strides around the studio, tossing pattern pieces aside and growling: "No no no no no!" at hapless blondes. We're only a couple of weeks in and we've already got a hate figure.

ANGIE: Or "Stitching Bitch" in the Sladey household owing to her resemblence to a type that patronises Sarah's favourite knitting shop and scowls disapprovingly at anybody who giggles at the idea of a knitted breast. Angie is sour, dour and only happy when she's moaning about how everybody else knows NOTHING and doesn't deserve to be on the show.

I liked Debbie Debonair, and thought she had some great ideas. Pity she didn't know one end of a sewing machine from another, and probably deserved to go in the third round. The blonde scouse girl is nice as well, and we like the sewing housewife and the Hoxton shop assistant chappy.

REAPER
What's not to like? It has Kevin Smith as a consulting producer, and Leland Palmer plays the Devil! The only problem is that it's on E4, home of the eternal Friends re-run, and our E4 reception is rubbish. Sort it out, Freeview folk!

Reaper's 'hero' is one of Kevin Smith's typical slacker shopworkers, who discovers that his parents sold his soul to the Devil. The Devil is a congenial chap, who just wants our man to pick up a few escaped souls who are wreaking havoc in this particularly unlucky small town in the US, and send them back to Eternal Damnation. You have the standard Kevin Smith characters: smart-mouthed, fatbestfriend; unfeasibly hot-and-smart girl co-worker who can also hold her beer; and Leland Palmer is the Devil. I'm telling you, it rocks like Buffy in the early Spike years.

And no, I haven't seen Spike on Torchwood. I can only go about 10 minutes with Torchwood before switching channels. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's because the whole Dr Who franchise is starting to get a bit pleased with itself. I particularly don't like the slightly messianic turn that episodes seem to be taking these days. What's wrong with just blatting daleks, and leaving the whining about how lonely it is being a god in the Tardis, eh?

Last night's episode of Masterchef was a classic of lachrymosity. Maybe the producers decided to round up all the weedy blubby ones and get them out of the way. We had tears from the woman who wanted to give it all up and open a cafe in France, serving tarts made from uncooked pastry, from the looks of it. Well, given what the French think of English food, all she'd have to do is add a few chips and a Mad Cow burger and she has a whole theme on her hands. Then Charlotte, the plucky young mum of three, served a slab of black pudding apples and leeks that looked like a bad municipal art project. The Torode said: "Yuk!" and on went the waterworks. For gods sake woman! You charmed the socks off Anton Mossiman and rustled up a lovely beef dish for him! What more do you want?

Anyway, the chiselled, unemotional Scot won, with a Cullen Skink (still have no idea what this is, other than it has leeks and cream in it, and no deep-fried Mars Bars), and something that he did with a duck and some barley. And guess what? He's in publishing...