What I'm watching....

In the same way that I drink too much coffee, live inside my head too much (and eat too much...well, just about everything) it's a well known fact that I watch too much television.

Sooooo, I just thought I'd quickly update you with a few details about what I'm watching on TV at the moment

(those of you eschew the television and, indeed, like to compete with others over how little TV you actually watch can look away now).

Ashes to Ashes: I loved 'Life and Mars' and feared that this spin off was going to be a heartless cash in. It is a spin off, and it does cash in on the previous series' legacy but (and it's an important but) it stops just short of retreading old ground. In 'Life on Mars' the main character was unsure whether he was in a coma or had actually travelled back in time to the 1970s. This time around the main character Alex Drake is certain that she is either in a coma or moments away from death and refuses to believe she is back in the 1980s. Part of me hopes to have the self-satisfied look wiped on her face while the rest of me wonders whether women really wore so many off-the shoulder jumpers in the 1980s and why I didn't notice at the time.

Moving Wallpaper/Echo Beach: I love anything that is self referential and I particularly like meta fiction (i.e. fiction about fiction) so this intrigues me. For those who haven't seen it, it's two shows - the first one is a sitcom about the making of a fictional soap and the following programme is the soap itself. It just about works as a concept and continuity freaks like myself can enjoy spotting props, dialogue and plot lines in the second programme that are merely referred to in passing in the first. The major drawback with the whole premise is that Echo Beach (the soap) is so awful. Don't get me wrong - I realise that it is meant to be awful - just not this awful.

Skins: Now, I realise that as a man in his thirties I'm hardly the target audience for this drama but it really is very good indeed. All the promotional material for the series make it look like a drug-fuelled hedonistic party of a show and those elements certainly are there - but as context rather than subject. What lifts it above this is the fantastic ensemble cast and a rich vein of dark humour. It's also great fun spotting an older generation of comics and comic actors - including Harry Enfield, Bill Bailey and Josie Lawrence - as the parents