Shame on you, Peep Show makers

Here I am. Apologies to my many fans for keeping silent for so long, but here finally is my verdict on the recent E4 comedy sketch show, Dogface. This was billed as a "comedy show that combines fast-paced sketches with stylish 'dog-based' animation from the makers of Peep Show."

It was actually a lazy show repeating the same unfunny situations over and over again within each and every episode, interspersed with dog-based animation where pub conversations were played over pictures of dogs playing pool and that.

I've complained about Little Britain before, but at least they show a particular sketch only once per episode. I watched one and a half episodes of Dogface. In the one and a half episodes I watched there were six "sketches" which involved a man (Super Hans out of Peep Show) talking to his friend about man-love. There were six "sketches" which involved a man (Super Hans out of Peep Show) and his wife (or partner) on holiday with the man's parents where the wife (or partner) says something fairly harmless to his mother, he tells his wife to shut up (rudely), the wife then repeats to the man what she just said to his mother, he tells his wife to shut up (rudely), embarrassed silence followed by the man saying something to his mother similar to the thing his wife had said. There were six sketches involving an unhappy weather lady (played by the woman who was in the episode of Peep Show where Mark pretends to be a University student, and who is now in the Peter Serafinowicz show) where the weather forecast degenerates into a rant about a broken relationship.

So what I'm saying is that they're showing these sketches four times per episode. So within a series of six episodes they would have shown these three sketches twenty-four times each. How can they live with themselves? A sketch that in Fry and Laurie's day would have lasted one minute is now stretched to get half an hour (after adverts).

And the sketches weren't funny anyway. Repeating them doesn't help. The sketches that my friends and I wrote when we were drunk fifteen years ago are more deserving of a comedy series than the rubbish on Dogface (although I think most of the sketches would probably have been a little offensive to certain religious groups).

Anyway, Peter Serafinowicz's show is much better. While there are repeated themes in the sketches, they are sufficiently different to meet with my approval. It's not the funniest sketch show ever made, but Serafinowicz is an excellent performer, and he does the best Alan Alda impression I've ever seen. I applaud him. If I had a special Mickey's Prize, this week's would go to Peter Serafinowicz.

Should I now go into what I watched last night?

• The Sopranos - Yes, it's good and it was the penultimate episode so lots of interesting things happened. I like the Sopranos.
• Some other stuff - I think I'll stop this what I watched last night thing. It's not really doing anything, and if all I watched was the news and a film, it doesn't really make for interesting reading.

I note that Armstrong and Miller return to our screens on Friday in a BBC One sketch show. They were prone to repeating themes in their sketches during their Channel Four days, but they didn't rely on catch phrases and repetition, and it was before Little Britain spoilt it for everyone else. I await their show with cautious optimism.

The Dragons are back

Hurrah - Dragon's Den is back on BBC2. Boo - they have dropped Richard the nice Aussie bloke presumably as he was likable and polite to investors and had an investing strategy whereby he actually was putting money into businesses. I mean how was poor Duncan supposed to compete with that.

There are new title scenes in a fetching red and the Dragons have all got nice new hair cuts and Duncan has been told to wear a tie. Presumably because new Dragon James has a hairy chest and is sure as hell going to show it off. Given that poor old Theo Paphitis dare not spend any more of his children's inheritance on such extravagant items as ties, someone had to wear one. And they have let Peter Jones continue. Presumably he begged them for a second chance after Tycoon flopped in the summer. Anyway a couple of them made investments but perhaps the most remarkable thing was what happened to Peter's hair during the hour. It started long and floppy but by 9.30pm it was short and appeared to have been tinted a lovely shade of blond. But by 9.55 the fringe was back. Watch the next episode and you will no doubt see him grow a beard in the first 30 minutes only to return to his baby faced shiny look by the end of the hour.

Don't sing on TV

I am enjoying the Restaurant. It is almost as good as the Apprentice. I would love to know how the BBC keep finding an endless supply of complete incompetents to star in these shows. The programme itself is a good idea and I have to say that the twins, (I think they are called are Laura and Jess) are surely going to win it and deservedly show. They are bright, attractive and differ from the rest of the contestants in that they appear to use common sense when making a decision. They are in the final 3 against the Scottish bloke who is actually a decent cook and seems a decent guy and his mrs (more of whom later), and also Jeremy and his mrs (who keeps crying at the merest hint of a problem. Knives are dirty - turn on the waterworks. Dropped a bread bun on the floor - breakdown in a flood of tears whilst the hapless Jeremy looks seemingly paralysed. They really should go next but I think this week's episode may have sealed the fate of the Scottish guy and his wife. The task they were set was to delight there customers. They decided that the natural way to do this would be to sing to their customers as they waited for their apple crumbles to be heated up in the microwave. An unusual decision to make especially given that the wife was clearly tone deaf. She absolutely murdered flower of Scotland and looked like she was pushing a number of diners close to the edge of suicide. But they survived if only because the Ghanian couple they were up against decided to delight their customers by giving them a strawberry after they had finished their meal. Where did they get such an off the wall idea from ?

Ian Beale

Ian Beale is not my favourite character in Eastenders. He has not qualities that are admirable or likeable. However he is essential to the programme as he has history and links the past to the present. I am usually not that bothered about his storylines. Ian buys cafe, Ian makes a lot of money, Ian upsets Phil, Ian makes a fool of himself with attractive woman but eventually marries, has child with and divorces said attractive woman. Never really been that bothered by any of them. BUT dear readers, the current storyline where Ian is seemingly being sent gifts/threats from Cindy his first wife has had me excited. It has been well done and because I no longer read Inside Soap I had no idea if Michelle Collins was going to come back and play Cindy. This has made it one of the most enjoyable storylines of recent times. I like being in the dark about storylines as it makes the outcome a little less predictable - well ok 9 times out of 10 you can guess but every once in a while you will be surprised and that has to be a good thing. Now I still do not know if they are intending on bringing her back - and if they do it will have to be a very good storyline. It will also mean that they have used this trick twice with Dirty Den and Cindy - so why not go the whole hog and bring Martin Kemp back - surely he must be sick of his SCS adverts by now ?

Nigella

Typical Mickey. He was wanted this blog for years, nay decades and now he has it he is inventing reasons for not blogging. Don't worry readers I am going to have serious words with him.

As I mentioned in my previous blog, there are now 423 cookery programmes on TV every week. I am pretty up to date with Gordon, Jamie and even James Martin on Saturday morning. I think my favourite may be the Aussie chef who appears on a Saturday morning on BBC1 and literally cannot take the smile off his face. His cooking looks ok, a lot of barbecue stuff but given he is an Aussie and lives in Australia that is probably not that unusual. But he grins constantly. It is almost as if he is thinking to himself "you pommie idiots are paying me to tell you how to cook sausages on a fire".

Anyway, yet again I digress. I watched Nigella Express tonight. The basic premise seems to be that Nigella cooks very nice looking food in very short periods of time. It all looks too easy. I like cooking and I quite like my friends. So once in a while I combine the two and cook for my friends. But it takes me ages. I have to think what to cook, but the ingredients and then cook it and that takes time. How come Nigella is able to do all of the above in less than an hour? Does she have assistants preparing the ingredients for her ? Do the BBC employ runners to nip down to the local Tesco and bring back the ingredients whilst she browses her Jamie Oliver cook book ? I have recorded today's episode so I might watch it again and see if I can see shadows of young children working away in the background, chopping onions and grating lemon zest whilst being whipped and cajoled by an over zealous producer. Don't worry readers - we will get to the bottom of this.

The Restaurant

Apologies to our many readers for lack of updates from me. My anti-virus software is preventing me from accessing any websites that require a password so I've been unable to blog. Perhaps it has an inbuilt quality filter which realises the rubbish I write shouldn't be published.

This week I have been watching the Restaurant. It's like the Apprentice only with a Restaurant at the end of it, not a job. It's also like the Apprentice in the way that half the contestants are utter numbskulls who shouldn't be allowed near a toaster. My favourite couple so far has been actress Jacqui and jazz drummer Sam.

Neither have any cooking talent. Jacqui spends all her time at front of house apologising to customers for the dreadful food served up like a nightmarish ex-Mickey Mouse Club member, and when Sam's not in the kitchen ruining everything by just being there, he's sitting at his drumkit looking all sad. The highlight of last week's shows was when Sam (who is so gutless he makes me look like Vin Diesel) told the assistant chef that he was sacked - despite him being the only one in the whole restaurant who had any talent. For embarrassment, it wasn't quite at the level of Mani's presentation from Apprentice series two, but it was close.

Compare the Restaurant with the usual reality dross from ITV, Hell's Kitchen. It might actually be quite good, but every two minutes it's interrupted by Angus Deayton's painfully unfunny comments (he's credited as writer - I think he's just going through the motions) so I stopped watching it after half an hour. And blimey, that Kelly Le Brock's not ageing well!

What else I've been watching this week:

• Kitchen Criminils - by the end of it, the recap at the beginning of each episode explaining each contestant's "journey" went on for so long there was no time for any competition. Vincent's prattling didn't stop. Thankfully, it's finished. I should have stopped watching weeks ago, but I hate to stop watching something once I've started.
• The Sopranos - now that the Shield has finished (now officially my second favourite programme ever (after Battlestar Galactica, of course)) the Sopranos is back to take its place. I'm often compared with Tony Soprano, so the programme is a bit like my life, except Tony's married and I'm not. Will I ever find future Mrs Mickey??

I'll see if I can sort my PC connection next week, might be something to do with cookies or something, but if it fails then I'll be silent until I get a new PC. Davie, hold the fort while I sort things out.

Get with the times Mickey

Mickey. The cookery programme has been done to death. If you flick through the Guardian guide you will notice there are exactly 45 cookery programmes on terrestrial TV this week and that is not including Hells Kitchen. You have Jamie, Nigella, James Martin, the fat bloke with the double barrelled name and even Andi Peters has his own show in which he experiments different duck recipes using his old sparring partner Ed's battered corpse.

Police programmes is what all the kids are watching these days. There are exactly 47 of them on this week. But I have distilled it down and you should only watch the Bill. That is the best one now the Shield has finished. I am catching up on last weeks episodes which I recorded when I was on holiday. It is just great entertainment and I like the way producers keep matching up odd couples to patrol the mean streets of Sun Hill. In CID, Phil Hunter and Stuart have some great banter going between them and appear to be trying to out gurn each other in every scene. It is a crying shame that Phil is leaving the Bill to join Eastenders, though I have no doubt he will be the best character in that since Martin Kemp. Anyway, back to the Bill - in uniform they have started pairing up new recruit Beth, who is the smallest policewoman in history (I thought there was a height minimum) and long standing old timers like Tony Stamp and Reg Hollis. There are some lovely one liners in each scene.

I a now fully up to speed with the Shield. For once I agree with Mickey. It is brilliant and I advise anyone who reads this tripe to take him up on his offer and borrow Series 1. You will be hooked. Series 6 has just finished and we now have to wait another 10 months before the final series. That is one long wait and I just thank the gods that I have Sun Hill to keep me company in the meantime.