Emma Cave - Telly Belly

Much like life, Christmas television can also be compared to a box of chocolates. You’ve got your foil-wrapped, heart shaped treats in the form of Downton Abbey and Doctor Who. Your fudge, praline and nut-encrusted family favourites like Eastenders and Strictly Come Dancing. And then of course, there are the ones that are picked over and discarded, to be left rattling round in the bottom of the box until somebody finally gets round to finishing them off around the 28th December. The marzipan, the orange crèmes - yes I’m talking about Hotel for Dogs and Keeping Up Appearances.

Forget Frozen Planet, the most incredible piece of animal footage I have ever come across has to be during My Monkey Baby, when a woman carefully applied gloss to a monkey’s pursed lips, and then took it out to lunch.

It’s easy to dismiss teenagers as slack-jawed, sofa huggers. Congregating in shopping centres, clogging up A&E on Saturday nights. Those August riots didn’t do a whole lot for their reputations and a study published by Barnardos last week concluded that 44% of Britons think young people are ‘feral’. Yowser.

Perhaps the most exciting aspect of the whole shebang is that The Bachelor features real women, just like you and me. Well, alright, not just like you and me. Unless you are aged between 18 and 25, are surgically enhanced from the ankles up or blessed with that kind of ‘just stepped out of a salon’ natural beauty which means other women fantasise about smashing your perfect face in with a stiletto?

At 8pm we have Snog Marry Avoid, hosted by Jenny Frost from Atomic Kitten. Then at 8.30, we have Hotter Than My Daughter, hosted by Liz McClarlon, also from Atomic Kitten. I don’t know who’s got the connections at that channel but they’ve certainly made the most of them.

As the credits rolled, Erin had saved a cow’s life and received a proposal from her soulless ex boyfriend, who turned up begging her to come home. Cliffhanger or what?

Ah, the Corrie tram smash. Such a lovely idea. What better way to mark the 50 year anniversary of the UK’s premium soap? Because despite what the Soap Awards results may tell you, Corrie is da bomb. This programme been documenting the everyday misery of British folk since the day it began, so why break with tradition?

There is nothing quite like BBC Breakfast News. Nothing.

It’s a rather trendy, artfully shot social experiment which indulges the viewer’s voyeuristic tendencies but also encourages them to ruminate on the human condition. Who wouldn’t want to tune in for that?

ITV has whipped up a new and exciting way to torture these people in the very name of entertainment. Dump them at the edge of the Arctic Circle, with nothing but the Millets outdoor range between them and the elements, and get Kate Thornton and some other bloke to crow over the proceedings as they plough through fleets of snow like crazed Huskies.