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The unofficial TV Times, Emma Cave has lived vicariously through television since she was a small child. She has her own emergency generator and never misses an episode of Neighbours.

Four Weddings

Add a camera to the already heady mix of emotion, champagne and Whigfield’s ‘Saturday Night’ and Come Dine With Me starts to pale ever so slightly in comparison.

Airline

The great thing about this programme is that you are privy to all those little human dramas that play themselves out in public, without having to avert your eyes or hide behind a newspaper.

Animal Park

The Beeb do their best to keep up with the nation and their attention deficit demands; gunning down Top of the Pops when they realised that it had become a byword for lame, organising live web cams at Glastonbury, juicing up Radio 2 with the likes of Russell Brand and Alan Carr. They have proved to us that they have got the hang of edgy and cool, but programmes like this serve to show that they much prefer room temperature.

Personal Affairs

Just when the girls look like they might make a start on that filing, one of them makes a shock confession, or receives a distressing phone call, which means they have to decamp to the ladies toilets and sort it all out. There is an awful lot of sorting out to do. Unplanned pregnancy, infidelity, sexy shenanigans, mysterious disappearance, thwarted dreams and shattered hearts. Issues, issues, ISSUES. And we’re only 2 episodes in. Phew!

Big Brother

Tired of the gimmicks? Tired of the stunts? Tired of the being promised genuine characters and then tuning in to find of bunch of twenty somethings sitting round in their pants and debating the merits of mayonnaise?

Celebrity Wife Swap

He caused controversy in the 80s. She had a pop at most of her fellow contestants in that jungle show. How will Stan Boardman cope with gobby Rhona Cameron stomping into his castle, criticising the contents of his fridge and dishing out verbal warnings every time he says something offensive about a minority group? Will somebody end up on an assault charge?

Come Dine With Me

Come Dine With Me is a week long contest between 5 strangers, all of whom must devise and prepare their own menu and attempt to lay on a suitably smooth evening for the other 4. The food, the conversation, the pattern on the tablecloth, the sheen on the cutlery – all will be noted, scrutinized and brutally judged. The guests then score their host out of ten for the evening (usually in the back of a taxi when they’ve consumed so much wine it’s slopping out of their earholes).

Neighbours

Neighbours champions the cosy domesticity so wilfully, gleefully destroyed by most other soaps. Plenty of drama, but there’s usually somebody on hand with a casserole and some sensible advice.

Holiday Showdown

The bargain basement alternative to Wife Swap, Holiday Showdown is a programme which brings the public exactly what they can never quite admit that they want: ring-side seats at a bun fight.

Coach Trip

Coach Trip is a brilliant programme. You get yourself a coach. You get yourself some contestants, divided into pairs and convinced that their ideal holiday is to spend an infinite amount of time on this coach, touring the many sherry distilleries and candle factories of Europe. You get yourself a temperamental, effeminate tour guide named Brendan, who perspires with such vigour that he needs to change every ten minutes. Ideally suited to the warmer climes, is Brendan. Oh, and you ask the contestants to line up every night and vote for who they want to send home. In front of each other.

Kimora: Life in the Fab Lane

Meet Kimora Lee-Simmons. She’s a mogul. She’s a model. She’s a mom. She’s a m…. She’s a lot of things beginning with M.

Katie and Peter: Stateside

You probably thought that you knew everything you needed to know about Queen of the Mammaries, Katie Price, and her antipodean partner in tanning, Peter Andre. Well, you’re right. What else is there to know about these two? Not a lot.

Diagnosis Murder

Diagnosis Murder has managed to attract something of a cult following in the UK, and it’s not difficult to understand how it has achieved this revered status. It’s camp, it’s gloriously predictable, it’s unintentionally hilarious and it has Van Dyke’s shoe-horned into every possible spare role.