• BBC4 to air Verity Lambert tribute night

Film

• Who won which Oscars
• Odeon bans Rambo
• X-Files 2 talk from cast and crew
• There will be a Bourne 4
• Tom Cruise cameo for Star Trek?
• Iron Man to link up with The Avengers

Comics

• Mr T to feature in a graphic novel

British TV

• Moving Wallpaper spared from cancellation
• Longest ever commission for Taggart, just as Rebus is cancelled

US TV

• Rufus Sewell to take Patrick Stewart's role in Jerry Buckheimer remake of Eleventh Hour
• BBC America buys Primeval [free registration required]
• Six more episodes for Lipstick Jungle
• Three more episodes for Women's Murder Club
• Previews of the next Lost
• Jericho producers looking for a new home for the show

Anyone fancy a game of monkey tennis?

That if, you'll recall, was one of Alan Partridge's last-ditch pitches to a BBC commissioner in an attempt to get his own TV show. It's easy to imagine a similar conversation taking place in Soho House, not so long ago, between a desperate producer, a little the worse for wear from white wine and 17 rejections, and a BBC3 commissioner looking for new shows.

“Anthropology Agro!” suggests the tipsy prod. “We send six buff men around the world. They meet all sorts of tribes and cultures. They learn about their lifestyles and their customs. Then they pick fights with them.”

“Hmm,” muses the somewhat patronising BBC3 commissioner. “We are the BBC. We are supposed to be educational and informative. Except we're BBC3. We're watched by chavs and morons and Torchwood fans – who are both chavs and morons. The only way we're going to get our target demographic of XYZ9s to be interested in another country and its culture is by sticking it in an XBox360 first-person shooter backdrop and making sure there are plenty of naked tribeswomen in it.”

Decided, she exclaims, “Brilliant! You're hired” and Last Man Standing is born.

Except, it's the BBC. It's too liberal to be sending the prime of British youth around the world to beat up the natives. That's too Raj, too Empire. We can't do that anymore.

So they've stuck in a couple of provisos.

1. Three of the six buff young athletes have to be American
2. They all have to be bollocks at fighting

In the US: Sundays, Showtime, 10pm ET/PT
In the UK: Coming soon to Channel 4

Now here's curious. We have a co-production between UK network Channel 4 and US cable network Showtime. It's made by British production company Ecosse Films. It's filmed in Britain. It's set in Britain. It's cast is almost entirely British.

But it's airing in the US first.

How's that work then?

More to the point, it's also very British - very Channel 4, in fact –  which makes me wonder what Showtime sees in it. We have a family, headed by David Morrissey, who have to enter the witness protection programme. They wind up in Kent in a strange little town called Meadowlands populated by strange little people. And it's all very, very bleak – and very very strange.

In the US: ABC Family, Mondays, 8/7c
In the UK: Trouble TV at some point

Characters re-cast: 0
Major characters gotten rid of: Several
Major new characters: 2
Format change percentage: 25%

Ah, the Aspy propaganda show returns. Yes, the good-looking genius with poor social skills, muted emotional reactions, monotone voice, obsessive interests and an affinity for computers is once again back and boosting ABC Family's ratings through its (not especially high) roof.

In the US: Fox, but they're burning it off at a rate of knots so practically all the time now
In the UK: On Trouble TV at some point

Characters re-cast: 0
Major characters gotten rid of: 2
Major new characters: 2
Format change percentage: 25%

Oh dear. I spy with my little eye, something beginning with “Network interference”. It's no secret that Fox wasn't happy with the ratings for the first season of The Loop. But à la Tru Calling, they forked out the cash for a second season all the same. Then cancelled it before it even aired. Now they're burning off the episodes in their back catalogue as quickly as they can.

I can see why. They've been tinkering and messed it up.

In the US: Sundays, 9/8c, SciFi
In the UK: Starts on Sky One, February 14th, 9pm

Sigh. I'm old, tired and jaded. I just can't ignore this singular problem any more. I've been around, I've watched a lot of tele. It takes a lot to impress me. Either that or The Dresden Files is just dull and derivative. I'm hoping it's the second option.

In the US: ABC Family, Mondays, 7/6c
In the UK: Nothing yet, but probably The Disney Channel

What is it that makes a programme a “family programme”? Well, obviously there can't be much swearing, sex or violence - can't have kids knowing about that. Or anything else adult. Or that corresponds much to the real world.

It can't be too complicated for the kids, either, or else they won't get it. So it can't deal with serious issues in a sophisticated way, no matter what it claims.

What to make then of Lincoln Heights? It's The Wire, but for a family audience. How does that work then?

In the US: Starts Sunday, January 14th 8/7c, Fox
In the UK: Starts Sunday, January 21st 9pm, Sky One.

Characters re-cast: 0
Major characters gotten rid of: 1 so far
Major new characters: Loads. I've lost count. They'll be dead soon, though.
Format change percentage: 10%. Jack!

Mancrush.

It's a good word, isn't it? It means the perfectly normal feelings of admiration and envy a completely straight, heterosexual, utterly non-gay man might feel for another completely straight, heterosexual, utterly non-gay man.

Apart from anything else, it's good because it allows us men to make jokes about feelings we're not comfortable with - which we all love, right, because manly men like jokes? - and it conjures up far fewer bad thought-scenarios than the phrase “homo-erotic stirrings”.

There are many legitimate targets for mancrushes. Chuck Norris, Steven Segal, Gordon Ramsay: all acceptable. Milo Ventimiglia in Heroes? Absolutely not. That floppy haired girl's super secret superhero power is empathy, for Heaven's sake. Real men don't have empathy – everyone knows that.

Some mancrushes are acceptable at certain times but not at others. It's perfectly acceptable, for instance, to have a mancrush on Captain Jack in Doctor Who. Under no circumstances is it acceptable to have a mancrush on him in Torchwood. It's just unnatural at every level.

Then there's Jack Bauer. Once a time, he was the ultimate mancrush. Any self-respecting man could say he wanted to stay in to watch Jack Bauer, because, you know, he's just so hard and so dutiful and so stoic... The way he chopped off Chase's hand and only cried about it later... Let's face it, he's just so sway, isn't he?

But now, the first four episodes of the latest season of 24 have actually called this into question. Jack Bauer has become a girly-man.

In the US: Wednesdays, 9.30/8.30c, ABC
In the UK: Not yet acquired

All of a sudden, there are a lot of “baby-men” dramas around. We started with The Class, in which various former school friends reunite after years of separation and discover that life has taken them in strange directions. But now we have another comedy that looks back nostalgically at High School and the life choices taken afterwards.

In Case of Emergency is also a comedy about losers, of which there are also a lot around (cf Knights of Prosperity). Despite the high aims and achievements of Jason, Harry, Sherman and Kelly at High School, only one of them has done well and that's all about to end, too.

In the UK: Acquired by ITV3, with a later pick-up by ITV1

When I first heard about Raines, I wasn't impressed. A detective that can talk to dead people? Just how derivative can you get? Like we need another Medium or Ghost Whisperer.

Turns out that while Raines (Jeff Goldblum) can talk to dead people, it's not because he's psychic. It's cos he's just a little bit nuts and has a very vivid imagination.

In the US: NBC, mid-season show
In the UK: Acquired for ITV2. Will debut in the spring.

There is a reason I felt guilty about turning off Angela's Eyes after only a minute. Although I doubt it would have made a difference in that show's case, sometimes you'll come across a programme that is absolute rubbish at first, but which turns out to be a real corker by the end. That is, after all, why I do third-episode verdicts.

The Black Donnellys is one such show. I started watching it last night, and after about ten minutes, I was ready to start extracting some serious urine from it. But I finished watching it this morning, and I have to say the rest of it was riveting.

Knights of Prosperity? Dumb name for a show, huh. Very dumb given the previous name of the show was Let's Rob Mick Jagger.

Now that's a name I can work with. After all, it's almost impossible to look at Mick Jagger and to avoid thinking, "You know, I'd really like to rob him."

But Knights of Prosperity? It means nothing. As a result, I'm predicting a great big floparoo.

In the US: NBC mid-season show.
In the UK: Not yet acquired

Weddings are crap times to be single. With no partner, you'll probably end up on Table 18 - The Singles Table. And that's the entrance point for probably the funniest of the various sit-com previews that I've seen so far.