QI, BBC1

QI is the cockroach of the television world. Not because it is a pestilent interloper disseminating disease and effluvia throughout the world – at least not until the episode featuring Jeremy Clarkson. It’s because that it seems impervious to the world surrounding it; and that Stephen Fry and four of his witty acolytes could be confined to a bunker while a nuclear holocaust unfolds outside while they cheerily debate the merits of giving honey to a bee to keep it alive or savour the fantasy of sinking the entire French Navy.

Of course, nothing has changed since the last series. But for Fry’s marked weight loss – which awards him the mien of a kindly, wise librarian – and Rob Brydon’s thicker hair, they could have all been locked away since the end of the last series.

It is perhaps a small criticism of the four panellists in this opener – Brydon, David Mitchell, Dara OBriain and the resident Alan Davies – that they all play their allotted roles like actors returning to a soap they once dominated but were unable to translate their talents to more nuanced dramas.

Mitchell takes up the reins of the indignant noble, vituperating about the perils of reviving an ailing bee with more honey than it will produce in her lifetime, leading to the potential diminishing of the world’s honey supply – “It’s like showing a very tired mason a whole cathedral!”

Brydon, meanwhile, envelops himself in an even deeper disguise of a bombastic ignoramus who condescendingly mocks his fellow panellists only to have his pomposity pricked for comic effect.

And Davies plays the stupid child who initially tries to keep up with his more intellectual peers, until, chided warmly by the brilliant Fry, he gives up and devotes his time to making silly observations or cutting up the studio with a valuable antique saw – even if it was evident that such a renegade escapade had been planned in advance.

It was only Dara O’Briain who struggled slightly, and this was because of his similarity to Mitchell in that they both thrive through the unhinged, indignant rant against the ills of humanity. O’Briain’s disdain for a sign in Ireland that had a comma where an apostrophe should have been was kidnapped by Mitchell, who expanded the joke into sign writers who notice that clients have spelt ‘accommodation’ wrongly in their instructions but who will only correct it if the client has signed-up for their more expensive deluxe service. It really needed the laconic Rich Hall instead of either one of these.

But it doesn’t really matter in the long term. QI has the joyful capacity to endure long after we’re gone, even if it metamorphoses into something different. Five (almost always) men debating impotently about the indignities and idiocy of the world is something that will endure, and has endured, throughout human history, and has often been the foundation for governments and kingdoms. When its most fruitful situation has invariably been proved to be a darkened television studio.

TV WEEK - SATURDAY 5TH DECEMBER - FRI DEC 11TH

Saturday
9.30pm Being Alan Bennett BBC2 - To mark his 75th year, a rare glimpse into the life and work of Alan Bennett, one of the UK's best-loved writers.
9.30pm Rod Stewart One Night Only ITV - Concert hosted by Ben Shepard including footage of the singer's home and a duet with the Stereophonics.
Sunday
6.00pm Noel's Christmas Presents Update Sky One - Noel revisits people from the 2007 and 2008 editions of the series.
9.00pm Small Island BBC1 - 2-part drama based apon Andrea Levy's award-winning story of Jamaicans and Londoners involved in World War Two. London 1948: Hortense joins Gilbert her new husband in England where he is lodging with Queenie Bligh. Starring Ruth Wilson and David Oyelowo.
Monday
11.00am Living Dangerously BBC1 - Series telling the stories of people caught up in extreme weather events in the UK. From floods to hailstorms and even tornados, find out what happens when freak weather hits, and learn how to protect yourself, your home and your family from disaster.
9.00pm I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here!: Coming Out ITV - Catching up with the celebritites following on from their time in the jungle.
9.00pm Man On Earth Channel 4 - Tony Robinson travels back through 200,000 years of human history to find out what happened to our ancestors when violent climate change turned their world upside down, and what they can teach us as we face our own climate crisis today.
9.00pm Games Britanina BBC4 - Series in which Benjamin Woolley looks at how popular games in Britain from the Iron Age to the Information Age are a rich source of cultural and social history, and shows how the instinct to play games is both as universal and elemental as language itself.
10:35pm Inside MI5: The Real Spooks ITV - A look at the history of MI5 based on the book Defence of the Realm by Professor Christopher Andrew, who was given unprecedented access to MI5's top secret files.
Tuesday
8.00pm Coastline Cops ITV - Cameras follow the men and women who look after the 10,500 miles of Britain's coastline.
Kirstie's Homemade Christmas Channel 4 - Kirstie Allsopp returns for a three-part special that sees her create the perfect homemade Christmas. She shows how to create the perfect Christmas decorations, choose the right tree and design your own Christmas cards.
9.00pm Can Gerry Robinson Fix Dementia Care Homes? BBC2 - 2-parter where Businessman Sir Gerry Robinson returns in a new series in which he tries to turn around three struggling care homes.
9.00pm Robson Green's Wild Swimming Adventure ITV - Two-part programme in which actor Robson Green embraces the pursuit of outdoor swimming, visiting the country's lidos, lakes, rivers and seas and meeting some fellow-bathers along the way. In the first programme, Robson returns to the freezing Tyne, in which he swam as a child. Later, he moves on to more clement waters in the South West including Tinside Lido and Porthowan Tidal Pool.
9.00pm Alesha Dixon: Who's Your Daddy? BBC3 - Alesha Dixon investigates the potential fallout of not knowing who your father is. Alesha talks to children and experts as she examines both the emotional and practical implications of not knowing where and who you come from.
10.00pm Russell Brand: Skinned Channel 4 - An intimate and revealing documentary about the inimitable Russell Brand featuring behind-the-scenes footage, stand-up performance and an in-depth interview with Frank Skinner.
10.35pm Christmas Tales ITV - Three-part series in which Fiona Phillips examines the phenomenon of festive icons. In the first programme, she looks at the long and fascinating history of the Christmas tree.
Wednesday
9.00pm Horizon: How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth? BBC2 - faces a population crisis. He reflects on the impact of a doubling in world population during his career. While much of the projected population growth is in the developing world, it is the lifestyle enjoyed by many in the West that has the most impact on the planet.
Thursday
8.00pm DIY SOS: The Big Build BBC1 - 1.6 million children in Britain today live in bad housing. In this DIY SOS special Nick Knowles and the team attempt to re-house a Dad and four children who have spent four years stuck in a caravan in the garden of their one bed house.
8.00pm Stuart: The Day My Life Changed BBC3 - Stuart Mangan pretty much had it all - he had completed a masters, got a great job and had a long-term girlfriend. Then in April 2008, Stuart broke his neck while playing rugby. His injuries left him paralysed from the head down, he can only breathe with the aid of a ventilator and needs 24-hour care.
Friday
9.00pm Mister Eleven ITV1 - First of a two-part romantic comedy drama. Schoolteacher Saz Paley's love life is driven not by her heart, but by an obsession with numbers. She believes the statistic that the average British woman marries her eleventh sexual partner, so Saz could not be more certain that her fiance Dan is the man for her - because he is her own Mr Eleven. Starring Michelle Ryan and Sean Maguire.

Coming Up at Christmas

Cranford BBC1 Christmas 2009 - Seasonal edition of the period drama starring Judi Dench.

Steve Coogan: The Inside Story BBC2 Christmas 2009 - Documentary charting the success of the comedian behind Alan Partridge.

The Grufalo BBC1 Christmas 2009 -A half-hour animated film based on the classic children's picture book written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler, tells the magical tale of a mouse who takes a walk though the woods in search of a nut. Mouse is voiced by James Corden, Fox by Tom Wilkinson, Owl by John Hurt, Snake by Rob Brydon, Mother Squirrel by Helena Bonham Carter and the Gruffalo by Robbie Coltrane.

My Family BBC1 Christmas 2009 - It's December 2039 and the Harpers gather together to celebrate Christmas. Thirty years in the future, the family's appearance may have changed somewhat but their love/hate relationships are still very much alive. Guest starring Nathaniel Parker as Uncle Richard

Not Going Out BBC1 Christmas 2009 - The final episode of the sitcom written by Lee Mack. This Special Christmas edition sees the the surprise arivial of Lee's father played by Bobby Ball.

Outnumbered BBC1 Christmas 2009 - Feature length Christmas Special of the family sitcom.

The Royle Family: The Golden Eggcup BBC1 Christmas 2009 - Comedy starring Ricky Tomlinson and Caroline Aherne returns for a Christmas Special. Jim and Barbara have received the gift of money from their loving children but what to do with it? Barbara wants to go abroad for the first time, having only been away once on their honeymoon to Ormskirk. Will Jim persuade Barbara that a satellite HD box is a more appropriate way of spending their children's generous gift? Tension mounts, a family discussion ensues and the question is: Where will they go? Down to the shops as Jim suggests or on Barbara's dream holiday to the Bermuda Triangle?

The Turn of The Screw BBC1 Christmas 2009 - Drama adapted from Henry James's novel by Sandy Welch. Set in the 1920's the story centres around Ann, a young governess who is sent to a country house to take charge of two orphans. Unsettled by a sense of intense evil within the house, Ann becomes convinced that malevolent forces are stalking the children in her care. Starring Sue Johnston and Michelle Dockery.

Totaal Wipeout BBC1 Christmas 2009 - 2 Celebrity editions of the game show hosted by Richard Hammond and featuring comedian Tim Vine, Fatima Whitbread, soap actress Adele Silva.

Victoria Wood's Mid-Life Crisis BBC1 Christmas 2009 - One off comedy return of Victoria Wood with a 60-minute special for BBC One featuring sketches, personal injury commercials, unlikely sporting events and a dance number bringing together the killer combo of midriff bulge and Busby Berkeley. There's also the further adventures of soap star Bo Beaumont, played by Victoria's long-term collaborator Julie Walters.

The TV Week Mon 23rd - Friday 27th November 2009

Monday
9.00pm School of Saatchi BBC2 - Series exploring the strange and controversial world of contemporary art through a nationwide search by Charles Saatchi. He will select one artist to join his next major exhibition and offer them their own studio for three years.
9.0opm I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here ITV1 - Continues all week
9.00pm Mouth to Mouth BBC3 - Comedy drama series which deals with six young adults as they enter their twenties.
9.00pm Gracie! BBC4 - Drama documenting the life of Singer and comedienne from Rochdale, Gracie Fields. Starring Jane Horrocks, Tom Hollander and Tony Haygarth.
Tuesday
8.00pm The Old People's Home Show Channel 4 - Architect George Clarke takes on his most ambitious project yet, to bring a retirement home long overdue for refurbishment into the modern age. As part of Channel 4's Coming of Age season.
9.00pm Paradox BBC1 - Five-part crime drama centering around . Dr Christian King, a world-renowned astrophysicist who claims to have received a series of images from space. The images show fragments of an event, an explosion in which many are killed. DI Rebecca Flint and her team investigate Dr King and the images, and begin to contemplate the impossible. Starring Tamzin Outhwaite & Mark Bonar.
9.00pm Relocation, Relocation: Its Never Too Late Channel 4 - Kirstie Allsopp and Phil Spencer take on two of their trickiest customers yet. Margot and Henry Harris have been married for almost 50 years. The couple are both in their late seventies and are on the hunt for a new home in Berkshire and a holiday home on the Dorset coast.
10.35 Help! I caught it Abroad ITV1 - Documentary set at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Central London.
11.05pm Cast Off's Channel 4 - Darkly comic drama series written by Jack Thorne telling the story of six disabled characters sent to a remote British island for a fictional reality TV show.
Wednesday
8.00pm 10 Years Younger Channel 4 - Myleene Klass and the 10 Years Younger team faces one of their biggest challenges to date transforming the appearance of 64-year-old Marie and 72-year-old Betty. One will be transformed with the surgeon's knife and the other will go down the non-surgical route. As part of the Coming of Age season.
Thursday
8.00pm The True Story Five - Historical documentary exploring the real-life events that inspired the Tom Clancy novel and film, 'The Hunt for Red October'. In 1975.
9.00pm Gavin & Stacey BBC1 - The award winning sitcom returns for a third and final series. Gavin starts his new job in Cardiff and Stacey is thrilled to be at home again. Smithy comes to terms with life in Essex without his best mate, while Nessa is adjusting to life in Dave's caravan down in Sully. The weekend brings with it a big reunion, as everyone meets up for the christening of Baby Neil. Starring Matthew Horne, Jonanna Page, James Corden, Ruth Jones.
9.oopm Cutting Edge: Jess: Britain's Youngest Sleep Walker. Channel 4 - Three and a half year old Jess has a condition that has baffled every doctor she has seen so far. For the last two and a half years she has been living a double life: during the day she is a bright and happy girl but at night she is "different". Jess is monitored at home and then observed at the clinic to firstly ascertain if she is sleepwalking or awake.
9.30pm QI BBC1 - Stephen Fry and Alan Davies return to their seats for a sixth series of the quiz show featuring the letter G.
9.30pm Megan Let Me Grow Up BBC3 - Megan is home schooled by her strict Jehovah's witness mum and dad and leads a life structured around rules and routines. She is ready for a change and her parents realise their first-born needs to be 'socialised', but where and how they do they do this, considering that Megan is terrified of talking to people of her own age and worries about what they might think of her.
Friday
8.00pm Embarrasing Old Bodies Channel 4
9.00pm We Are Family BBC2 - Documentary focusing on an unusual family over the course of an extraordinary weekend. The film follows the Minchew family members' progress as they come together to strengthen family ties and uncover a shared past shrouded in secrecy. With three different fathers between them.
10.05pm Comedy Showcase: The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margret Channel 4 - US Comedian David Cross lays Todd Margaret, a hapless office drone who flukes his way into a top management job heading up the British division of a US multinational. All he has to do is sell a dozen container loads of dodgy Korean energy drinks before his psychotic boss, Will Arnett, visits in a week's time.

Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars

Stitched together from a bountiful reservoir of science-fiction allusions, the Waters of Mars triumphed because the most indelible, profound theme was of the Doctor’s dilemma of the clash between his compassion and morality, which was urging him to save the otherwise doomed crew of Bowie Base 1, and the anachronistic edicts of his Time Lord heritage that insisted he abandon them to the whims of fate.

For much of the episode, the Doctor fulfilled the role of an impotent observer, dropping crumbs of detail to the austere Adelaide (Lindsay Duncan) and her crew as they were slowly picked off one by one by the alien entity present in the waters of the red planet. He almost acted as an assessor, appraising their conduct under mortal duress such as when he commended Adelaide for not shooting one of her infected crew. It was only as he strode away from the base back to the Tardis, and heard them being consumed by the entity one by one over the intercom, that his own alien infection, an affinity for the human race usurped his Time Lord ethos.

But all was not well. Tennant superbly conveyed the Doctor’s discomfort at his sacrilege through a grandiose insurrection of his native philosophy; booming grandiosely about how as he was the last of the Time Lords he was able to manipulate time to his own ends as if seeking to deafen his guilt.

He enjoyed the power too much, and upon transporting the three survivors back to London – to Adelaide’s front door no less, just to show off – he tartly demanded gratitude. Acting virtually as his conscience, Adelaide upbraided the Doctor for his actions in bending reality to suit his caprices. Dismissing her protests as the aggravated prattling of an inferior race, he strode back to the Tardis, his lingering humanity as extinct as his own race, until he heard Adelaide’s immolation to straighten the crooked lines of the time stream.

And it was her death that cleverly pricked the Doctor’s conceit, that it was his actions that were responsible for her death and the only sort of atonement he could achieve his through his own death – but even this will be nothing more than a regeneration, and that might not be enough to salve the wound – but as he fell to his knees on witnessing the apparition of Ood Sigma, Tennant’s eyes spoke of the desire that he would ‘die’ at then as the pain, common to his newly liberated humanity, is too much to bear.

The focus of Russell T Davies’ script on the Doctor’s erratic morality excused the simplistic monsters and derivative narrative – they fulfilled their purpose to the letter; they were scary for children and brought with them a dogged menace.

The use of water, a simple everyday object, is more common to Stephen Moffat’s episodes – shadows, statues, clocks – but was used in the Waters of Mars just as effectively. As the infected crew members bled water through the thick concrete base to ambush the fleeing crew below, the normally innocuous sight of a waterfall seeping through the ceiling, trapping a crew member on one side of the room, had the same lethal, visual impact as a relentless buzzsaw.

The idea of an alien entity infecting an isolated colony is, of course, hardly original. John Carpenter’s The Thing, itself a remake, is the most obvious touchstone for this scenario, and the entity’s simplistic psychology of a yearning to invade Earth because of its aquatic abundance was another facile device. But because of the Doctor’s internal conflict, facile was all that was required, or indeed, there was room for.

Even the Doctor’s actions were derivative of previous incarnations of the renegade Time Lord. However, these could be passed off as ingrained traits rather than cynically mining the past for ideas. John Pertwee’s Doctor died as a consequence of the same unchecked hubris exhibited by the contemporary personification, while Patrick Troughton’s Doctor was forced into a regeneration by his superiors for the same kind of interference. Meanwhile, the ghostly figure of Ood Sigma is redolent of the Watcher who presaged Tom Baker’s metamorphosis into Peter Davison.

Such was the vivacity, depth and humanity of Tennant’s portrayal of a conflicted alien that it’s a pity that he’s leaving. But on the other hand, such a detachment from the usually noble and selfless Doctor is only possible during his incorrigible decline, as though he is in a state of decay that can only be remedied by a new face.