Coming Up – new entries and updates

Eurovision Song Contest Saturday 16 May 2009, BBC1 – Graham Norton presents coverage of the 54th Contest, from Moscow, Jade Ewen representing the UK.

Eurovision – Jade's Story BBC1 – Graham Norton presents the story of the UK's Eurovision entrant.

Why Poetry Matters BBC2 – Griff Rhys Jones launches the BBC's Poetry Season with a celebration of the power of verse.

My Life In Verse With... BBC2 – Series in which celebrities talk about the poems that have inspired them. Features Shelia Hancock in the opener, followed by Malorie Blackman, Cerys Mathews and Robert Webb.

Simon Schama's John Donne BBC2 – Documentary celebrating the life and work of one of Britain's greatest love poets.

Who's Watching You? BBC2 – Three-parter in which Richard Bilton explores Britain's surveillance society.

Ian Hislop's Changing Of The Bard Saturday 16 May 2009, BBC4 – Documentary about the role of the Poet Laureate, including an interview with the outgoing holder of the post, Andrew Motion.

Moving On Monday 18 to Friday 22 May 2009, BBC1 – Daytime series of five contemporary dramas: The Rain Has Stopped by Karen Brown, starring Shelia Hancock and Bhasker Patel; Bully by Marc Pye, starraing Mark Womack and Lee Boardman; Drowning Not Waving by Sarah Deane starring Christine Tremarco and Richard Armitage; Dress To Impress by Arthur Ellison starring Ian Hart and Dervla Kirwan; and Butterfly Effect by Esther Wilson starring Lesley Sharp and Joanne Frogatt.

Poetry Please – 30 Years Of The People's Poetry Thursday 21 May 2009, BBC4 – Tribute to BBC Radio 4's long-running poetry request programme. Contributors include presenter Roger McGough, Ian McMillan, Wendy Cope, Andrew Motion, Andrew Sachs, Kenneth Cranham, Tim Pigott-Smith, Rick Stein and David Blunkett.

Spooks BBC1 – Series eight of the MI5 drama starring Peter Firth, Richard Armitage and Hermione Norris.

The Thick Of It BBC2 – An eight-part return of the political comedy starring Peter Capaldi as the prime minister's director of communications, with Rebecca Front as new social affairs secretary Nicola Murray, Chris Addison as Ollie, James Smith as Glenn, Joanna Scanlan as Terri and Roger Allam as Peter Mannion. Written by Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Sean Gray, Ian Martin, Will Smith, Roger Drew and Tony Roche.

Hope Springs BBC1 – Eight-part comedy drama series about four female ex-convicts who plan to create a new life for themselves in Barbados with £5m stolen from one of their husbands, but end up in the Scottish village of Hope Springs instead. Stars Alex Kingston as Ellie, the feisty leader of the gang, Annette Crosbie as local gossip Sadie and Christine Bottomley as streetwise Shoo Coggan plus Sian Reeves, Vinette Robinson, Ronni Ancona, Paul Higgins and Alec Newman . Written by Ann McManus, Maureen Chadwick and Liz Lake; made by independent production company Shed Productions.

Lost: A Journey In Time Sunday 17 May 2009, Sky1 – Documentary exploring US drama Lost's mysterious relationship with time.

Bring Back Star Trek Saturday 9 May 2009, Channel 4 – Comic Justin Lee Collins tries to persuade the stars of the sci-fi series to attend a reunion.

The Birth Of British Music Saturday 9 May 2009, BBC2 – Four-part series in which conductor Charles Hazlewood explores the development of British music through the lives and music of Henry Purcell, George Frideric Handel, Joseph Haydn and Felix Mendelssohn.

Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra Saturday 9 May 2009, BBC2 – The comedian joins with Anne Dudley and the BBC Concert Orchestra to explain how the orchestra works.

The Big Art Project Sunday 10 May 2009, Channel 4 – Series looking at C4's funding of new public art projects around the UK, in Beckton, Belfast, Burnley, Cardigan, the Isle of Mull, Sheffield and St Helens.

South Pacific Sunday 10 May 2009, BBC2 – Six-part exploration of the ocean containing 20,000 islands.

Incredible Human Journey Sunday 10 May 2009, BBC2 – Five-parter in which Dr Alice Roberts examines how our ancestors colonised the planet.

Put Your Menu Where Your Mouth Is Monday 11 March 2009, BBC2 – A 23-part series in which TV chefs are tested on their ability to make money.

Propertywatch Monday 11 May 2009, BBC2 – Four-parter in which Kate Silverton, Justin Rowlatt and Andrew Verity look at the state of the housing market in the UK.

Find Me a Family Monday 11 May 2009, Channel 4 – Three-part documentary, fronted by adoption campaigner David Akinsanya, following three households of would-be adopters as they get hands-on experience,

Battlefront Monday 11 May 2009, Channel 4 – Series following 20 young people as they attempt to change the world they live in.

Flight Of The Conchords Tuesday 12 May 2009, BBC4 – Series two of the comedy about New Zealand's top digi-folk stars Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie who are trying to make it big in New York. With Rhys Darby as Murray, Kristen Schaal as Mel and Arj Barker as Dave.

The Unsellables Monday 11 May 2009, BBC1 – Series in which couples are helped to sell their homes.

A Place in the Wild Tuesday 12 May 2009, ITV1 –Two-parter following two young Englishmen battling to conserve and save wild animals in one of Kenya's newest wildlife reserves.

Holiday Showdown Tuesday 12 May 2009, ITV1 – Return of the holiday-share reality series.

Boy Meets Girl, ITV1

Did we like it?
An impressive edifice of drama, supplemented by a good cast, but blighted by the inexplicable decision to build over the gleaming foundations with a gaudy, vulgar comedy shopping ‘mall’, gushing with derivative conceit.

What was good about it?
• The very impressive cast that featured Rachel Stirling’s convincing metamorphosis from flight fashion journalist Veronica into paranoid recluse once her body had become infested with the spirit of Danny.
• Equally Martin Freeman, even though he took a back seat in this opener, awarded the character of Veronica some pathos beneath the glossy veneer of a superficial caricature of a mindless hack.
• And the supporting cast included Angela Griffin, whose morose dismissal of Danny’s affections soldered some sympathy to Danny’s carapace of what was otherwise a crumbling shell of selfishness. While Paterson Joseph made Veronica’s apple-peel deep partner Jay both likeable enough that you shared the pain of his ejection from the life of Veronica/ Danny.
• Once the misguided funny elements that borrowed from all body-swap scenarios had been cleared out of the way, Boy Meets Girl really settled into its stride. The compassion of Danny’s friends as they hunted him down after he went missing, or the solemn rejection of Jay as he battled on with Veronica’s cataclysmic change in character were particularly effective, especially as Danny learns that she was having a fling with one of their friends.
• And it’s moments such as these that elevates about the dismissible bit of fluff the improbable plot had originally set up.

What was bad about it?
• The unnecessary polarisation of the original characters of Danny and Veronica. This had the doubly-crippling impact of acting as a conduit for the irritating humorous chapters and also undermining the sympathy the audience felt for them because they were such ciphers.
• The detriment of each was heavily mitigated by the acting, but to mould Veronica as a ditzy journo, obsessed with nothing more than the latest horoscope or painting her fingernails, and Danny as entombed in his bedroom ranting about conspiracy theories to like-minded delusionals and eating breakfast cereal for tea served the singular purpose of lazily confirming the scant generalised impressions of each tribe; stereotyping them in the process.
• This will make the erasure of these idiosyncrasies easily illustrated through resolving to seek more depth in their life and work – Veronica – and learning to appreciate their friends and attain a little more self-respect, in Danny’s case. The danger is that it becomes akin to Dante’s Inferno with the jaundiced disembodied ideology of Noel Edmonds taking the role of Virgil, with only these surface societal extremities being corrected, bending them into the nice shape of conformity people only seek in bland dramas.
• The humour corrupted the dramatic tension, and what made it much worse was that it was highly derivative from other body-swap comedies, usually Hollywood-stained. Here Danny became fascinated by the concept of breasts, and struggled to put on a bra or walk in high heels. But this was most starkly accentuated in a scene where Danny (as Veronica) had rejected the advances of the spurned Jay (Joseph) for the umpteenth time, but as she did so recorded the anguish on his face. It should have been the zenith of the episode as it showed Danny’s burgeoning sensitivity, and the splendid acting of Stirling, instead it was the nadir as we immediately cut to the jaunty music that presaged a ‘humorous’ interlude.