Dragons' Den, Wednesday 9pm, BBC Two

Posted by Will Parkhouse

The last time I wrote about Dragons' Den on this blog, one of the inventors who had appeared on the show kindly posted me one of her products. It wouldn't happen these days: this was back in October 2007, when the recession was just a twinkle in Gordon Brown's eye – now you have to shell out at least a tenner simply to get a kick in the face.

Luckily for the inventing community, there are still five stern entrepreneurs sitting in a refurbished warehouse in the middle of some scrubland with stacks of cash just waiting to be doled out. Yes, eminently loveable James Caan, indelibly Scottish Duncan Bannatyne, genuinely dragon-like Deborah Meaden, weirdly tall Peter Jones, and derisive baldy glasses boy Theo Paphitis are back, introduced last night standing in a line with clouds whizzing by above their heads and heatwave haze shimmering around their suits like they were, well, the X-Men, basically.

Celebrity MasterChef: The Final, Friday, BBC1

Posted by Liberty Jones

Thank God they didn't drag Celebrity MasterChef out any longer, because if things had got any tougher at this stage, the contestants would've been boiling their own genitals into a nutritious broth. As it was, all they had to do for their final challenge was cook three restaurant-quality courses in two hours… a breeze, compared to what they'd faced earlier in the week. 

Former athlete Iwan Thomas – a man who'd barely unsheathed a Peperami before the competition began – was the first to present his dishes. His starter of Thai prawn soup was praised to the heavens by judge John Torode. "For me, this is what good Asian food is all about… it's a joy," the Aussie chef said in between slurps. He also loved Iwan's pudding – a classic Eton mess, describing it as "beautiful". Fellow judge Gregg Wallace was obviously in agreement as he lifted a spoonful the size of his considerably sized head.

Next up was Jayne Middlemiss who, we were pleased to see, had gone easy on the blusher for a change. The judges' shouting reached new levels of decibel hysteria as they swooned over the former TOTP presenter's lavender panacotta with crystallised violets. "It fills your mouth with flavour. It's very, very good!" Gregg cried. "The texture is perfect!" John swooned. "It's absolutely beautiful!"

Ex-Corrie star Wendi Peters – who'd been a strong contender right from the beginning – surpassed herself with all three courses. John described her veal sauce as "stunning", while Gregg was in raptures over her chocolate bread and butter pudding, declaring: "It's big, but I'd happily scoff the lot." Hmmm… tell us something we don't know.

With the standard so high, the judges had plenty of deliberating to do. Meanwhile, the celebrities – looking mentally and physically drained – sat in the green room and talked about how much they wanted it. And they all wanted it an awful lot.

We were stunned when Jayne was pronounced the winner – and judging by her reaction, so was she. "Am I dreaming this?" the Geordie lass asked as she cradled the coveted trophy. At the end of it all, we were left with a rather bitter taste in our mouths. Surely Wendi – or for that matter Iwan, who showed so much improvement over the course of the show – would have been a worthier champ. What do you think?

Picture: BBC

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The Apprentice: series five, week 11

Posted by Will Parkhouse

The Apprentice interview round: it's like the worst day of your life, without the good bits. Sir Alan Sugar introduced the five remaining candidates to this week's task by standing on an elevated balcony, glaring down on them pityingly. The message was clear: I am up here, you are down there and even my nasal hair is shot through with hardcore business nous.

Since this was an episode that consisted entirely of talking, we got amazing quotes by the boardroomload. James kicked off, setting the bar high with a piece of imagery that would've had Garbage Pail Kids cartoonists applauding with glee: "The last place I wanna be is in the boardroom with Alan Sugar kicking me so hard up the arse, I've got his toes for teeth."

And so off they went to face Sir Alan's four bloodthirsty henchman. Although what followed was cruelly edited to show the most painful moments of each interview, since the gang made the usual mistake of filling their application forms with swathes of absolute guff, this was perhaps justified.

This week's Apprentice preview

Posted by Tom Murphy

The Apprentice is rushing headlong towards its dramatic conclusion, and the ‘semi-final’ is usually one of the highlights of the series, as the final five wannabes are subjected to a gruesome grilling by some of Srralan’s bolshy business chums. 

In the firing line tonight is Lorraine “two accents” Tighe, who comes a bit of a cropper when Birmingham City FC managing director Karren Brady susses out that she’s fibbed about her employment dates.

When the tough footie executive find that Lorraine has claimed to work for an employer for a year longer than she really has, she turns on the bespectacled candidate. “If intuition is your gift,” she snarls, “why didn’t you use it to put down your correct dates of employment?”

Still, it might not be the end for Lorraine. Last year’s winner, pterodactyl-impersonator supreme Lee McQueen, got a dressing down for saying he’d spent two years at university when he actually only lasted four months.  

And Lorraine isn’t the only one to take a hit. Businessman Claude Litner gives Yasmina a hard time for not knowing her own company’s turnover, while Evil Debra is somehow judged “rude and aggressive” and sole remaining chap James is slated for his “gibberish”.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the only candidate who doesn't seem to have been savaged is hot favourite Kate Walsh, who seems to have just said nice things about her mum.

So, which of them will make it through to Sunday's head-to-head final? Tune in to BBC1 tonight at 9pm to find out.

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Ladette to Lady (Australia), Tuesday 9pm, ITV1

Posted by Jane Murphy

Having tired of transforming the UK’s numerous ladettes into posh-talking, tea-making, flower-arranging debutantes, the hoity-toity staff of Eccleston Hall finishing school have cast their net further afield. This series, they’re attempting to work their magic on eight “loud, vulgar, drunken and dangerous” Australians. Yep, it’s just like Australian Princess - but without Paul Burrell.

Still, school principal Mrs Harvard and her faithful sidekick Mrs Shrager do a very good job of drilling their pupils in the rigid - and, it has to be said, largely irrelevant - disciplines of the ruling classes.

Some sample lessons? How to balance a tray of drinks on your head (handy in crowded pubs). How to pronounce vowels with a bone stuck between your teeth (handy if you’re a talking dog). And how to hold a conversation with the "UK’s most eligible bachelors" (handy if you ever find yourself stuck in a lift with a bunch of honking poshos).

Needless to say, the Aussie contingent appeared slightly baffled by their new surroundings - and quickly set about upsetting the staff by doing naughty things such as stealing booze, flashing their bottoms at inopportune moments and balancing CDs on their nipples. Special mention must go to Brisbane slacker Faye who opted to kiss one of the other girls instead of paying attention to the specially invited gentlemen callers.

At times, Ladette to Lady seems more like a gentle sitcom than a reality show - particularly the obviously scripted exchanges between Mrs Harvard and Mrs Shrager - although that’s not really a criticism. In short, the whole thing’s utterly pointless - but also highly watchable.

Picture: ITV

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Dating the Enemy, Monday 10.35pm, ITV1

Posted by Tom Murphy

Think you've seen it all? Well, here's something new and exciting. Over the next few nights, ITV's Dating the Enemy shows what happens when totally incompatible couples are sent on a series of "dates". Where do they get their ideas from?

In the series opener, we met singleton Laurie and simpleton Leon (not pictured). She's clearly a bit posh and is about to start an MA in feminism and international relations. He claims not to be posh (despite coming from Worcester) and declares gleefully that “I'm not sexist. I like women. I just think they're not as intelligent and capable of achieving things".

The futile four-day bickerfest kicks off with Laurie leading the cretinous 29-year-old mummy's boy into a dinner party with 11 of her shiny-faced right-on friends. It's such a transparent ambush that you almost feel sorry for the moron, until he starts chuntering on about the evils of feminism.

The next day, Laurie drags Leon to the Blenheim horse trials. Once again, you desperately want to sympathise with the idiot man-child, until he reveals that he finds horses “boring” and “pointless” - unless, of course, they're “trampling all over suffragettes”. And so on.

Later, Leon hauls Laurie back to the mean streets of Worcester. At a working men's club that seems to have just hosted a BNP coffee morning, Leon instructs her to sit silently in the corner while he plays snooker with his mate Paul. While Laurie's moved to tears of righteous anger, Leon dismisses her complaints as “posh background noise”.

By the final day, the producers have clearly nudged them towards some sort of improbable reconciliation. Leon issues a stilted and half-hearted apology for his behaviour the previous evening, and Laurie responds with an equally unlikely acknowledgement that Leon might just be misguided, rather than an out-and-out knobsack who should be dropped down a lift shaft.

Leon's unconvincing pledge that he'll maybe try to reconsider some of his views on the world isn't enough to convince Laurie. She never wants to see him again, and he has to look a bit wounded in his final close-up.

And there you go. An utterly pointless programme, with a format that's thinner than Jude Law's barnet. The whole thing could have been covered in 90 seconds, but was instead dragged out over 40 stolen minutes that I'll never get back again. Still, you never know – maybe the rest of the series will turn out radically different...

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Jade: As Seen on TV, Tuesday 10pm, E4

Posted by Jane Murphy

It’s now two months since Jade Goody’s untimely death from cervical cancer, and a new series of Big Brother - the programme that made her famous - is just around the corner. So E4 obviously decided the time was right to round up a mishmash of talking heads and archive footage in an attempt to “understand the Jade Goody phenomenon”.

It wasn’t long before someone trotted out the old cliché: you either loved her or you hated her. But having run through the whole gamut of emotions - including pity, sadness, laughter and anger - while watching this whistle-stop reminder of her life on camera, I have to disagree. Sometimes I liked her - and sometimes I didn’t.

Still, the mere mention of Jade does seem to provoke extreme reactions in some people - as demonstrated in this instance by sneering journalist Rod Liddle and laugh-a-minute GMTV presenter John Stapleton. Liddle’s view? “Jade did what many people with limited intelligence would do, which is grab the fame that came along and assume it equated to some sort of success in life.”

Stapleton, meanwhile, took on the role of “slightly baffled member of the older generation” - presumably because Sir Michael Parkinson was unavailable. “She was of her age and it’s not an age I know anything about, nor wish to know anything about,” he claimed - which does beg the question of why he’s working for celebrity-obsessed GMTV.

To be fair, I can understand why people who don’t tune into Big Brother or subscribe to Heat or OK! may have found Jade’s celebrity status difficult to comprehend - particularly when press saturation turned the final weeks of her life into a reality show that everyone was forced to watch.

And indeed, there was something very unsavoury about watching OK!’s associate editor positively salivating with glee as he revealed in last night’s programme that coverage of Jade’s wedding, shortly before her death, sold more copies than any other celebrity nuptials.

But lest we forget, media coverage of Jade’s illness - and her willingness to speak out about it - has potentially saved thousands of lives. Take-up rates for cervical screening have gone up by 60% since news of her illness broke. It’s a lasting legacy, which will hopefully offer some comfort to Jade’s many friends and relatives who are still mourning her loss.

What’s your view on the Jade Goody phenomenon? Tell us here.

Picture: Channel 4

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The Apprentice: series five, week nine

Posted by Will Parkhouse

Nice shoes, Sir Alan! Yes, the ninth week of The Apprentice saw the candidates meeting in the maternity wing of University College Hospital, which meant they all had to don some startling blue foot covers, and even everyone's favourite Brillo-haired business impresario wasn't spared the indignity.

As project managers for the Earls Court baby show task, Sir Alan opted for the two candidates who'd already become parents – although thankfully not together. So wide-eyed Hugh Dennis impersonator James was tasked with running Empire and increasingly annoying one-woman glasses show Lorraine was put in charge of firing up Ignite.

Bizarrely, there actually seemed to be some competence on show, with James apparently exhibiting some understanding of the birth process (although this was belied later when he told one woman: "The lid's open, so the baby can jump out.") and Lorraine choosing two apparently sellable products.

This week’s Apprentice preview clips

Posted by Will Parkhouse

Fancy doing a bit of cringing? We have just the thing.

Tonight’s Apprentice sees the remaining eight contestants “rebranding” Margate. For Howard and Debra, this means creating an atmosphere of sublime awkwardness by getting straight male models to play same sex-couples. If poor old Nick Hewer sinks any further into his chair, he’ll disappear from sight…

And here’s this week’s teaser clip, which sees Lorraine continuing to prove she doesn’t play well with others, as well as a nice piece of preposterous posturing from Ben.

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Davina confirms Big Brother axe

Posted by Stewart Turner

Big Brother presenter Davina McCall has finally confirmed the news that’s likely to send half the nation into spontaneous, rapturous applause and the other 50% onto the verge of an almighty hissy-fit. Yep, Channel 4 bosses have at last decided to bring the axe down on the ailing reality TV behemoth.

The channel’s three-year deal runs its course in 2010, and even hardcore fans of the show will admit that Big Brother has seen better days. Just 5.1 million viewers tuned in to see Rachel Rice win BB9 last year, and most of those would be hard pushed to remember what the 25-year-old from Wales even looks like.