Standing Up For Nerds Everywhere

Five episodes into The Vampire Diaries and I'm having a lot of people telling me how great this show gets in later episodes and it's enough to make me want to speed up but I can't. However, I can see why friends of mine are loving this show. My niece last night described the cast as incredibly attractive (she might have made a supernatural allusion somewhere) and they are an incredibly good looking bunch. Plus the extraordinary thing isn't just the rivalry between Stefan and Damon, or the fact the latter managed to escape from his prison and this time more likely killed Vicki as a result. Heck, even Bonnie honing in on her powers wasn't the highlight this week but Elena finally realising that her new boyfriend isn't all he seems definitely was. So, here's to Stefan filling her in on the fact that he's a vampire in the next episode then.

As for Smallville, another middle of the road episode this week. I have looked into later episodes where things such as Checkmate and Zod's overall machinations actually go up a notch, so sitting through an episode where some guy tries to murder off Kandorians because they used extreme methods to save his life wasn't all that interesting. Slightly better was Chloe and Oliver banding together to prevent Tess from finding Chloe's stash of weapons for when the apocalyse arrives. An apocalypse I'd welcome now to be honest. As for Clark saving Zod's life - like hell that won't come back to bite him soon enough.

A show by MTV worries me. There's the US version of Skins next year, which may or may not be a steaming pile of turd and then there's the godawful Jersey Shore, currently clogging up the TV schedules. After all the excess promotion behind The Hard Times Of RJ Berger - a series where nerdy kid RJ's massive meat and two veg becomes public knowledge in high school after a disastrous basketball game, I really thought that MTV were getting desperate but watching the first two episodes of the series, I have to admit that it's actually an enjoyable show. Nowhere near as crass as the premise suggested and while all the characters fall into obvious stereotypes, I think this could become a guilty pleasure for me. Definitely something I want to see more and I certainly didn't mind RJ's attempts of standing up for nerds everywhere in the second episode even if he did lose the election to jock Max.

Ugly Betty's fourth season in my opinion comes close to being the best for the show since it's first year but it takes later episodes for that to really be driven home. Last Wednesday's episode wasn't the best, even with the amusement of seeing Betty and Marc dressed as a hotdog and Daniel thinking on his feet to stop a sexual harrassment lawsuit. The Justin plot in particular is definitely something to keep an eye out on.

I caught up with the last two episodes of The X Factor and yeah, while there's a few standouts (Mary Byrne, Cher?), I have to say that both Katy Perry (Dublin) and Natalie Imbruglia (Birmingham) were much better at engaging with the contestants than Geri Halliwell had been during the Glasgow auditions. However this year, the most memorable thing was horrid duo AbLisa, who added assault, abusing the audience and dissing the guest judge to their list of shortcomings. It's enough to make you forget about the auto-tuning incident, isn't it?

It's only three days away from the Big Brother franchise finally ending and Ultimate Big Brother has been busy enough. To be honest, I've sort of tired of the Victor/Nick double act and hope the latter's exited on Wednesday but it was rather sad to see Nadia make herself so unpopular in the last few days before her eviction. Davina's interview with her left a bad taste in my mouth and while Nadia did act like a bitch to the likes of Ulrika for little reason, I do think as a professional journalist/broadcaster, Davina should've acted maturely instead of the rent a mob that has ruined this show in recent years. As for the arrival of Vanessa Feltz - works for me. Anyone who can handle Nikki's tantrums with the patience she has clearly deserves to win but it's clear that Brian or Chantelle will emerge victorious on Friday though. Oh and the appearances of Glyn, Samanda, Rex, John Tickle and Anthony over the last few days for tasks has been fun. I knew the latter didn't have sex with Makosi.

- New girl Sunshine will perform Lady Gaga's Telephone with Rachel in a bathroom stand-off in the first episode of Glee's second season. Empire State Of Mind will also feature in the first episode.

- Desperate Housewives opening episode will reveal the baby swap plot in full in the first ten minutes.

- Both Shawn and Aaron Ashmore have been cast as twins in the new season of Fringe.

- Ali Larter has claimed that it's unlikely that a Heroes film will enter production.

- Ken Jenkins will play the father of Courtney Cox's character Jules in the second season of Cougar Town.

- Nicholas Brendon is the latest actor to sign on for Private Practice. Previous Buffyverse actors have been Amy Acker, Alexis Denisof, Amber Benson and Emma Caulfield.

- Jane Espenson will be writing three of the 10 episodes scheduled for the fourth season of Torchwood.

- David Marshall Grant has confirmed that all the characters in Brothers And Sisters will be in different places in their lives this season.