Just before Christmas I was suffering from ‘Flue, we had just lost our third pet in a year and I was not at my best in a number of other ways. I arose from my sick bed mildly feverish by then and sought comfort in Television Drama. Not just any drama, but Doc. Martin (Buffalo Pictures for ITV, 2006-) for me the ultimate comfort television.

Liz Giuffre’s earlier blog ‘From Ramsay Street, With Love’ starts with an apology and ends with an assurance that Australians know that long-running soap Neighbours is ‘a bit embarrassing and a bit backward’. As a Scottish fan of the soap, I read her blog with fascination.

Sometimes, things coincide to throw a particular interesting light on an issue that needs raising. This week, for me, these things were the continued discussion in Europe (including the UK) about the sex attacks in Cologne on New Year’s Eve, an article on the hidden rise of violence against women and, the return of Tracey Ullman’s Show.

Long before the end of Christmas television viewing and schedules, broadcasters and production companies herald their new season of television viewing. It is part of that tradition where we say goodbye to the old year, and welcome in the new, and it is yet another example of how television has ingratiated itself into the rhythms of everyday life and the cultural rituals of a nation.

I expect many people complained this holiday season that there was very little to entice in the television schedules.

*Defiance *(2013-15) was an original commission science-fiction TV series which has aired on the SyFy channel in both the US and the UK. Set on Earth in the near-future after a war between humans and immigrant aliens who arrived to settle on the planet, and whose technology has greatly changed Earth’s physical and biological environment through a process named as ‘terraforming’, the show was premised around exploring the interactions and

First it was a river. Then it was a bookstore. Then it sold power drills and pen refills. Now it’s a movie studio inviting one and all to submit scripts and videos?

The Christmas television schedules have, for many years, introduced a sense of the Carnavalesque to the viewing experience. Broadcasters, programmes, and family favourites collude in temporarily suspending the ‘normal’ laws and rules of television viewing through one-off storylines, and, in some cases, subverting perceptions of seriality in acknowledgement of a collective cultural ritual.

Although starting its operations as a commercial venture in November 2015, the new online BBC Store has been under discussion for some time, gaining regulatory approval early in 2013. Its aim is to provide access to a wide range of BBC programmes for a fee.

Graduating from the Juilliard School as recently as 2009, Adam Driver is currently experiencing a seminal phase of his career with his mass exposure to a worldwide audience via Star Wars: The Force Awakens (J. J. Abrams, 2015). His breakthrough part has undoubtedly been Adam Sackler, ‘the sexually debased actor-carpenter-weirdo’ in *Girls *(HBO, 2012-present); a part for which he has received

Stock characters in entertainment television are well known to all of us: the wise old man, the nurturing mother, and the rebellious teenager evoke images in our mind, accompanied by a set of character traits and flaws. They are stereotypical depictions of societal roles, which help us navigate through the story and set up certain expectations.