Victor Lewis-Smith

Last night's episode of Doctors and Nurses (BBC1) was positively riddled with tasteless jokes about death and bereavement, yet it was, paradoxically, the sitcom itself that seemed to be truly terminal.

It would be easy to dismiss Sortitout-man as an uncharacteristic lapse by BBC3, but sadly it's typical of the dross that's emanating from the network.

I thought of that conversation, and of the now-forgotten bearded prankster Noel Edmonds, as I watched The Kumars At No 42 Christmas Special last night on BBC2. With its bogus domesticity, feeble gags, and sickeningly grinning host, the show is a sort of latter-day Noel's House Party, and it can surely be only a matter of time until the smug cast are consigned by a BBC executive to well-deserved media oblivion.

To a lesser extent, the same is true of the "octothorp" or # (commonly known as "hash"), which brings me to the subject of Bedsitcom (C4). After watching last night's episode, it's hard to see how this could ever achieve a commission for series #2 or #3, because the tw@s who've produced this "cross between a sitcom and a reality TV show," have made a complete hash (or octothorp) of the whole idea.

Victor Lewis-Smith on Rich Hall's Fishing Show

Like Ruby Wax, Hall is an American performer who didn't want to be a small fish in a very, very big pond, so came here and became a small fish in a very, very small pond.

My Park-o-matic would make an ideal Xmas gift for Gordon Ramsay, because he admitted on last night's Room 101 (BBC2) that he regularly receives between three and five parking tickets each day. Exactly why one of the world's most talented chefs is incapable of parking legally was never explained, but it was hardly surprising that traffic wardens featured high on his list of nominations for consignment to oblivion.

Monkey Dust could be accused of being too clever for its own good [...] but it isn't, it's just firing on all cylinders.

Distraction bills itself as a quiz "where four contestants have to answer general knowledge questions while being distracted by devilish physical challenges", but in reality it's an unappetising mess of half-chewed, hastily prepared, semi-digested and speedily regurgitated ingredients, the most unpalatable of all being its host, Jimmy Carr.

The improper use of telephones was a recurring obsession for the speakers on Friday night's Grumpy Old Men (BBC2). Automated call centres, texting, mobiles, and cold-calling double-glazing salesmen were all roundly abused, but then so was almost every other aspect of modern society, as a group of middle-aged grumblers set about turning the pre-Newsnight slot into Last of the Summer Whine.

In their original radio incarnation, these lectures were only mildly annoying, but in transferring them to television, Steel has ignored the basic audiovisual axiom that less is more. Consequently, the eyes were positively bombarded with unfunny graphics and humour-free sight gags, but made it well-nigh impossible to concentrate on the estuary voice that was ranting ineluctably at the viewer (on second thoughts, perhaps that was a blessing in disguise).