Only Fools And Horses

OK, so we're nit-picking here, but it's hard to help yourself when you're watching such a limp version of a previously excellent series. Where Only Fools and Horses used to be fast, funny and confident, it's now a kind of embarrassing footnote that serves only to deflate the latter half of Christmas Day.

Of course, there are some Christmas specials that don't call themselves Christmas specials - the Only Fools and Horses Christmas special (BBC One, 9.40pm, Christmas Day) is called merely Only Fools and Horses, possibly in acknowledgement that, if it's as bad as last year's, it won't be special at all.

In fact, it is difficult to think of a less appealing episode. Perhaps "If They Could See Us Now" will ultimately live longest in the memory as the least funny Only Fools and Horses of all time (although let's not forget that the series did go seriously off the boil before its triumphant finale of five years a go).

John Sullivan: The spirit of Christmas present

The pious folk of Dickensian England would be reassured to know that one man still looms large over the nation's Christmas, but mystified to find that his name is not Jesus, but Jason. On Christmas Day, the return of Only Fools and Horses, starring David Jason, is all but guaranteed to deliver BBC1 its highest viewing figures of the holiday period. On Boxing Day, Micawber, starring David Jason, should do the same for ITV.

In Only Fools And Horses (BBC1) Del, the course of whose love-life is littered with sleeping policemen or just policemen, was arrested while about to plight his troth to a strippergram.