Overview

Let's start this weeks Overview with what must surely be the most influential programme of the year Steps Reunion. In its gargantuan wake Westlife have split up, no doubt so they can have their own, tear fuelled, reunion show in a few years. And, feeling left out, The Stone Roses have decided to tour again. Coincidence? I think not. Now I suppose we should brace ourselves for S Club 7 Reunion.

With the exception of Trollied, I haven't been at all impressed with SKY's domestic output and Spy isn't about to remedy the situation. Tim, a loser, working in a computer shop, accidentally gets a job as a spy. Yes, it does sound a bit like Chuck. The variation here is that he is divorced and has a precocious son. It was, pretty much, a laugh free zone. Darren Boyd, who plays Tim, played a similar character in an episode of Twenty Twelve, and just about sustained the amusement for half an hour. I think Spy will get very wearing over a series.

Tough, ensemble, American cop show Southland crept back on More 4 last week. This is a first rate programme that deserves better. The first two seasons were on Channel 4, but slid down the schedules. Now it has been shunted. Perhaps it needs a cult Danish version to get it back to its rightful place.

Never has a show gone more off the rails than the third season of Sons of Anarchy. It started well enough, then descended into farce as the gang went to Belfast. And not just that, it seemed to be Belfast of the 70's. There wasn't a modern building in sight and every house they went into looked straight out of On the Buses or George and Mildred. Even the theme tune had an Irish lilt. Thank God they didn't get to Dublin, where no doubt, we would have seen Michael Flatley dancing in front of The Commitments. Add to this a story line so complicated and labyrinthine that it makes Tinker, Tailor look like This Morning and you have the recipe for pure boredom.

Over