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The plot is hardly original, but this is so well-directed, produced and acted (Conor McCarron and Shannon Allan are really good) that it's a compelling, engaging watch. I also appreciated Gary's characterisation and how the script never fell into the cliche of making the relationship between Summer's father and stepfather needlessly antagonistic. I watched the 60-minute film version on iPlayer.

Zoso and Sebastien are both ultimately right about Grace's interest in him being a form of class tourism, even if well-intended - being from a much more cosseted background, she doesn't truly understand what she's taking on. The drama doesn't hold back from showing Zoso's destructive and self-destructive sides, but fortunately he is able to grow and learn to make better choices.

This isn't just staggeringly, stultifyingly bad - even by the standards of low-budget Christmas romcoms - it's on another level entirely. Like all beloved festive classics, it stars model Caprice and Duncan from Blue and is funded by the Serbian government. Yep, you read that correctly. What's next - Paddington in Pancevo?

Huge chunks of dialog sound like they've been lifted from a Wikipedia article or written by the Serbian tourist board. Almost everyone is completely wooden - as wooden as the "golden pines" of Zlatibor, where most of the film takes place. Characters randomly enthuse about how amazing Serbia and its people are. Caprice and her love interest "Hunter" visit an ethnological museum and a knitting museum and learn about the traditions of Serbian peasants. Duncan from Blue shows up as a sexy Santa cowboy and actually gives the best performance in the movie - because he alone seems to get how ridiculous the whole thing is and just has fun with it.

Performance-wise Caprice is pretty bad, but shockingly, the guy playing her love interest (Philip Boyd) is much worse despite the fact he's a far more experienced actor. She's at least likeable and game here, but his line delivery is atrocious. She's doing her best, but he's apathetic and totally zoned out.

A metafictional touch adds another layer of strangeness to the film, but also leads to its best scene. The protagonist is a director of mass-produced low-budget Christmas movies. She comes to Serbia to track down a US expat actor who starred in one of her previous hits. But her exploitative producer plots to make a cheap Christmas film in Serbia and pay the locals a pittance. There's a thoughtful scene where the two leads discuss the importance of Christmas movies as an emotional bulwark, and how their cheesiness and safe, comforting formulaic nature is part of the reason people like them. It's a well-written scene that belongs in a smarter movie, and is unfortunately killed on-screen by the poor performances.

Avoid at all costs? No. Watch it for the curiosity value. There's so much overt product placement you'll be booking a flight to Belgrade and a room in Hotel Zlatibor before you know it. After all, who knows - if Caprice can find the man of her dreams in provincial Serbia, maybe you can too...

I discovered this show on iPlayer and watched all 10 episodes over the course of a few days. It's a hidden gem, anchored by excellent performances from Connor McIntyre, Kathryn Hunt, Dominic Carter and Jennifer Hennessy. The overall tone is similar to other 2000s family dramas such as Fat Friends and At Home With The Braithwaites. While the comic dialog is often overwritten (it's better to have just a few funny characters rather than turning everyone into a wisecracker), there is real meat and emotion to the dramatic dialogue and heavier scenes, and the series avoids cliche as much as possible. Almost all the characters work and almost all experience meaningful development over the course of the series; no mean feat with almost 20 regular and recurring characters. If there's a weakness, it's that Ashley herself is somewhat of a cipher and isn't as well acted as the other characters - Jade and Orla are both more engaging.

Mostly shot on location rather than in a studio, Drop Dead Gorgeous also gets a tremendous amount of mileage out of its setting, revealing a romance to Runcorn that was always there but has never been captured this well before. It's kind of the antidote to Two Pints Of Lager. The series avoids the new town parts of Runcorn and focuses on Weston and Runcorn proper - the Webbs' house is on Bankes' Lane, Nana's house is on Weston Road and Hardeep's shop is on Heath Road South. The cafe (now a bar) where Ashley is first scouted is at the bottom of Runcorn High Street, the garage where Terry and Tiggsy work is on Brindley St, and the Silver Jubilee Bridge is used effectively in several scenes.

This series is a significant piece of work that everyone involved clearly put a lot of effort into. I'm puzzled that it's almost completely forgotten today and apparently wasn't much of a success at the time either. It's also a wonderful time capsule of 2006-2007, before the advent of smartphones and social media. Indeed, several elements to the show simply wouldn't be attempted by a drama today for fear of courting online controversy (Mikey selling his sister's used lingerie; the jokes about Moonbase's weight; Terry and Tiggsy's jibes about gay character Murray; and most of all, Ashley's relationships with an Asian shopkeeper and a teacher). I'm gay and the jokes surrounding Murray's sexuality and relationships made me laugh out loud and didn't offend me at all, in fact they felt honest and inclusive; we have lost something by no longer being able to speak to each other this way.