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The new Judith Schiendlin show is a slick and fast paced entertainment, it is also a fascinating look at the American legal system using real life cases to illustrate it. However, this is not the Judge Judy we know and love and she appears here very much a fish out of water. Her inclusion in the show was probably a means to sell the series, or maybe she just likes being on tv. The lawyers involved, Daniel Mentzer and Larry Bakman, are certainly passionate but their melodramatic performances began to irritate me after a while. My verdict, worth a watch.

Now that the campy ITV Marple series is well into its stride it is time to reflect on whether the BBC Miss Marple programmes were as good as we thought. Judged by this outing there is no contest.

Alan Plater's witty script, while faithful to Christie's convoluted plotting, adds colour and shading to the proceedings and clips along at a nice pace. The actors certainly rise to the occasion; Joan Hickson is on top form, her interpretation of an inquisitive old lady from a 1950s country village is totally believable; Renee Asherson's character is rather irritating and the actress reflects this in her performance; Ursula Howells is quite brilliant, making a complex personality convincing; and there is good support from Samantha Bond, Joan Sims, Ralph Michael and a somewhat underused Sylvia Syms.

Unconvincing portmanteau comedy. Sim & Rutherford once again spin gold out of garbage, while the rest of the cast, notably Jimmy Edwards & Ronald Shiner, are defeated by a badly written screenplay. The Scotsman section, with James Copeland, is a good example of a poor performance meeting an inadequate script to produce unmistakable rubbish. Watching these innocents is not bliss!