Don't go looking for LOLS, ROFLS and PSMLs aplenty on Sunday nights on Channel 4 for the next month. The Mill is a new four-part drama about turbulent years in rural Cheshire at the Quarry Bank Mill. And by 'eck it was grim.
Not since the Brookside Close got bulldozed down have I seen so much misery and gloom from the North-West of England.
Based around the real people and history of the Quarry Bank, it wouldn't be my first pick destination for a trip in a time machine. Nobody smiled. It was slop for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And misery reigned supreme.
Women getting groped and molested by their supervisors, kids getting their arms chopped up in the machinery and then having them amputated with what looked like meat cleavers, 12-hour days with only a splodge of what looks like papier-mache as sustenance.
I'm not the biggest fan of the soapy silliness that Julian Fellowes brought to period dramas with Downton, but I'd have given my right arm (if you'll excuse the pun) for some of the camp and melodrama of the Abbey or a raised eyebrow from Maggie Smith.
Instead we got frowns piled on bitterness in a sandwich of seemingly neverending doom.
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There were predictable heavy hints at a romance ahead for 'feisty' Esther (Kerrie Hayes) and 'misunderstood' Daniel (Matthew McNulty) and there were also some clanging indicators that change is coming to the Mill. Unfortunately, I'm not sure I have the stomach for another hour of drudgery and toil, just to see whether a smile can ever be cracked in the 1830s.
Speaking of grim telly, Channel 4 have cobbled together another bundled-together-in-two-minutes TV format for Kirstie Allsopp. Only Gok Wan can contend with Allsopp when it comes to C4 commissioners' weird obsessions.
I don't know why they don't go the whole hog and put them together. Gok and Kirstie's Women and Houses...Naked...Live! I expect the cheque will be in the post.
Her latest TV mish-mash, Kirstie's Fill Your House For Free, features the house-hunter turned home-maker trying to prove that you can make a house a home without spending the big bucks. After watching this show for an hour, the answer appears to be certainly yes you can. If you're happy living with a pile of old s**te in your living room.
Use tatty tennis rackets as mirrors, fetch a radiator from a scrapyard and use it as your kitchen table. Whack together some crates left in a pub carpack and it will make a lovely sofa. Stick some mucky old newspapers on your lampshades. You get the idea. Find some crap. Put it together with some other crap. Voila! A room full of crap.
Even if for some God-forsaken reason you did find Kirstie's home makeovers tasteful, good luck trying to mimic it yourself. Good luck trying to mould a metal shopping trolley into a 'trendy' chair with your B&Q toolkit. And apparently if you split a crate in half, it can make a lovely sofa. The bit where you piece together the crates, add in the metal arms and fix it all together were handily left out.
Would I let Kirstie near my front room? I'd rather spend a weekend in Ikea. And I hate Ikea.
The Mill was gloomy. Kirstie was preposterous. Thankfully, Top of the Lake is sublime.
We're three episodes in to this weird and peculiar Jane Campion drama and not only have I fallen in love with New Zealand and the gorgeous scenery porn, I've also fallen head over heels for this show.
There would be a pretty heated argument between me and anyone who claims that there's a better actress on TV right now than Elisabeth Moss. She's always been sublime in Mad Men and she's equally stunning in Top of the Lake.
Robin Griffin is a fascinating character, strong yet fragile, dedicated to her work yet cracking at the seams, and Moss plays it all to perfection.
Don't be fooled by the show's basic premise, police on the hunt for a missing young girl, because this is a million miles from your bog-standard murder mystery or police procedural. This is more Twin Peaks than Broadchurch.
From Peter Mullan's nutty drug-dealing, dog-killing Matt Mitcham to Holly Hunter's oddball culty leader GJ, the show is overflowing with colour and character.
What do I think has happened to Tui? Well, I don't trust David Wenham's Al Parker one bit. Not one bit.
Missed it! Don't Miss Out
The Americans - It's been robbed of Emmy nominations this year. I suspect it won't be in 2014. Why not find out why? - Available on ITV Player
The Walking Dead - If you didn't illegally download it and if you don't have Sky, then it's been quite a wait for series three of America's greatest zombie-splattering show. Incredible television. - Available on Demand 5
Scandal - Along with Southland and The Good Wife, this deliciously soapy Kerry Washington drama pretty much single-handedly justifies the existence of More 4 these days. It almost makes the Come Dine With Me marathons worthwhile. - Available on 4OD
