Friday Night with Jonathan Ross
10.35pm, BBC1 / 11.35pm, BBC2
Friday night's post-pub telly used to be a battleground. Comedy on BBC2 and Channel 4 duking it out for whatever audience was left over from the dodgy soft-porn movie being screened on Five. But that has all changed over the past few months as Friday night's telly's slowly morphed into a lounge-lizard land of chat and music.
Not convinced? Well, just take a squint at the schedules. Unless you fancy submitting your alcohol-ravaged brain cells to a diet of comedy repeats, investigations into global sex, and far too serious documentaries, then there really are only two shows to head for.
Personally, I hope that the Beeb never drafts in Jonathan Ross to fill Michael Parkinson's Saturdaynight shoes. The shiny-suited one is much happier heading up this slightly raunchy late-night slot. One dodgy interview with a clearly-not-amused Morrissey aside, Wossy has turned in some chatshow classics over the past few weeks. Embarrassing Janet Jackson, fielding comebacks from an, er, "over enthusiastic" Matthew Lillard, reducing Julia Stiles to helpless giggles, he has been mixing together single entendres and serious questioning so sharply that Graham Norton must be weeping into his decaff latte with envy.
Expect more of the same tonight as Ross talks about life after Star Trek with Patrick Stewart, life after The Office with Lucy Davis and life after The X-Files with David Duchovny. There should be plenty of ammunition there (if you're stuck for questions, Jonathan, I'm sure Mr Duchovny would love to be asked about his one-time sideline fronting soft-porn telly show The Red Shoe Diaries). Oh, and
Supergrass also crop up to provide a little bit of closing music. As the gentle strains of Supergrass's MOR indie rock fade away, stab down on the channel changer and head over to BBC2. Less chat here and more music (thankfully, since Jools Holland is an abysmal interviewer), but that's what you want at this time of night. Always boasting someone worth listening to, Jools's show includes live tunes from soul singer Bobby Womack (doing his version of California Dreaming), jazz power trio The Bad Plus and former Blur guitarist Graham Coxon. A pretty good line-up to send you drifting off to sleep if ever there was one. Now, if only Jools can resist chipping in with his trademark boogie-woogie piano playing ...
