ABC

Excellent range of Australian children's programmes, documentaries, dramas, comedies, news and current affairs shows. No commercials.
Click here for TV Guide

Wombat TV  Hit Picks
Spicks and Specks, 8.30pm, Wednesdays.

Spicks and Specks is one of the best casual game shows on TV, with a lighthearted vibe that promotes laughs more than ultimate victory. But with the likes of Talkin' Bout Your Generation, which follows a similar theme where funny (but wrong) answers are encouraged, it seems that the commercial networks are seeing the fruits of such a laid-back format. But Spicks and Specks, whose subject matter is music, will always be the original and probably always the best. 

- Frankie J.

Wombat TV  Hit Picks
Mumbai Calling, 9.35pm, Tuesdays.

The creative force behind numerous British comedies, including The Kumars at No. 42, has come up with a fairly amusing new sit-com called Mumbai Calling. Sanjeev Bhaskar writes the show, and is one of the U.K's best-known comedians and this new show revolves around an Indian call-centre.

The protagonist of the show is Kenny Gupta, a British-born Indian who travels to Mumbai to improves the fortunes of call centre. It's a largely inoffensive comedy that sees Kenny having to deal with the call centre's manager, Dev, who spends more time wooing women than running the call centre. There are some good laughs in here at times, and it does have a certain charm but at other times it falls a bit flat and seems unbalanced in its gags. I'm going to keep watching though, because I think it has the potential to get better. If you're looking for some easygoing comedy that isn't disturbingly cynical, you'll find it with Mumbai Calling.

- Frankie J.

Channel 7

Strong on Australian drama, lifestyle shows, popularist news and current affairs, game shows. Commercials.

Wombat TV Hit Picks
Family Guy, 10:00pm, Wednesdays.

If you're easily offended Family Guy is probably not the best choice of viewing on an idle Wednesday night. However if you don't mind a touch of irony and lashings of extremely polically incorrect gags, this adult-oriented cartoon will leave you doubled over in laughter.

For those who have never tuned into this wickedly funny animated series, think The Simpsons on acid. It revolves around the Griffin family, who's patriach, Peter Griffin, is one of the oddest (but extremely amusing) characters ever created for television. His day dreams are often so bizarre it boggles the mind how the show's creators come up with the ideas...

Probably not what you'd call 'family' viewing (hence the timeslot), Family Guy is nevertheless one of the most provocative and indeed hilarious shows on commercial TV at the moment. 

If only an Australian version was commissioned...

- Frankie J.

Wombat TV Hit Picks
Thank God You're Here, 7:30pm, Wednesday.

It may be on a new channel, but there is very little that has changed about Thank God You're Here as it heads into it's fourth season.

While some be tiring of it's antics, it's very difficult to deny the infectious family fun a show like this really does provide. It may be the last series of the show - with Working Dog tending to keep their shows leaving while on a high.

That said... can someone please put Shane Bourne out of his misery. He acts like the unfunny, wacky uncle that everyone fears will one day innapropriately touch one of the nephews.

- David Lennox.

Wombat TV Hit Picks
10 Years Younger In 10 Day, 9:30pm, Tuesdays.

Sonia Kruger may have found a nice little program that suits her abilities here, in this fairly tame program about how to look and feel younger in 10 days. Step 1 - stop watching TV and go outside. Step 2 - stop eating processed foods. Step 3 - pretend it's your last day on the planet. Problem solved.

The idea of the show will pique the interest of many viewers, and I didn't mind watching it, but you have to care about the participants, which I find difficult. Ultimately anyone who appears on this show deserves to be ridiculed for lacking the self control and discipline to change their routine by themselves. Allowing a TV show to do it, and profit from it, seems like folly to me.

- David Lennox

Channel 9

Lifestyle shows, popularist news and current affairs, game shows, reality TV. French Open tennis. Rugby League State of Origin. Commercials.

Wombat TV Hit Picks
Two and a Half Men, 7:00pm. Weeknights.

This is a bare-bones sit-com that just works. The sets, the production, almost everything about it is sub-par, but its the characters that give provide the charisma.

Chuck Sheen is excellent the cynical John Landers, who rears dinosaurs in spare time while solving mysteries under the guise of Pablo Kleebold.

- Lebron French

Wombat TV Hit Picks
Kitchen Nightmares USA, 9:30pm. Tuesdays.

Good old foul mouth Gordon Ramsay is at it again, saving run-down restaurants from extinction. What a f**king saint! 

Kitchen Nightmares is actually an interesting show: as it unravels you learn a bit about the staff and owners/victims of the restaurants, which adds depth and is actually entertaining.

If you can survive the onslaught of Ramsay's blue language, I'd recommend tuning in for some interesting interplay.

- Lebron French

Wombat TV Hit Picks
The Footy Show, 9:30pm. Thursdays.

Whether you watch the AFL or the NRL version, The Footy Shows deliver a fairly solid hour-and-a-bits worth of entertainment. I prefer the stats, the conjecture of the game and the breaking news rather than the tomfoolery, but I admit I do sometimes have to laugh at the crude jokes.

This is one of the best ways to lead into the weekend of footy, and if you're a fan you won't need much convincing. I think there'll always be a place for the NRL/AFL Footy Shows, but from where I sit we need more intelligent observations and less toilet humour.

- Frankie J.

Wombat TV Hit Picks
What's Good For You, 7:30pm. Wednesdays.

Lifestyle shows are a dime a dozen, which is why a show like What's Good For You is such a refreshing change for the genre.

While it sticks to the classics (traditional hosting voices and Channel Nine offloading whatever presenter they are trying to advance the career of), there is something quite unique about what issues it tackles - and how.

Surprisingly, the show is a lot more fun than most comedy shows being churned out by Channel Nine at the moment - so enjoy it while you can (before they start revamping it as a 5 night a week "WHATS GOOD FOR YOUR : HOT SEAT").

- David Lennox

Channel 10

Programmed for a younger audience, US chat shows, lifestyle shows, popularist news and current affairs, reality TV. Commercials.

Wombat TV Hit Picks
Supernatural, 9:40pm. Mondays.

Man I love watching Supernatural for my demon and angel fix.

Ever since Buffy the Vampire Slayer finished I was looking for something to fill my weekly horror void and this show fits the bill. Though buffy was sooo smokin' hot!

Bothers Sam and Dean are demon hunters and they deal with all things "supernatural". Haw haw.

The show has been a little thin on the storyline in the past but the new series has been a real turnaround, particularly with Dean's resurrection form hell and the introduction of angels have been the main highlights.

- Lebron French

Wombat TV Hit Picks
Masterchef Australia, 7:00pm. Weeknights.

I'm not the skinniest bloke in the office. I like food. I like cooking and preparing meals most nights of the week. And I like this new show on Channel Ten, Masterchef. 

If you're a gastronome and haven't yet tuned in I'd heartily recommend it, not only for the ideas, the hints and tips, but also for the pure joy of watching the wannabes get booted off the show.

Airing six times a week, from Sunday to Friday night, Masterchef Australia is ostensibly the Big Brother replacement, and has proved be more popular in the ratings than its precursor thus far. 

The Judges - Gary Mehigan, George Calombaris and Matt Preston - are not as simply defined as 'the kind judge' or 'the angry judge' which is good to see, and I can see this program having a long and eventful life beyond its initial season.

The first few episodes were based around the 7500 applicants for the show and this aspect has been derided by some as an 'Idol' inspired device. It is different from the UK version, which could be seen as a more serious program, but given time Masterchef Australia will become far more serious, as it gets down to the last half dozen contestants who will be going at it hammer and tong to create the most delicate cuisine.

Now you'll have to excuse me, I'm famished!

- Frankie J

SBS

Excellent range of non-English speaking programs, strong coverage of soccer, terrific overseas news, documentaries and foreign movies. Limited commercials.
Click here for TV Guide

Wombat TV Hit Picks
Top Gear, 8:30pm, Mondays.

Join hosts Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May with segments such as "Star in a Reasonably-Priced Car", "The Cool Wall", "Car News", "Power Laps", and one-off features such as races, competitions and the frequent destruction of caravans. 

Not to forget one of the highlights of the show The Stig, an anonymous masked racing driver who puts the car of the week through it's paces around the Top Gear test track.


- Rosko Coldchain.

Wombat TV Hit Picks
Mad Men, 8:30pm, Thursdays.

Set in New York City, Mad Men begins in the early 1960s at the fictional Sterling Cooper advertising agency on New York City's Madison Avenue. 

The show centers on Don Draper (Jon Hamm), a high-level advertising executive, and the people in his life in and out of the office. It also depicts the changing social mores of 1960s America.

- Rosko Coldchain.

MTV Movie Awards - Best Moments of 2009

Whether you're part of the MTV generation (original or current... yes - there is a difference!) you simply can't deny the fact that the folks over at MTV sure know how to do Awards shows right.

There is never a single sign that any of their shows will pan out like Australia's embarrassingly bad Logie Awards - why? It's because the best of the best gather there to promote their new films, shows and songs

Whereas in Australia... Gretel Killeen hosts - and we get some folks from an American soap show who have nothing better to do. Yep it's that bad.

So to prove why MTV is so supreme when it comes to entertainment - we've selected just a handful of the best moments for the 2009 awards ceremony (hosted by SNL's Andy Samberg).