Jenni Ajderian

I hate to be the party pooper at the big Sherlock Love-in, but the Great Detective isn't looking so great at the moment. Or rather, his writers aren't. The original stories are not known for their fairer treatment of the fairer sex, largely painting women as either frantic and emotional or cold and calculating, with only occasional whisps of character. It is notable, then, when Irene Adler is referred to in the books as ' the woman', since to Holmes she was the only one worth really bothering with. To Watson, Mary Morstan is surprising and attractive, “with a firm step and an outward composure of manner”, and swiftly becomes his wife. Both these characters have made their mark on the BBC’s Sherlock fans, but in ways completely different to their original counterparts. Of course, adaptations don't have to stick to the original, but this means that all Holmesian retellings I've seen have drawn up a romantic subplot between Holmes and Irene Adler, despit...

     Having seen just a few clips of the queues outside Iraqi polling booths this week, I've started casting my mind out to May and the forthcoming general election here. I'll be out in Canada, so it'll be a postal vote for me. Which means deciding even sooner. Grand.      Also on my viewing schedule recently was BBC 3's attempt at Question Time aimed at first-time voters. The panel started off looking respectable enough- Shadow Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, Higher Education Minister David Lammy (who held his own very, very well), Lib Dem Communities Spokesman Julia Goldsworthy, Tim Campbell, first ever winner of reality hiring agency The Apprentice (um...), satirist Rory Bremner (um..? but ok, he knows his stuff), and Jamelia, (what?) singer and Prince's Trust Ambassador (what??), and all hosted by that well-known political commentator Dermot O'Leary (WHAT??).     So kudos to the BBC for trying to talk down to, sorry, rela...

Yes, I did nearly write Desperate Housewives. Though it's hard to think of a show more different.      Normally, historical dramas bore me. They're either simply too stuffy to be really called drama or they try to make the era in question seem too cool, to have too much swash-and-buckle. So, admittedly, I didn't sit down to watch the BBC's new 19th-century drama, documenting the arduous lives of the new Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, with the most open of minds. I also didn't sit down alone- my clasicist mother and cynic father were both next to me, so between us I think we held a great enough spread of opinions to shine some sort of light on the proceedings.      The first comment to come from my parents, then, was on the costume- "Fabulous waistcoats" adorn all three of the Pre-Raphaelites, particularly Gabriel Dante Rosetti (Aidan Turner). This particular artist also seems to have been handed the long stick in terms of one-liners, and it's clear...