Watching the James Woods legal drama, I never fail to be surprised by the choice of theme tune. The theme tune can be an essential part of a programme’s success or failure. You hate the music, chances are you might reach for that remote. Enjoy the theme song, maybe even hum along, and you’re pulled in for the duration. The Shark theme song fails because it is completely at odds with the content of the show itself.

Like many US shows, we have a few expository scenes prior to the opening credits and in Shark these are the start of the legal case. They often involve a gruesome crime scene, a bloodied body and the ruin of many lives. We’ve seen a cop murder, a teenage rape and a serial killer – note, the brutally realistic and not very cheery tone of these subject matters. Only no-one seems to have told whoever is responsible for the intro, as when the music kicks in it is one of bouncy optimism. The images depict a sunny L.A. with glamourous high-rise buildings, lawyers looking very dynamic mid courtroom speeches and central character Sebastian Stark playing poker with his chums.

A bombshell was dropped at the close of last night’s House and I’m still reeling from the effects. I told you how distressed Foreman was last week after losing a patient due to his mistake. Well, despite House’s confidence that he would bounce back from the incident, Foreman’s commitment to his profession had been rocked to its very core. And I mean an 8.5 on the Richter scale.

This was to be his episode, with Chase’s pursuit of Cameron reduced to background noise and the Cuddy/House/Wilson saga long-forgotten. That is not to say that Foreman swamped the screen or smothered the action rather we knew that this new medical case was critical for him in a way that the others couldn’t imagine.

In America, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is one of the biggest shows currently airing, with William Petersen the 6th highest paid star in TV land. In the UK, it is hidden away late at night on Five – go figure. The forensics team returns tonight in their sixth outing after the fifth season finale which left fans exhausted by the race to save heartthrob Nick. Tonight’s instalment kicks off with the explosion of a trailer which arouses the team’s suspicions, while Grissom receives unexpected evidence about the identity of Nick’s kidnapper.

Now, like Law and Order: SVU which began again on Five, we are pretty behind matters in the US and so I am going to keep schtum in fear of divulging any plot spoilers. I will however admit to chuckling over the shampoo commercials by George Eads (Nick). I’ll bet those don’t see the light of day in America.

How’s this for a medical show crossover? Last night’s episode of House was directed by Paul McCrane, better known to ER fans as the grumpy, ginger-but-balding Dr. Romano. Such details - it’s all in the details people. Recently House has taken a shift into the romantic lives of the docs, with the on/off shenanigans between Chase and Cameron and the possible whiff of attraction between Wilson and Cuddy. And though this more personal approach remained, it turned less amorous, more interfering.

I have wondered why House is obsessed between what, if anything, is transpiring between chum Wilson and boss Cuddy and last night left us no closer to solving the riddle. By asking Cuddy to the theatre in last week’s episode, I had interpreted this as sexual interest in her from House and I had believed this suspicion to be confirmed in the opening few minutes of last night’s instalment. But those clever writers – they take you in one direction, just to ditch you on the side of the road and race off without you.

Now that it’s all over between the BBC and Neighbours (they’ve just got to work out who gets child custody), distributors Fremantle have decided to give their side of the story. The Beeb have already been very public about the split, whinging that the hike in the price was “nearly three times the amount” they were currently paying, with Five signing an eight year deal worth a whopping £300million for the soap. But it seems like Fremantle were far from happy with the BBC, believing that after 20 years with them, Neighbours had become “an invisible part of the BBC's schedule."

And there’s more. Fremantle’s finance director, Ian Ousey, has defended the channel change: "We put the programme to market. We didn't just aim to sell it for the highest price as we wanted to give it to a good home.” Five already airs fellow Aussie programme Home and Away, and Ousey is excited about the combination of the two in Five’s scheduling: “It was their [Five’s] idea to twin [Neighbours] with Home and Away and give it an Australian hour which attracted us.”Oooh – an Australian hour? That sounds like a savvy bit of programming.

I love House. I love Emma Thompson (come on – how could you not?) and the rumoured merging of the two could leave me so excited that I might need to lie down in a darkened room. IMDb is reporting that Oscar winner Em (I saw her once from afar, and so now feel like we’re on first name terms), wants to be in the hit medical drama alongside ex-boyfriend Hugh Laurie. The two have remained chums since they dated back in their Cambridge days (pictured right), starring together in Peter’s Friends and Sense and Sensibility.

Hugh is just as excited at the prospect saying "She (Thompson) genuinely does watch it. It obviously goes out in a different season in the U.K. but she does follow the show and likes it very much and would love to be on it." However, our Hugh is no mug and is keen not to sound like a demanding diva, dictating who should star in his show: "Obviously I would never feel I was in a position to treat this as some sort of club, where I can have... 'Oh, just mention my name. They'll let you in.'" But perhaps you could make an exception for Emma? Make it happen, make it happen, make it happen!

Entertainment writers often look to focus their work on moments of great anguish and tragedy, but new drama K-Ville is more interested in what happens next. The US police drama series is set in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and looks at the devastation that the natural disaster caused for people of the city.

The series will debut on Five in early 2008 and follows the cops determined to fight crime, despite there being no jails, crime labs or police stations. It comes from Jonathan Lisco (NYPD Blue, The District) and Anthony Anderson (Transformers, The Shield) and Cole Hauser (Pitch Black, Good Will Hunting) are set to star.

[via Broadcast Now]

When looking through the TV listings, I feel like I’m stuck in Groundhog Day. The current scheduling is so uninspired and repetitive (when is Big Brother going to end and give us back Channel 4?) I know that Mof has mused on the lack of choice currently afforded us by TV (see here), but I wondered if, rather than it be considered a general problem, it could be analysed further. Is it just the same kind of programming clogging up our airwaves, or is it in fact, the same programmes?

There seem to be some shows that have been on TV forever and others that never seem to go away for long. I’m not talking about those that are acknowledged mainstays like soaps, but those that never let-up, are always on when you don’t want them to be and are TV equivalents to stalkers. Out of the 24 shows listed as the longest-running in their various genres (music, sitcom, current affairs, etc.) on Wikipedia, half of them are from the UK. Is this because we have a long tradition of quality programming or a lack of imagination and no balls to shake things up?

I love my Thursday night TV double whammy of House at 9 and then Grey’s Anatomy at 10. Such yummy medical goodness. But alas and alack, last night’s episode of House was number 19 out of 24, which means an unwanted disruption to my nice scheduling is looming at the end of August – boo hiss. Still, I am determined to enjoy it while I can and last night’s episode of House was another cracker.

I really don’t know how the House team keep it up – every episode (barring that silly one with the rape victim) is of the highest quality and if anything, it just seems to get better and better. Yes, the cases are involving and suspenseful but they’re just the sideshow to the complicated personal lives of the doctors at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. And with Cameron having dumped Chase last week, there seemed to be an unprecedented outbreak of romantic entanglements.

I always get a bit prickly around weddings on TV. Too often, love isn't allowed to breathe in favour of hair, shoes and keeping complete focus on what everyone else thinks. It's sad, sorry and depressing. So, with that, approaching Ultimate Wedding Makeover (Five, Thursday, 7.15pm) was always going to be hazardous and ultimately, it was always going to see me losing a little more faith.

This trashy documentary series usually follows couples who go under the surgeons knife in a bid to dramatically transform themselves before they marry. A mere month before they are due to tie the knot, Wayne and Clair get hacked at in an attempt to beat the hands of time.

I know that in the wrong hands top-ten lists can be cheesy, tired and clichéd. They can overly simplify matters and reduce a broad and complex subject into convenient, restricted numbers. Fear not, TV Scoopers – these are not the wrong hands, and so I give you the Top 10 best British actors on American TV.

With the Emmy nominations out, everyone in Britain looks to see who we have nominated from Blighty. Some of these stars receive the acclaim and attention they are deserving of, while the impressive acting and convincing accents of others are neglected in little seen programmes. By limiting this list down to actors rather than all imports, I am omitting presenters (Cat Deeley, Craig Ferguson), reality show stars (The Osbournes), reality show judges (Simon Cowell, Nigel Lythgoe) and any other such folk who have achieved success Stateside (Gordon Ramsay, Darren Brown.) I am ignoring those whose British programmes have fared well (Ricky Gervais, Helen Mirren), those that have maintained their accent (Joan Collins, Alex Kingston) and those who were born in the UK but grew up elsewhere (Mischa Barton, Nicollette Sheridan). I am looking only to those who have managed to break through with nothing but a working passport and a fake New York twang. This list is for those whose performance skills are such that Americans can’t tell that they’re actually British. Impressive stuff indeed.

TV, of late, has become a bit of a bore. Instead of getting giddy whilst looking through the listings, I find myself aimlessly ambling up to the TV set, and then flicking for hours and hours without ever really watching anything. At first, I thought it was my job that had ruined it. I mean, you can't just watch a show and enjoy it. You have to analyse it and take mental notes. That said, I'd do that even if I didn't write for TVScoop. It's habit. It's what I do. So what is it? Has TV sunk into a lull? Has it all gone a bit crap?

Well, with the news that ITV1s Tycoon got a frankly terrible ratings low of 1.3 million viewers last night, as well as the other channels only faring slightly better (with Big Brother doing the best with a far from impressive 3.1 million viewers), it got me thinking. Maybe it's not just me...

We are sooo behind with crime drama Law and Order: Special Victims Unit here in the UK. Series 5 starts here on Five on Saturday night, but in the US they’ve just finished season 8. Good job it’s back on TV so we can start catching up. Sunday’s episode is typical SVU with Detectives Stabler and Benson on the hunt for a kidnapped pregnant lady. Of course, she can’t be a healthy mum to be, where would the tense, nervous action derive from? Oh no, instead she has a rare medical condition that means that an unsupervised labour would result in death to her and her baby.

Our favourite detectives are on the case and early reviews of it say that we are in for a Stabler treat – his much neglected, feared non-existent, softer side. Yep, the big guy gets in touch with his feelings. Actor Christopher Meloni (formerly of my absolute fave drama, Oz) will have to get those water-works in full flow if he wants to keep pace with co-star Mariska Hargitay. She has just been nominated again for an Emmy award, having won the prize last year. Will she take it a second time?

You can't beat a good, old-fashioned revamp to boost a show's ratings, and this trusty old trick seems to have done the trick for Neighbours. The venerable soap, which was recently the subject of an intense and frankly barmy bidding war (the results of which sees it go over to five next year), was losing viewers in its native Australia.

This story, on DS here, says that brand new credits, theme tune, a swing back to more realistic storylines and new, sparkly high-definition filming saw the show break the one million viewers for the first time in ages. The fact that there was a wedding in the revamp episode probably helped too.

Heroes mania (like Beatles mania but with super powers rather than mop-top hairstyles) has officially hit Britain with the show to debut on terrestrial TV this Wednesday. And as if to further entice viewers to tune in, the show has been named programme of the year by the Television Critics Association in LA.

Elsewhere prizes went to The Sopranos (surprise, surprise) for best drama as well as a special heritage award. The Office: An American Workplace picked up best comedy while Friday Night Lights (hidden away on ITV2) scooped the gong for outstanding new show. Top actor accolades went to Alec Baldwin (30 Rock - coming soon to Five) for comedy and Michael C Hall (Dexter) for drama, while Kyle XY was named the best children’s show. Veteran Mary Tyler Moore received a lifetime achievement award while Planet Earth topped the news and information category, as well as earning the prize for movies, mini-series and specials. Well done everyone!

It did well in the Emmy nominations, amassing an impressive tally of 10 nods and now US sitcom 30 Rock is coming to the UK. Five have picked up the rights to the show for the first two seasons according to Chortle. The show is a fictional behind-the-scenes look at a comedy sketch show and stars Alec Baldwin. Co-star and creator Tina Fey (who also brought us Mean Girls) based the programme on her time as chief writer on Saturday Night Live.

The show was well received by the critics though has failed to catch on with the wider general public in the US. With a second season confirmed, the 10 Emmy award nominations and comedy great Jerry Seinfeld announced to make a guest appearance, all involved are hopeful that it will find mainstream success.

Think Linus Roache (some days I struggle to do anything else) and you probably think son of Corrie stalwart Bill Roache (Ken Barlow.) To others he’ll be better known as Bruce Wayne’s murdered dad in Batman Begins and for the artier among you, he starred in The Wings of the Dove and gay drama Priest. Now the UK actor has been cast as Law and Order’s new assistant District Attorney, with current Assistant DA Jack McCoy set for a promotion.

The show’s creator and executive producer Dick Wolf is excited by the addition to his show: "I think he and Sam are going to raise the bar and add intellect and passion" to the "order" half of "Law & Order." So many Brits in Hollywood these days – what next Barbara Windsor on Desperate Housewives?

I am still happily enjoying House season 3 on Five and am dreading when it will end, but news from the States is all about season 4. E! Online reports that new cast additions have been confirmed in the shapes of Kal Penn (left - Van Wilder 2: the Rise of Taj, Harold and Kumar get the Munchies, Epic Movie and other such worthy gems), Olivia Wilde (Alex Kelly in The O.C.), Peter Jacobson (soon to be seen in Transformers) and Anne Dudek (The Book Group, anyone else remember that?)

They’re all supposed to be onboard for at least 8 episodes, though no news on whether this is to replace Cameron, Foreman and Chase or not. I suspect that the overhaul must mean the end for some of our current faves, but I cannot face the prospect of 'House' without any of them. Dear God – NO!