Malice Aforethought (ITV1); Doctor Who (BBC1); I'll Do Anything To Get On TV (C4): IS there a doctor in the house? Well, yes, several actually - but I wouldn't trust either of them to treat you. They have other priorities.

Malice Aforethought, the latest TV adaptation of the Frances Iles novel, shows that Dr Edmund Bickleigh's bedside manner is more about climbing into bed with his patients than taking their temperature.

"What an odd effect you have on me," declared the new young lady up at the hall as she did as the doctor ordered and she stripped off to pose nude for him.

His drawing was an artful way of meeting women. When he slipped away to the summer house on the pretext of showing Ivy some sketches, he indulged in something that ITV executives found too saucy even for the post-watershed. They did a Mrs John Bobbitt on the oral sex scene - they snipped it.

We left the bad doctor administering to his wife, a frosty old dear who'd ordered him to sever all connections with young women and to stop sketching. As he gave her a fatal injection, she commented that she didn't like taking drugs but "just this once won't do any harm".

Little did she know. Just as shop girl Rose in Doctor Who had no idea what was in store when she accepted a lift from a strange man in an even stranger vehicle, the Tardis.

The Doctor's sense of direction hasn't improved. Instead of Naples, they landed in Cardiff in 1869 where the dead were having trouble sleeping. Or as the undertaker put it, "The stiffs are getting restless". But he wasn't too worried when grandmama rose from her coffin and went walkies. "She was 86, she can't have gone far," he said.

Charles Dickens played his part in putting these zombies to rest in a story written by the Co Durham-born member of The League Of Gentleman, Mark Gatiss., which continued Russell T Davies' good work of reviving the Time Lord.

One intriguing aspect of the new series is the developing relationship between the Doctor and Rose. There's a look here, a remark there. I wouldn't be surprised if, so to speak, she finds herself under the doctor.

It won't be as cringe-making as the young man who French kissed a toothless grannie on The Word - a moment replayed in I'll Do Anything To Get On TV. Even more repulsive was a girl submerging herself in a bath filled with a disgusting mixture of fresh horse manure and cows urine.

This two-hour documentary was a thorough history of the involvement of Joe Public on television, from Candid Camera to today's anything goes reality shows.

The Word, along with Network Seven and The Living Soap, were among programmes that put ordinary people in starring roles. Now the public can't get enough. Docusoaps, such as Airport, have replaced sit-coms. Performers like Jane McDonald have become stars thanks to reality TV.

And what was once considered outrageous is now mainstream. When a man had eels poured over him or a woman was covered in spiders in The Word, we were shocked. Nowadays we take it for granted when celebrities in the jungle are covered in rats and creepy-crawlies. They want their heads examined - but not by Doctors Who or Bickleigh.

Published: 11/04/2005