Midsomer Murders (ITV1)

Robot Wars (five)

THERE'S a surprising quantity of dead people in there," DCI Tom Barnaby learnt in the latest Midsomer Murders. This was a reference to the large number of skeletons - eight in all, as far as I could tell - found when a canal tunnel collapsed.

His wife Joyce wasn't among the victims, although she was trapped temporarily by the roof fall. It's the most exciting thing that's happened to her for years in her role as one of TV's most superfluous other halves. She then disappeared for virtually the rest of the episode, pushed aside by the mounting body toll.

It has been noted that Midsomer is one of the most dangerous places to live in the country. The death rate is more alarming than those Linda Barker furniture commercials (will someone please kill them, please? They are very irritating). The richest man in the district must be the undertaker. I'd be surprised if he ever got a day off.

The mortality rate was even higher in this latest episode with the discovery of all the bones, followed by a culling of the local young people.

The only difference this time was that someone actually left using their own two feet - Sergeant Troy, Barnaby's faithful if essentially dull sidekick. He earned promotion to inspector and was transferred to Middlesbrough, which some Southerners might class as a living death anyway.

Poor Troy (Daniel Casey) spent the most of a tiresome episode driving around the woods looking for "wild man" Tom whom, it was perfectly obvious to everyone except the police, wasn't the person going round shooting the local rude and rowdy yobs. Many wouldn't have blamed him, of course, once these unpleasant young folk shot his pet fox in cold blood, not even being humane enough to give it a sporting chance by chasing it through the countryside with horse and hounds.

It took Barnaby most of the two-hour episode before he had the good sense to realise that "something's not right here" - namely that a 60-minute detective story was stretched to double that length.

Robot Wars was killed off by BBC2, then swiftly resurrected by five. The seventh series plunged us back into the world of rotating blades, flippability factor and crushing beaks. The death rate is far greater than Midsomer Murders as these home-grown fighting machines do battle in the arena like little metal Russell Crowes.

The human factor is mostly irrelevant. Master of mayhem Craig Charles whips up the crowd into a frenzy, while Jayne Middlemiss is the pits in the pits as she chats to the people at the controls. "Look at his cute little face," she said of not Craig but Shellshock which, despite its axe and disc cutter, was chucked violently out of the arena by a rival.

Cute doesn't count for much in Robot Wars. Staying in one piece does. Poor Brutus Maximus was minimised as bits and pieces started to fall off "littering the war zone arena" as the over-excited commentator observed. Another machine caught fire. Others were penetrated by M2's fearsome metal spike and hurled around in the air. The metal mayhem made Midsomer look peaceful.