I don't know, I return home after a couple of weeks out of the country to find the crippled rising from their wheelchairs, news of a virgin birth and lesbians snogging in the streets - and that was only on Bad Girls.

The outrageous storylines in this deliriously melodramatic ITV series set in a women's prison make Porridge look like a gritty documentary about life behind bars. But there will be few more hilarious moments on the TV this or any other year than Kate O'Mara, playing a crippled madam, leaping from her wheelchair and screaming, "It's a miracle, I can walk".

Someone had thrown a bucket of water at her, so her sudden leap of faith was understandable.

In another part of Larkhall, inmate Crystal is pregnant after spending her honeymoon, Boris Becker-style, in a broom cupboard with her new warder husband, the perpetually perplexed Josh whose brow is so furrowed you could plant rows of potatoes there.

Never has the phrase 'virgin on the ridiculous' seemed more appropriate than seeing these two coupling. Eager to keep her marriage secret, she's claiming it's a virgin birth.

As for the lesbians kissing, that was ex-governor Helen and her murderer lover Nicky, celebrating after the latter was freed on appeal. Helen is now claiming sexual assault against Fenner, the nasty screw who takes his job description literally and doesn't bother to marry the inmates before sex.

The goings-on in Larkhall are nothing compared to the chaos in the TV schedules I found on my return.

Previewers around the country are looking as puzzled as Josh about what's going on. ITV, on the ropes due to a flagging ratings performance, is still being peevish about Channel 5 snatching the rights to show popular Aussie soap Home And Away. First, they kept the series off UK screens for a year by invoking a clause in their original contract. Then, they wouldn't make Aussie actress Emily Symons available for Channel 5's re-launch press junket for Home And Away, a decision which had everything to do with the fact that she's now got a job in ITV's soap Emmerdale.

Both BBC and ITV are so keen to beat each other in the ratings that they're constantly chopping and changing at the last moment. Press information packs send out in advance are as accurate as a party political manifesto.

This weekend we were supposed to see a new Richard Wilson comedy on BBC1. Then ITV announced two episodes of Coronation Street, cunningly not revealing the time of the second one. The Beeb hastily postponed the new comedy and shoved in an old Silent Witness to avoid a nasty clash.

Poor old Robson Green must be frustrated waiting for his latest TV series, the wife-swapping saga Take Me, to be broadcast. The launch was held some months ago. The press blurb for next week announced the drama as starting on Tuesday. Now it's not. Network centre was coy when asked what date it would be transmitted.

Further probing suggested August 5. I'll believe it when I see it. Somewhere along the line - and I don't know which side started it - ITV has also shunted a new holiday consumer programme and the return of House Of Horrors out of Tuesday's schedules, bringing in The Bill and Dates From Hell, while the BBC is filling most of the evening with a movie, Mel Gibson's Scottish history lesson, Braveheart.

This dithering is not confined to TV. Film distributors often swap opening dates and even titles.

After a less-than-spectacular US opening, the romantic comedy Animal Husbandry had its title changed to Someone Like You for UK release and the release put back to September. Now it's called Animal Attraction and opens next week. But nothing can disguise the fact that the film's not very good.

Back on the box, scheduling is much easier to follow in the US and Canada where everything is packaged in neat boxes with self-explanatory names like the Space Channel (an excuse to show lots of Star Trek re-runs), the Biography Channel and the Shopping Channel, which is strangely compelling. I particularly enjoyed the woman selling fake tanning lotion which turned your skin darker as you put it on. Admittedly, her complexion resembled an overcooked turkey but the scene where she rubbed the liquid on to the milky white thigh of a model would probably turn on more people than one of Channel 5's smutty late night shows.

Then there was Queer As Folk, one of the few British programmes to have made the transfer Stateside with some degree of success. The Americans have made their own version which, as it's shown on cable TV, contains enough pants-down sex scenes and four-letter words to ensure massive controversy and media exposure. The first series of 20 episodes has proved popular enough for the network to order a second batch. As odious as comparisons may be, I have to say this isn't a patch on the original. The basic story remains the same, a sort of gay Friends coupled with Cold Feet. The main difference is that the age of the Nathan character, the schoolboy who comes out of the closet, has been upped to a more legally-acceptable 18. But the casting rather lets it down. In particular, Gale Harold, who plays the arrogant and sexually-aggressive Stuart, doesn't have the swagger or air of danger that Aidan Gillen invested in the role.

It'll be interesting to see if any British broadcasters buy the US Queer As Folk. It would certainly more than adequately fill one of Channel 5's late night smut spots and, who knows, these bad boys could even become as addictive as our Bad Girls.

Published: 13/07/2001