Midsomer Murders (ITV1)

Dancing On Ice (ITV1)

Gideon's Daughter (BBC1)

THE good folk of Midsomer Barton were celebrating Oak Apple Week in the traditional way - a fete on the village green, the crowning of a carnival queen and a corpse lying face down in the stream.

Don't bother calling the doctor as he's busy spanking his lady friend's bare behind with twigs. Besides, with a cigarette permanently dangling from his mouth, he's hardly a good advertisement for healthy living.

Remember to keep an eye on that Alistair, with his liking for under-age girls, and Mr Happy, the festivities' organiser who doesn't live up to his name. His wife - who'd rather muck out the stables than join in the fun - describes him as "the one with the fixed smile and stupid jacket".

Midsomer Barton is a hotbed of sexual shenanigans, green-eyed jealousy, and bloody murder. People don't say "Good morning" when they meet in the street but "I don't mind sharing you with your husband, but I won't share you with anyone else".

Dead Letters wasn't the best of episodes, despite offering Simon Callow as the womanising doctor ("If you go as Lady Godiva, I'll go as Peeping Tom") and the marvellous Elizabeth Spriggs as the imperious chair of the organising committee.

The Midsomer Barton murders were solved but I still don't understand why Dancing On Ice judges eliminated celebrity skater David "Butterfingers" Seaman instead of fellow semi-finalist Bonnie Langford.

Fingers were crossed as Seaman and professional partner Pam had another go at the "headbanger" manoeuvre in which the female is twirled around, her legs wrapped around her partner's neck and her head inches above the ice.

Last week Pam was put in hospital. This week Seaman's first attempt ended in failure too. But third time lucky in the skate-off didn't stop them being put out of the competition by the judges (boo, hiss).

The actual amount of skating done by Langford appears minimal. Most of the time she's being thrown around in the air like a rag doll by her partner. Fellow celebrities Stefan Booth and Gaynor Faye seem to do so much more skating and deserve their places in the final.

The BBC would probably like to think that Gideon's Daughter, the second of two new films written and directed by Stephen Poliakoff, was the weekend's TV highlight. It will have be lucky to get half the viewers of Dancing On Ice, especially after his recent one Friends & Crocodiles was a flop in the ratings and with some critics.

Gideon's Daughter moved so slowly it threatened to come to a complete standstill. Again, there was this constant striving for significance - or pretentiousness, as it's known in the business - by setting a fictional story against real events, including the death of Princess Diana and the Millennium celebrations as well as characters who are half-recognisable (but not fully for fear of legal repercussions).

This enabled Poliakoff to have a go at politicians and the turn-of-the-century party in the Dome as a PR expert with a problem daughter and a mother grieving for a dead son embarked tentatively on a love affair.

The main reason for sticking with it were superb performances from Bill Nighy and Miranda Richardson - and to see Nighy on all fours in a corner shop storeroom searching for a runaway rodent.