Bad Girls: A Christmas Special (ITV1): The only festive spirit in Larkhall women's prison is hidden in the Costa Cons' cell - a bottle of whisky they've stolen from the officers' room.

Acting Wing Governor Sylvia "Bodybag" Hollamby is determined to play Scrooge. "What can go wrong?," she asks. Well, blocked drains, for one thing.

She gets the shock of her life - which, considering some of the things that have happened in Bad Girls over the years, takes some doing - when she sees a rotting hand sticking out of the lavatory pan. It's a good job she noticed it before sitting down.

She can't get anyone to look at the drains (it's not a very popular spectator sport) until Boxing Day, so the two Julies decide to explore the sewers. They have an ulterior motive, believing Natalie Buxton is blocking the drains after they threw her dead body down there some time ago.

This wasn't planned as the last ever episode of Bad Girls, but those bad boys at ITV haven't recommissioned the series, so this Christmas special is its epitaph.

Not so much Bad Girls as Mad Girls. Grafting the plot of Scrooge on to the usual Larkhall high jinks produced an hour of utter lunacy.

Bodybag, who's been inside since the series started, was determined to put a damper on the season of goodwill, noting it was a good thing the Three Wise Men had to make their way to Bethlehem, not Bethnal Green. "They'd never have followed the star because of the rain clouds," she says.

Understaffed, she orders everyone confined to their cells. One inmate manages to look on the bright side, "At least I don't have to listen to any more carols". Or that bloody Slade song that every shop plays, she might have added.

Bodybag has personal problems too. She argues about going to Christmas dinner with son Bobby Darren after learning he plans to marry his boyfriend. "You can't, he's a man," she exclaims, showing that nothing gets by her.

As the toilets start "coughing up crap" as one of the two Julies notes, Janice decides to go into labour. Not exactly a virgin birth as prison screw Donny declares himself to be the father.

Bodybag is busy elsewhere confronting the Ghost of Christmas Past, namely Natalie Buxton. "How did you get here?," she asks.

"Through the wall," replies Nat, declaring herself the governor's very own Bad Santa and calling her "one evil bitch". Takes one to know one, if you ask me.

All this has a remarkable effect on Bodybag. Next morning, accompanied by falling snow and Frostie the Snowman on the soundtrack, she arrives for work bearing gifts and a cheerful disposition.

No wonder dim Donny - achieving a first by uttering a sentence longer than three words - asks, "You feeling all right, guv".

She's feeling fine. And the two Julies can breathe a sigh of relief too as police report that they, despite the stinking loos, "never caught as much as a whiff" of Natalie Buxton.