So it's goodnight from him, and goodnight from her. Christmas Day ended with Albert Square's Pauline Fowler and Emmerdale big wig Tom King deader than the Christmas turkey.

It was viewers who were stuffed if they were expecting glad tidings of joy in seasonal episodes of the soaps. The rule is that characters must suffer more than anyone watching.

With the two main terrestrial channels depending more and more on soaps to deliver ratings, the traumas and tragedies must be bigger than ever. A bank holiday is a signal for births, deaths and marriages to go wrong. If the writers can combine all three into one story, so much the better.

The BBC, at least, decided in the interests of balance to surround gloomy EastEnders (BBC1) with comedy - although anyone like me would be filled with dread at the mere thought of My Family, The Green Green Grass and The Vicar Of Dibley. Not a lot to laugh at there, I would suggest.

The first of the final two episodes of The Vicar of Dibley (BBC1) - the second is on New Year's Day - found Dawn French's the Rev Geraldine getting hot under the dog collar over a handsome newcomer in the village.

She changed her mind about the man she'd called a "townie bastard" (not a very Christian phrase) after seeing him as he's played by Richard Armitage, pictured, fresh from setting female hearts aflutter as black-hearted Guy of Gisborne in Robin Hood.

Here, it was love at first sight for Harry (Armitage) and Geraldine which took some swallowing, like cold turkey for the fourth day running. "There's something quite sexy about those white collars," he told her.

There was some predictable nonsense about the vicar starting a book club and art class, but the main interest was the romance and how many dates before they could kiss with tongues.

Daffy Alice wanted all the gossip. "Has he driven his purple Porsche into your parking porch yet?," she inquired, in between declaring that, having deciphered the clues in The Da Vinci Code, she is Jesus' living descendant.

Ben (Robert Lindsay) in the My Family Christmas Special (BBC1) was being very Scrooge-like about the Yule season as the script dutifully went through jokes about hideous Christmas jumpers, exploding fairy lights and a fantasy musical number.

"Do you want to know the difference between me and Scrooge?," asked Ben.

I didn't want to know, but he told me anyway: "I collect Air Miles".

He ended up in hospital in a public ward with a plastic funnel stuck up his backside - which serves him right for telling rotten jokes. Talking of which brings me to The Green Green Grass (BBC1), the Only Fools And Horses spin-off whose title describes the type of person who might enjoy it.

This contained unseasonable jokes about getting schoolgirls up the duff and a man whose sperm "swims as well as Robert Maxwell".

Matt Lucas and David Walliams took their Little Britain (BBC1) repertory company abroad. It's always a risky business putting familiar characters in unfamiliar surroundings but they proved just as funny in the Spanish sun.

Lou and Andy were washed up on the shore in their version of Lost, Bubbles de Vere clasped little Ronnie Corbett to her ample breast (and he hasn't been seen since) and Dafydd was no longer the only gay in the village, having moved to Mykonos for the opening of Myfanwy's Place where he was disturbed to learn that the place was "teeming with todger".

Happily, for those in need of medical attention after too much Christmas pud, there was a doctor in the house. Doctor Who wasn't in mine as the BBC couldn't supply a preview DVD (have they run out of licence payers' money?, I wonder) but Doc Martin was ready to view in advance.

A one-off episode offered respite from all things Christmassy. No tinsel, turkey or carol singers in sight. Just Martin Clunes, pictured, as the supremely grouchy GP who spent the day being pelted with contaminated pasties, having rare birds poo on him and having to abseil over a cliff to reach an injured man.

He also had to treat someone with a cut which was unfortunate because he tends to throw up at the sight of blood, something of a disadvantage for a doctor.

Doc Martin is a series that achieves that rarity of making you laugh, cry and go 'yuk' within the space of five minutes. Clunes is magnificent as the doc, but the characters circulating around him in the Cornish village are a pretty odd bunch too. None, though, can offer the superior class of insult that he does, such as calling someone who's offended him an "unctuous platitudinising eunuch".

Mind you, he does lack patient skills. And patience, dismissing a man with bi-polar disorder as "a really annoying man who needs sectioning under the mental health act".

Perhaps Doc Martin did have a Christmas link after all. He's a sourpuss who could give Scrooge a run for his money.