DCI Banks

(ITV, 9pm)

EVEN if you've never heard of DCI Banks, a quick look at the publicity shots will tell you it's not exactly a bundle of laughs.

The cast have assembled looking as miserable as sin, but don't let that put you off - they're unhappy for a good reason. Banks and his team are often faced with grisly crimes they must solve, and their activities have kept viewers glued to their screens for the past six years.

Now the show is back for a new, six-part run inspired by the characters created by best-selling novelist Peter Robinson.

This time around, cases will be covered in two episodes each, but there's also another crime that weaves itself throughout the entire run.

So, what is it about Alan Banks that makes viewers want to watch him in action?

"He's just the ideal policeman," explains Stephen Tompkinson, who plays him. "If you ever have need for a Detective Chief Inspector, you want it to be him because he will do his absolute best for you and doesn't seem to be distracted by anything else.

"There's all the extra elements he has to deal with that the public don't know about - managing a team, resources, having to be seen to dot all the i's and cross the t's and having to deal with lawyers that can get people off on the flimsiest of technicalities. He seems to absorb that pressure as well as he can. You want that from a DCI working for you."

The last time we saw him, Banks was proposing to his sidekick Annie, but matters have moved on since then.

"They're still very happy to work together, Alan's moved on so much there's a new girl on the scene. She works in the IT department and is called Jess. It's very early stages, first flushes and all that malarkey, but he's spruced himself up a bit and looks a bit sharper than we've seen him before, which Annie picks up on.

"But it's painfully obvious that there's still a deeper, underlying love that Annie and Banks haven't got over at all..."

Although Tompkinson loves playing the detective, he admits that sometimes it can be a difficult job.

"The night shoots were terribly challenging. It was like waking up with jet lag every day but still being in Leeds which was quite weird and took a lot of getting used to! And there was a lot more emotional stuff over a greater sustained period due to the overriding storyline. As an actor you have to know when to expend your energy because you're acting an awful lot out of sequence.

"It was challenging throwing myself down a railway siding at two o'clock in the morning - that was a hoot! I came away unscathed which is always good."

The first case of the new run sees Banks drawn into a dark underworld while investigating the brutal murder of a small-time drug dealer.

Caroline Catz, Andrea Lowe, Keith Barron and Jack Deam also return for this series, and are joined by new cast member Samuel Anderson.

All Star Mr & Mrs

(ITV, 8pm)

THERE may be tougher quizzes, but few that have quite so much potential to provoke a previously happy couple into having a row on national TV. So, we should be impressed that ITV have found enough celebrities ready to prove how much (or how little) they know about their other halves to make a new series. Clearly, the chance to win £30,000 for their chosen charity is a big incentive. The first famous faces to take the plunge are Emmerdale's Adam Thomas and his fiancee Caroline Daly, Strictly dancers Kevin and Karen Clifton and Dad's Army star Ian Lavender and his wife Michele Hardy. As ever, Phillip Schofield will be asking the questions, but hopefully he won't have to act as referee as well.

Million Dollar Princesses

(ITV3, 9pm)

Although not everyone watched Downton Abbey for the gritty realism, there is at least one aspect of the period drama that was true to life - American heiresses did make a major impact on English society in the early 20th century. The series' very own Countess of Grantham, Elizabeth McGovern, returns to tell the stories of Nancy Astor, Nancy Lancaster and Pauline de Rothschild, explaining while they may have had different reasons for coming to Britain - and led very different lives once they arrived - they were united by a desire to make their voices heard.