It’s approaching September, which means that our lovely TV broadcasters are starting to roll out their autumn schedules. This is an important time of year for them. Now that the apocalyptic televisual wasteland of the summer is in the process of wheezing its last dying gasps in a manner reminiscent of a terminal lung cancer patient, commercial channels need to convince their viewers and, much more importantly, their advertisers, that they’ve got some great shizness to give the world over the next few months, so please buy some ad space from them. YLE doesn’t have the same issues of course, seeing as the aura of public-funding invincibility surrounding it could give Superman a run for his money, but they still need the viewing figures and they still need to give the poor people charged with extracting a hopelessly poor value-for-money licence fee from us something to work with.

So let’s see what gems we can look forward to, shall we? For a start there’re more dramatic cops’n’robbers shows than you could shake a very large stick at. On the YLE channels we have Inspector Lewis (starting 22 August, Sundays 18:55), Inspector Lynley (also from 22 August, Sundays 22:00), and Inspector Montalbano (in Italian, Thursdays 22:35) rubbing shoulders with Foyle’s War (Sundays 21:10), Silent Witness (Saturdays from 28 August, 22:45) and Dalziel & Pascoe (Saturdays 19:30-ish). OK, YLE does have some Yank shows as well, namely Law and Order, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, and Law and Order: Criminal Intent, in case you want some American grit with your side order of unusual felonies.

MTV3 are sticking with good ol’ C.S.I. and its endless derivatives, while Nelonen are showing the series of films based on the Swedish Beck books, but in general these two channels have schedules notable mainly for the amazing lack of inspiration. In fact, I’m hard-pressed to find anything new or worthy, just the same old Next Top Model, Extreme Home Makeover, Amazing Race and House. MTV3 does have a new series of Dancing with the Stars, which was the lead item on the same channel’s news show when they announced the pairs who will dance together – a sad reflection on the paucity of journalistic integrity these days I guess. Sub TV isn’t much better, currently with an amazingly brazen offer on their website where you can spend 35 euros a month to watch Big Brother 24/7 (!), and nor are Jim and Liv, whose schedules are filled with, well, the same old rubbish from last spring, pretty much. If I need to listen to mockney Jamie Oliver expounding the virtues of flipping home-made pasta one more time I swear I’ll do time. Still, Jim does have both Anthony Bourdain and Ian Wright so it’s not all bad.

But let’s save the biggest ‘til last: Nelonen’s magnum opus this year is the forthcoming Dance, a.k.a. So You Think You Can Dance Finland, currently being touted as the pointless reality show to end all pointless reality shows. It’s such a big production for Nelonen it’s going to get a column all of its own when it’s actually started on 29 August at 20:00 but for now let’s just say that if you liked Idols and you’re a fan of watching people prancing around like epileptic cretins you’ll love this show. Somehow I even prefer Dancing with the Stars (never thought I’d write that) since while DWTS is kind of self-knowingly kitsch, Dance is full of people who a so full of hot air even the Montgolfier brothers would be impressed. The fact I have all the dancing skills of a flatulent pig has nothing whatsoever to do with that assessment.

Nick Barlow