"REALITY"! Celebrity Big Brother, Channel 4, 8.00pm
WISTERIA! Desperate Housewives, Channel 4, 9.30pm

Dear Channel 4's marketing department: surely we can't be the only people who are sick to the back teeth of Celebrity Sodding Big Fucking Brother before it's even bloody started. We know that you're excited about it, but if you could just restrict the number of trailers you show to six per ad break or something, that would really help.

Anyway, it's back again, even though it seems like hardly any time since The Almighty Aisleyne and the people she lived with over the summer that we didn't give a shit about left the famous compound in Elstree. Who will be there this year? We've heard so many leaks that we don't know what to believe, but we remain fairly confident that the rumours about Kevin Federline, Sarah Harding and Whitney Houston were all hoaxes. Now watch us be wrong about those. In fairness, it'll probably be the usual bunch of D-listers, including That Washed-Up '80s Soap Actor and That Failed Popstar, but there'll probably still be something horribly compelling about it. It'll be hard to top George Galloway and Pussygate, mind.

And in a crafty bit of scheduling from Channel 4, the third season of Desperate Housewives is on straight afterwards and should get a bit of a boost as a result. The ratings dipped a bit during the last season, which may have had something to do with it being quite dull at times, but we're reliably informed that season three is a step in the right direction. Interestingly, the catch-up video on Channel 4's website completely glosses over the presence of the Applewhites, including the bit where Hot Matthew tried to shoot Bree, so we're wondering whether the whole near-death thing will be addressed at all. Of course, there are other loose plotlines to be picked up, such as Tom Scavo's bastard child by Alex from Saved By The Bell: The College Years, and Bree being wooed by Kyle Maclachlan, who deliberately ran Mike over after spotting his prison dentistry, and Gabrielle throwing Carlos out of the house after finding out he slept with Xiao Mei the maid. Golly. Well, Channel 4 paid a fair whack to keep this instead of Lost (a decision we applaud them for, because while Desperate Housewives has it flaws, Lost sucks total donkey ass), so let's hope that was a decision that pays off for them, as it were.