My Kitchen Rules, An Idiot Abroad and The Walking Dead top the week on TV

FROM the heat of the kitchen to the cold of Alaska - and even into the world of zombies - check out the week's best viewing.

doctors

FROM the heat of the kitchen to the cold of Alaska - and even into the world of zombies - check out the week's best viewing.

sherlock

Wednesday, February 22
Sherlock: The Hounds of Baskerville
Channel 9, 8.30pm
3 stars

WHO says hounds anymore, apart from Monty Burns? Even Sherlock Holmes puts it to the guy who's hired him for the Baskerville case, "Dude, why do you keep saying hounds?"

Remember this isn't 19th century Sherlock Holmes. It's now. And right now he's going crazy, for a cigarette and for a case. Until Henry Knight shows up at Baker St, all that Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) had going on was Bluebell, a rabbit that had gone missing, or maybe escaped. The way he kept referring to Bluebell was very unattractive, but he'd been horrible all morning.

How he envies Watson (Martin Freeman) and his placid, barely used mind. Whereas Sherlock's, well. Sometimes it's an engine, other times it's a palace.

He's about to dismiss Henry and his shaggy dog story until he refers to them as hounds and something inside Holmes's engine/palace lights up.

Henry's father was killed by a dog 20 years ago. Not just killed. Ripped apart. And not just a dog. An immense, glowing dog, as he and Henry walked near their Dartmoor home. Which was also near an army base.

"Mostly weaponry?" Watson inquires as he and Sherlock (passing himself off as Mycroft Holmes) take an unauthorised authorised tour through the facility later, a question prompted by the sight of caged animals.

"Of one sort or another, yes," says the shiny young corporal.

"Biological, chemical?"

Corporal: "One war ends and another begins. New enemies to fight. We have to be prepared."

Henry, and he's not alone, believes his father was the victim of a cloned dog. On the other hand, the locals love the dog story. Good for tourism. The army base, not so good.

doctors

Thursday, February 23
Kings Cross ER
CI Network, 6.30pm
3 stars

HOW hardcore are Saturday nights at St Vincent's emergency? Barton Fink has a double shot latte before he starts work. That's how hardcore.

His name's actually Andrew Fink. And he spells Fink Finckh. And while nobody refers to him as Barton, or quotes any of the dialogue from the movie Barton Fink at him, I'm sure it's something they do when they've knocked off and they're sitting around the oxygen tank.

I was hoping for a gunshot wound to the head tonight but that's only an injury they use in the intro to entice us. I feel a bit rorted, especially when I get to the end of the episode and find there's a bloke with a bullet in his head next week. Tonight's contestants are a combination of stupid and obstinate and unlucky.

Trish is carted in by ambulance with what appears to be a heart attack. It couldn't be more inconvenient though, because Trish is on holiday.

And then there's Matthew, young guy, out on the drink, "falls over" and slices his knee open. He's not overly concerned, but I don't know why not, it's like someone's cut a mouth the size of the Joker's into his leg. He gives a speech about how he's a South African rugby player accustomed to hurting himself, the nurse squirts the wound with saline, then Matthew decides he's good to go. Without getting stitches or anything.

But the drunkest award goes to the guy wheeled in after either walking or running in front of a taxi going either 40 or 50km/h. His reading comes in at a mighty 0.3 per cent. The staff can't decide if his aggressive behaviour is because he has been "drinking heavily" or because he has a head injury. Or both. I'm no doctor, but I'm going with both.

Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries

Friday, February 24
Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
ABC1, 8.30pm
3 stars

ESSIE Davis - the Miss (Phryne) Fisher you'll be interested in - is saying something, but all I can do is look at the brooches on Miranda Otto's dress. She is Lydia Andrews, we are in her house - a lovely home - and right now she is a distraught and fresh widow, but she is also wearing a sea green and black ensemble with a pair of silver brooches. Divine. Phryne has already had two costume changes and the show has only just started. Her aunt Prudence is also on hand, and even she is beautifully dressed.

But let us talk about Nathan Page. Do you remember him as Ray Chuck in the second series of Underbelly? He was electric. He is an uptight detective here, Jack Robinson, an object of fun and lust for Phryne, who is a self-styled yet sharp private eye. Have you read any of these books? There are books. Australian writer Kerry Greenwood wrote them.

Tonight's first episode charts Phryne's move from amateur to professional, picking up a nervous yet stoic sidekick along the way as she sorts out how Lydia's husband wound up dead. But that is very much peripheral to the jaunt. This reminded me a tiny bit of those Mrs Bradley Mysteries with Diana Rigg, mainly because of its 1920s flair.

Essie Davis is a lot of fun, and Ashleigh Cummings as Dot Williams, an Andrews maid, is adorable. Tammy McIntosh, the only woman in the cast not to wear pretty dresses, plays a brusque doctor. Of course, the other star here is Melbourne - its lanes, its buildings ... and a bathhouse.

As a detective Phryne is hard to take seriously, but she gets the job done, and without losing her hat. She gets a hole in her stocking at one point, but Dot mends it.

idiot abroad

Saturday, February 25
An Idiot Abroad
Channel 10, 9.30pm
3.5 stars

LEPRECHAUNS prefer to be called gnomes. This is according to Karl Pilkington, the idiot in Idiot Abroad.

He's on his way to Alaska to see a whale, a big one, preferably, in lieu of several small ones and Ricky Gervais is bringing him up to speed on Inuit.

Ricky points out that leprechauns don't exist, but that doesn't wash with Karl. Karl concedes, in a moment of self-reflection while he's packing, that he thinks he moaned a lot last time.

When he watched the show back. He blames the heat. It'll be different this time. The cold could be tricky, but he'll handle it. "Got a special coat."

The moaning starts as soon as he tries to walk in the snow. And snow is all there is, it's a metre and a half deep. He's got a pair of those sticks to help him, but they don't, not really. It's awful to watch.

And then, when he arrives at his cabin, which is like the location for an early Sam Raimi movie, again this familiar exchange takes place: Karl: What's the toilet situation here? Local guide: There is no toilet.

His destination is Barrow, as north as you can get in Alaska. An ice road trucker takes him there. They chat, mostly about polar bears. Karl asks him which places his bucket list would include. "Maybe go to Australia," he says. "It sure wouldn't be Barrow Point."

But the people could hardly be more hospitable. Especially when he tells them he's come to see a whale. One of the nice ladies leaves the room and comes back with a bag from the freezer. Whale. So he can tick that off his list.

She slices him off a bit. Mmm. The problem with eating whale, he comes to realise, is it's not like eating a chicken. Where do you put the bones? You can't just chuck them in the bin.

the walking dead

Sunday, February 26
The Walking Dead
FX, Foxtel/Austar, 7.30pm
3.5 stars

THE Walking Dead. I just assumed this show was about a long-term relationship.

Turns out it kind of is. Because when someone in the relationship is undead, there's no longer term than that.

Can I speak for all of you when I say it's sort of a relief The Walking Dead isn't another vampire series? And I say that as someone who loves them. On balance, zombies seem easier to kill than vampires but not as sexy. There's no velvet or sucking or garlic.

Whereas whenever I'd see a zombie, and OMG The Walking Dead is lousy with them, I'd think of Michael Jackson. I can hardly remember a series starting so decisively. It's a great opening. There's no mucking around introducing characters and blah blah. We just get to meet them in the course of the episode, the way the main character Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) does. It's much more natural and normal. You know, given there are zombies walking around everywhere.

So Rick's a cop, he's with his partner Shane (who I don't like the look of) and they're at a roadblock. There's shooting, of the plenty of it and slow motion kind. Rick winds up in hospital. And when he wakes up, the town's gone zombie. His wife, son gone.

This isn't like, say, True Blood, where we just accept the not entirely dead people as part of the environment the show inhabits. These are scary zombies that need to be killed before they eat your brains. I only said brains just then to frighten you. It's not really true. They'll eat all of you.

As one of the remaining two people still alive tonight warns Rick, zombies might not seem like much one at a time "But in a group, all riled up and hungry? Man, you watch your a--."

my kitchen rules

Monday, February 27
My Kitchen Rules
Channel 7, 7.30pm
3.5 stars

I'M just reading Channel 7's synopsis of this episode of My Kitchen Rules: "After a disappointing start to the competition, the boys are ready to redeem themselves and come out guns blazing." The "boys" are grown men Scott and David, and I can't say I blame them, some of those other contestants tend to incite violence.

Obviously, I don't want to single anyone out. OK, Thomas and Carla. I can't say I care for their "We don't want to be sad losers, but we might have to play the game" attitude. I think you'll agree, giving a score of one isn't playing the game at all.

Tonight, the narrator says, they're in barmy Townsville. Not a very flattering way to describe it, but perhaps he's been there. Scott and David are like a Katherine Heigl romantic comedy, maybe that one she did with Ashton Kutcher, where one says something and the other one says something, and it's the same thing, and it's like they're made for each other.

Still, this chemistry wasn't enough to stop them from having issues in the kitchen the last time they cooked, with only a late-breaking 10 in the dessert round keeping them from ignominy. They can't allow that to happen again. The dessert part, yes. Not the other. Not in an elimination round.

But immediately a disaster is looming when Scott chops 150 chillies. "Take the seeds out!" I yell at him, but he doesn't take any notice. He adds other things, has a taste, remarks that it's hot. David tries some and gasps that it's pretty hot. "I haven't got the sweetness in yet. We'll just see how it goes," Scott says, unconcerned.

It's shaping up as a mess, but he stays calm, even when David compares his sauce to pepper spray, which I hope they use on some guests later.

2 Broke Girls

Tuesday, February 28
2 Broke Girls
Channel 9, 8pm
2.5 stars

IT occurred to me as I watched Max, the snappier of the 2 Broke Girls, that she's a tiny bit like Carla from Cheers.

Caroline, who in this analogy would be Diane Chambers - highly educated and now reduced to fairly ineptly earning minimum wage plus tips - is asking about the customer who wants gluten-free something.

Max snaps quick smart: "Tell her she's not allergic to gluten - she's just masking an eating disorder."

Max can be surly, like Carla, but I wouldn't want you to get the idea 2 Broke Girls is anything like Cheers.

Apart from the writing, Cheers also had half a dozen top performers. 2 Broke Girls has two girls and a horse. Should I get into a rant about animal cruelty? Because the way that horse is living ... plus why is it called Chestnut? It's a bay.

And what about audience cruelty? How much more Han Lee can any normal person take? He's upset tonight because Max won't be his Facebook friend. It's a tired, tired gag. He's only in it for a minute though, and for no reason. Max (Kat Dennings) and Caroline (Beth Behrs) are the shards of light here. There's a trip to buy Caroline some sensible shoes. Yes, after a week of working in 14cm heels, her feet are starting to smart.

Trouble is, they're saving for their cupcake start-up, but Max assures Caroline she knows somewhere that sells the good stuff dirt cheap.

I can't remember exactly how much it is they need before Max can quit her two jobs and Caroline can stop pretending to wait on tables - Caroline Horton business school graduate calculated it in the first episode. It was either $2000 or $200,000. My feeling is the amount will turn out to be like the mother on How I Met Your Mother.