Is there anything more wonderful? Reruns of Coupling, brand new sci-fi Dr. Who spinoff, Torchwood, and my new obsession, Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. Let take them one at a time, shall we?

Coupling. Often mimicked, never equaled. The incomparable Jack Davenport leads a talented ensemble comic team through a much more realistic look at a close friendship between three men and three women than Friends ever accomplished. I don't hate Friends, or anything, but Coupling is funnier. If you haven't seen it, DVR the reruns--or netflix the DVDs. The first few seasons are the best, because they feature Richard Coyle (center) as Jeff, one of the most hilarious tv characters ever. Completely over the top crazy guy, legendarily bad with women, and all of it played with this disarming, endearing innocence by Coyle. He steals every scene he's in, which is saying something, because the rest of the cast is pretty brilliant.

Torchwood. A spinoff of the phenomenally popular sci-fi series Dr. Who. Torchwood is less campy in sensibility, although not necessarily in terms of special effects, which are typically TV-dopey looking. But since I'm not a fifteen-year-old boy, I don't care too much about that. I care lots more about the fact that the show is based around the mysterious, dashing Capt. Jack Harkness character, BBC's first openly bisexual hero. And not just bi--Capt. Jack will do pretty much anything that moves, girl, boy, robot, alien, whatever, as he and his team investigate supernatural occurrences around Cardiff. And he doesn't have trouble getting dates, because, hello! Adorable. But you know who's even more adorable? Capt. Jack's general factotem
and tea boy, Ianto Jones. Jack and Ianto have an on-again, off-again relationship that the show mucks around with by flogging the possibility of unresolved sexual tension between Jack and the female lead, a sweet but uninteresting girl who has less chemistry with Jack than almost anyone else in the cast. Unlike Ianto, who sparks up whenever Jack is onscreen. Look at that face! And he's got this lilting Welsh accent to go along with it. Yum. I'd smooch him.

And then there's Gordon Ramsay. Ramsay has a reputation as a bit of an ass, which is typical English understatement, because what people generally mean to say is that he's a lunatic bastard. But I actually disagree. On Kitchen Nightmares, he goes to a struggling restaurant each week, and attempts to turn it around by monkeying with the menu, mentoring the kitchen staff, and browbeating management into having the balls to run the restaurant without him. He's extremely frank and forthright, yes. If something is unacceptable, he doesn't pussyfoot around, he says it. But he really works to make these restaurants self-sustaining, and his leadership in the kitchen is not exclusively of the screaming diva variety. He draws out the best in the young cooks with talent, and whips into the shape the ones who think they know it all. It's amazing to watch. Life lessons in every episode, even if you never intend to own a restaurant, just on how to deal with people and how to get the best results. Plus, he's entertaining as hell.

Posted by Louisa Edwards at 11:57 AM