Shark’s skin

9:54am Friday 18th April 2008

Shark (five, 10pm); A Place In The Sun: Home And Away (C4, 8pm); The Big Bang Theory (C4, 11.55pm)

AS soon as LA prosecutor Sebastian Stark refers to a delay in a court case as "a temporary setback - we've got nothing to worry about", you know that he's going to get something to worry about.

A bus explodes in front of the court building as he leaves. As one of the passengers is a key witness in a murder trial, the case is blown sky-high too.

After years of scene-stealing in movies, James Woods has settled nicely into Stark's skin. This isn't a procedural police series like CSI but a pleasingly old-fashioned legal eagle show with lots of fast dialogue, scowling villains and Woods in a sharp suit delivering his lines like there's a prize for who can talk fastest.

The result isn't earth-shattering - except for that bus explosion - but passes an hour, or 42 minutes plus adverts to be precise, agreeably enough.

Stark's prosecuting an intruder who broke into a house, then shot and killed in cold blood the couple who lived there.

The witness, having previously claimed he saw the man who did it, changes his mind on the witness stand. Then he's blown up to ensure he keeps quiet, along with Stark's hopes of a conviction.

"We're all fine, our case is on life support,"

says Stark, picking himself up and dusting himself down.

The new District Attorney Leo Cutler (Kevin Pollack) is clearly no friend of Stark, telling him, "I don't give a damn how you win this case, just win it."

Perhaps he's jealous of Stark's entourage of glamorous assistants. You have to be female and gorgeous to work for the prosecutor.

He entices Jessica Devlin (Jeri Ryan) back to help out, which she does by telling the judge they need time to sew up a new witness.

Hopefully, not in a body bag this time.

She's lying, of course, which doesn't seem an entirely appropriate course of action for a member of the legal profession. But they're desperate to bring to book the Russian mob ruling the criminal roost in California.

Chief villain Andre Zitofsky (Arnold Vosloo, from The Mummy movies) drinks coffee out of a silver cup in the art gallery he runs. That's when he's not ordering informants to be killed. Decapitation is a favourite method.

The prosecution is hampered in persuading a woman to testify because LA County has no witness protection programme, which seems a little remiss. All Stark can offer is a security detail for a month or two. This isn't very reassuring for the mother-of-two he wants to grass on the Russian Mr Big.

ALL this current talk about the downturn in the property market makes you wonder how programmes like A Place In The Sun: Home Or Away will fare in the new climate.

In tonight's show, presenter Johnnie Irwin takes time to reflect on past successes, what may be called the good old days if the predicted property downturn materialises.

All this talk of second homes when some are struggling to buy just one seems a bit mean.

Did you know that two million Brits own a second home, that this country has more blue flag beaches than the Caribbean and welcomed twice as many holidaymakers as Greece?

"Who said Britain was not great any more?," asks Johnnie, daring viewers to name names. Then he goes and tells us about the sun, sand and blue sea of Sardinia with its 300 days of sunshine each year and property prices 50 per cent cheaper than in the UK. To some, this might sound great.

Something away can sound so much better than home. "It's compact," says Sue, viewing a pokey property. No wonder she opts to move to Krakov in Poland where she can get a three-bedroom house for £100,000 and where she can swing a cat to her heart's content.

Career prospects are considered by the geeks in US sitcom The Big Bang.

The parents of one shy young chap want him to be a gynaecologist. He resists the idea with the comment "How can I be a gynaecologist?

I can hardly look a woman in the eye".

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