IT should have been the TV event of the year for me, a quiz on the box in the corner which measured your love life.

But Test The Nation - The National Relationship Test (BBC1, Saturday), the show which lasted longer than some marriages, turned out to have one enormous flaw... my wife. She rebelled against the idea of a "don't take this too seriously" series of questions on lovey-dovey subjects with a few observations of her own. These were:

a) Isn't it about time co-host Phillip Schofield sorted his hair colour out?

b) How can we take co-host Anne Robinson seriously any more when she's been paid such an insane amount of money by the BBC?

c) Why do all these people want to parade their private lives on TV?

d) And why should I have to compete with a smug husband who'll get a top score? (It was 185 out of 200, actually).

The show's format is to give four points for the top answer in each category, but I think this is more a case of four faults for a refusal.

Thankfully, when it came to testing this particular member of the nation with oddball cop shops there were two highlights she did pick out.

Exhibit B was Monk (BBC2, Saturday) starring Tony Shalhoub who, up to now, has only been really famous as a alien who keeps getting his head shot off in the movie Men In Black II. He's already picked up a Golden Globe in the US for playing the obsessive-compulsive detective Adrian Monk, who can't climb a ladder without placing paper towels on the rungs to avoid germs. This particular Sherlock Holmes has a gum-chewing, mini-skirted Dr Watson in the shape of Bitty Schram, who plays the far less memorably named nurse-cum-helper Sharona Fleming. Shalhoub gives us Monk with mannerisms akin to Dustin Hoffman's Rainman character plus a TV-style reminiscent of the Rockford Files - which is probably why it's lurking on BBC2 on a Saturday evening.

Exhibit A, however, was New Tricks (BBC1, Thursday) which could have easily been dismissed as Waking The Dead With Coffin Dodgers if the trio of retired detectives investigating old crimes hadn't been Dennis Waterman, Alun Armstrong and James Bolam. Waterman was able to revive memories of his heyday in The Sweeney and indulge in a little female boss baiting involving the trim-looking Amanda Redman. Bolam is a gem, but he must be tiring of "worldly-wise man with dead wife" roles. Annfield Plain-born Armstrong, who has a face that could have been hewn from the Durham coal-face, out-acts the others with a British version of Monk. Eerily similar, as a character forced to quit police through mental instability, Armstrong gave a beautifully-observed performance of a man obsessed with solving a murder which pushed him over the edge.

"One of the best things I've seen on television in ages," said my wife about the one-off drama.

I can relate to that.

Published: 29/03/2003