Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe

Charlie. Brooker. Dance. Routine. Four words that I never thought I would type together. However, anyone who tuned in for the return of Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe last night would have got exactly that. Of course, this being Brooker, it was never going to be an ironic fanfared return, but rather, clever and crass all at the same time, with the arresting image of Brooker awkwardly grooving and wiping his strap-on arse... and that wasn't the half of it.

Producers and directors, weep and despair! Bilious but brutally funny critic Charlie Brooker is back for another series of satirical swipes at the television industry. First up in his cross-hairs, expensive but bland television dramas, property shows and the furore surrounding Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross.

In a recent newspaper column, Charlie Brooker hinted at a Damascene conversion to compassion as he argued against looking down 'on the genuine misery of those you consider beneath you' - something of a speciality for the Brooker of old. So, as BBC Four schedules six more parts of the critic's telly-bashing series Screenwipe (TV Burp for Chris Morris fans), can we expect it to be fronted by the pop-eyed, acerbic, ranting celebricidal Brooker, or a new touchy-feely incarnation? Thankfully, it looks like being the former, as tonight he explores what effect 'Manuelgate' could have on BBC programming, and sticks the boot into the plethora of job-based shows clogging the channels.

Screenwipe is BBC4's bilious, X-rated alternative to Harry Hill's TV Burp, a digest of current television via one man's warped sensibility. Brooker returns to our screens with his reputation bolstered by Dead Set, the satirical zombie shocker he recently penned for E4. Now, though, the gamekeeper can return to poaching.

It's been far too long, but finally Brooker, the master of dissecting current trends in television, returns for a new series. Expect the Ross/Brand saga, the economic meltdown, and costume dramas to come under Brooker's acerbic gaze.